Why do an internship at the Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium?
UC Davis is unique in that it has so many active museums on campus in a wide variety of specialties. Museum science can be a career choice, but more frequently other science fields will have a museum curation/preservation component to them and typically scientists learn this expertise on the job. Why not try out this type of work and see if you like it as part of your preparation for your science career? What you learn will be useful no matter what field you go into.
If you are considering an internship, feel free to contact Herbarium Director Dan Potter (dpotter@ucdavis.edu) and/or Herbarium Curator Alison Colwell (aelcolwell@ucdavis.edu) to find out more.
Where to sign up? Undergraduate students can receive academic credit (Pass/not pass) for internships in the Herbarium (See Course Catalog: https://catalog.ucdavis.edu/courses-subject-code/pls/)
Lower division students (those with fewer than 90 units completed) can register for PLS 092 Internship Upper division students (those with 90 or more units completed) can register for PLS 192 Internship
Note: PLS internships in the herbarium DO count towards Plant Biology Major internships even if they are not a “PLB” course.
General information about internships and the link to the on-line internship application form (required) can be found here: https://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/undergraduate/internships
IMPORTANT: In the application, list Prof. Dan Potter (Herbarium Director) as instructor of record and Alison Colwell (Herbarium Curator) as the supervisor.
Once the student completes their part of the on-line form it is routed to Dan Potter, and to Alison Colwell, for approval, and then to the advisors in the internship office who issue the CRN (course registration number) to the student, who then registers for this course.
Deadline: The deadline for signing up is the 10th day after the start of instruction. The deadline for the Instructor’s approval is the 12th day after the start of instruction.
How many units should you sign up for? The number of units of internship varies from 1 to 12, and the number you sign up for is determined by the number of hours you can work per week, with 1 unit = 3 hours per week on average over the 10-week quarter, totalling 30 hours of work for 1 unit credit for 1 quarter. “Work” typically means coming into the herbarium to participate in the various collections management tasks of this institution.
Herbarium Assistant Curator internship:
- Entering plant specimen data into the nationally-used Symbiota database
- Making and editing specimen labels & annotation labels for name changes
- Mounting vascular plant specimens and/or packeting mosses and lichens
- Barcoding and imaging specimens
- Specimen filing and retrieval
Herbarium plant Identification internship:
- Keying plants (prior keying experience required, such as PLS 127)
It’s a good idea to discuss the number of credits with us before you register. You will be asked to select the number of credits for this variable credit course in your application. Our students who have a full course load typically sign up for 1-2 credits per quarter. Summer quarter may allow flexibility for a greater number of credits. You can adjust the number of credits at the time you actually register for the course.