Drew Holley, a second-year graduate student in folklore studies at USU, served a summer internship during 2023 with the American Folklife Center at the United States Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. 

The Library of Congress folklife internship program gives students the opportunity to develop skills and experiences surrounding work in archival practice, cultural heritage research, and programming, while building knowledge about ethnographic materials. 

“The center was fantastic about working with me to focus the things I was doing towards certain research interests,” said Drew. “I spent most of my time writing about foodways which is one of my passions. I got to go through tons of collections looking for food mentions and putting together a research guide as well as writing a little about what I was finding.” 

Drew was also able to combine his personal interests with his academic work at USU to create a uniquely enriching experience through the program. “It would not have been possible to do this internship without the help of some great people I look up to at USU. Lisa Gabbert is one of those people, specifically,” Drew notes. “So, just getting direction from faculty here was a great help in my preparations. The classes I have taken in my program have also helped to find some of my interests. I have loved to make food, but the classes I've taken at USU have also given me the opportunity to analyze and write about food which I would consider part of the preparation. The fieldwork courses were super helpful in helping me navigate working in a library and with librarians to understand what fieldworkers are doing and how they get collections put together and, looking back, that was some of the most helpful prep.”