Interview with Senior Multilingual Studies and Anthropology student, Kat Sandefer conducted February 2022
Q: How did you find the internship? Why was it interesting to you?
This past summer I worked as an archeological intern at the Archaeological Research Institute (ARI) in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. I heard about this internship through a Butler professor, Dr. Kvapil. As an anthropology major, I was very interested in learning about archeology and the lab work that goes along with working at a dig site. I learned so much about the time and patience that is required to do successful archeological research on a large scale here in the United States. I learned a lot about how to process artifacts and soil samples in a lab setting. I also learned a lot about the different unexpected aspects of archeology.
Q: What was the central focus of your internship? What skills did you already have that you were able to use?
ARI puts a lot of time and effort into making sure they are a public archeological institute, meaning they focus on including and educating the public. I had the opportunity to work alongside the children’s day camp, which helped educate the kids on what archeologists do in the field, as well as giving them a chance to dig themselves. All of the interns were also given a project that they were to work on over the course of the internship. Due to my background in corporate relations, I focused on raising money and improving the virtual reality prototype that was created of the Guard site, which was the site we were excavating. The virtual reality game prototype was created to give the public a way to see what the site would have looked like during the Fort Ancient period. My task was to interview the archeologists and interns at ARI during/after they used the Oculus to walk through the game, so that I could write up a report on ways to improve the VR. I also researched potential corporate sponsors.
Q: What was the best part about your internship? What skills did you acquire through this particular internship experience?
While ARI itself is a fantastic place to learn and work, the people I met there over the course of my 6 weeks as an intern were phenomenal. Students would be hard pressed to find a more welcoming, kind, passionate and educated community in this field. Even though I do not plan on going into archeology myself, I learned so many valuable skills that I can apply throughout my life. I plan on volunteering at ARI later on this year. I urge any students that are interested in archeology (even if they have never taken a class) to apply.