Meagan Kearney, Weitzman Masters in Historic Preservation, 2024
This past summer I had the opportunity to intern at two unique preservation-oriented organizations. These two organizations, CIRCA Old Houses and Heritage Consulting Inc., allowed me to experience and learn how the preservation field can entail a wide range of opportunities and careers.
One of the internships I worked at was under Donna Ann Harris at Heritage Consulting Inc. My role was to help Ms. Harris with her projects for her clients from a wide range of locations and organizations. This included editing and drafting newsletters, reports, policies, and presentations for clients such as local preservation organizations, museums, and preservation conferences. Through this work, I had the chance to view the inner workings and structures of preservation-focused organizations and how important national policies were directly translated within their work.
My second internship was at CIRCA Old Houses. CIRCA is an online curated historic house marketplace where buyers interested in historic properties can view listings and potentially buy their next home sweet home. This site has been the official partner of the National Trust to connect buyers and sellers and to ultimately preserve unique and character-filled homes and their history. My role entailed creating daily listings that sellers requested to publish which included information such as property description, when constructed, architecture style, location, and unique traits. It was a joy to create listings for so many diverse historic properties across the country, and to see how there is a high demand for historic homes within the market. I was able to utilize my remote internship while I stayed in Japan to view traditional Japanese homes to be listed on the site due to GAPSA’s fund. Such homes have interested CIRCA since they are planning on expanding their listings to international historic properties. If interested, please check their website here: https://circaoldhouses.com/. They also have a listing site for cheap old houses for those more inclined for fixer-upper projects!
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2023 GAPSA Summer Internship Funding Program that is coordinated by Penn Career Services. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here.
