An Internship Combining Art and Advertising at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum
Helena Nguyen (CFA‘27, COM‘27) inside the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Nguyen served as the museum’s inaugural learning and civic engagement intern. Photos by Justin Kuo
An Internship Combining Art and Advertising at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum
Helena Nguyen (CFA’27, COM’27) spent the summer developing public programs, reconnecting with her Vietnamese heritage, and exploring the West Coast
For most students, the search for a summer internship begins on LinkedIn, Handshake, or other job boards. But for rising senior Helena Nguyen, it began with an Instagram Reel.
When Nguyen (CFA‘27, COM‘27) came across a video promoting an internship at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, she immediately knew she had to apply. Between her dual degrees in sculpture and advertising, her Vietnamese heritage, and a long-held desire to experience living on the West Coast, the opportunity seemed like the perfect fit.
Founded in 1958, the Asian Art Museum houses one of the world’s largest collections of Asian art, spanning 48 countries and over 6,000 years of history. This summer, Nguyen served as the museum’s inaugural Learning and Civic Engagement intern—a role the museum created in an effort to become more welcoming.
“Museums historically have not been as accessible to lower-income audiences,” Nguyen says, adding that the institution is also interested in bringing in more young people.
As the museum’s first intern focused on learning and civic engagement, Nguyen collaborated with her supervisors to define the role. Her duties ranged from developing art education programs to helping install exhibitions.
Much of her work centered on designing public tours. In July, she led a tea bag-making workshop for the museum’s “What’s the Tea?” tour, which explored Asian teas like matcha and chai. She also ran a children’s watercolor painting session.
For Nguyen, the opportunity to intern at the Asian Art Museum was especially meaningful given her own cultural background. She says the experience afforded her “an opportunity to reconnect with my heritage” and says working among other Asian-American interns was “really empowering.”
“We’ve all been through a lot of similar experiences, and we’re able to talk about that very openly here,” Nguyen says. “There’s a sort of solidarity that comes with working at [the museum] as an Asian person … people just understand where you’re coming from.”
Although San Francisco is new to Nguyen, museums are not. Growing up in Boston, the rising BU senior took children’s art classes at the Museum of Fine Arts, and later returned as a teaching assistant. Still, she said she never imagined herself working in museums.
“I definitely realized that I cannot go into corporate,” she says. “This is probably the most office and corporate that I’m ever going to get.”
The museum posed a sharp contrast to Nguyen’s other job this summer: metalworking at a custom furniture store. While she enjoyed working at the Asian Art Museum, she says the hands-on work also had its perks. “I’m in a dilemma right now, on whether I want to go into more museum, nonprofit stuff, or go into metalworking and potentially trade school,” Nguyen says.
Her internship also changed where she envisions living in the future. Had she been asked three or four years ago where she saw herself after graduation, she says the answer would have likely been New York.
“I couldn’t fathom myself going all the way to the West Coast,” Nguyen says, “But then I came to [San Francisco], and it’s very similar to Boston. It’s very walkable, the public transit is very good, and the weather is great.”
Regardless of what she chooses to do after graduation—and where she does it—Nguyen says she’s grateful for the opportunity the internship gave to explore a career in museum education.
“This is a good test run of whether I want to continue doing this work, Nguyen says. “I really like working with other people, and this internship allowed me to do that.”