Internship Spotlight: The Cleveland Museum of Art
March 9, 2026 | By Dani Young, Communications & Marketing Specialist
Savannah’s artwork on the 2025 YCO program cover
A senior at Cleveland Heights High School, Savannah interned at the Cleveland Museum of Art last summer.
She heard about the Y.O.U. Internship Program while a student in the Jobs for Ohio’s Graduates (JOG) program, one of Y.O.U.’s school-based programs that helps students build essential career and life skills.
“In JOG, I learned responsibility and work ethic,” Savannah said. “We were constantly doing either projects or field trips, working on our resumes, academically and emotionally trying to figure out things that could put us on the right career path.”
Through the JOG program, Savannah won the Program Cover Design category at the 2025 Youth Career Olympics (YCO) and participated in the State Career Development Conference. At YCO, Y.O.U. Internship Specialist Eric Graham recruited Savannah to the program and helped connect her to her creative summer internship.
Her first work experience, Savannah rotated through multiple departments at the Cleveland Museum of Art, including visitor services, education, marketing, and membership. One of her primary responsibilities involved assisting with the Yumedono exhibition, where she scanned tickets and briefed guests on the space. The special guest exhibit, “Takashi Murakami: Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow,” was a popular destination that summer.
“My favorite part of my internship was when I was in visitor services doing either the Yumadono or if I was a floater, just walking around and socializing with all the other visitor services staff members,” Savannah said. “They had interesting conversations, nice questions, and they were usually welcoming and friendly.”
“Certain departments that piqued my interest the most would be between visitor services and education,” she added. “I liked the ideas and seeing the thought process of children when it comes to art because I saw things completely differently. And I enjoyed that.”
Savannah noted the top skills she learned were persistence, reliability and punctuality. She learned how to adjust her schedule to ensure she was on time, stopped procrastinating and became more sociable. She also developed critical thinking as she was able to open her mind and expand her viewpoint.
“In a museum such as this, a lot of different people come through with a lot of different interest perspectives,” Savannah noted. “So there was something for everybody. And even if they had the same personality, they would still react differently to the same painting. So I like that.”
Savannah’s mentor for the summer was Jeremiah Myers, Director of School and Teacher Programs at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Savannah with mentor Jeremiah Myers
“So this year, I had received teen programs under my portfolio of programs here at the museum. And one of the programs that I oversee is a high school internship program,” Jeremiah said. “As soon as I heard of Y.O.U., I was so excited to partner with them to figure out a good placement for a local student.”
Beyond just a creative or shadowing opportunity, he wanted “a local high school student to get a real-world experience.”
“So we have a lot of college interns. And my goal is to build the high school internship program just as big or bigger,” he said. “To really make it so that the high school intern felt they weren't being pushed, but adequately challenged while still gaining experience.”
Jeremiah partnered with multiple departments to help show Savannah the different opportunities around the museum. He noted that the goal for the museum’s high school internship program is to show students that you don’t have to be only an artist or a curator to work at an art museum.
“Departments such as visitor services — the people who greet visitors — I think that's a really good skill for really anyone to know how to talk to any visitor that comes through our space,” Jeremiah said. “As well as marketing and communications, membership, and, of course, in my department of education, working with the summer camp program.”
Jeremiah saw a lot of growth with Savannah over the summer.
“So when Savannah started, she was a little quiet, but she quickly fell in love with being front facing with our visitors.” He recalled how they were walking to a meeting when he stopped to talk to a colleague. When he turned around, Savannah was helping guide people to their exhibition space.
“And, you know, she wasn't just waiting around. She saw a problem and she took initiative. And I think that shows growth, even in that short 2-week span when that happened.”
He would recommend the Y.O.U. Internship program and hopes he can continue to grow the museum internship program each year.
Savannah would also recommend internship program to students as a good paid learning experience.
Looking ahead, Savannah’s career interests span two exciting fields — studio arts and astrophysics.
She noted her time with the museum still provided helpful experience with astrophysics as the field comes with a lot of speaking events and sharing research with others. So she was able to learn communication and how to organization and explain her findings.
“And then studio arts, just looking at the art itself and being inspired by other people's art pieces,” Savannah said, adding that she likes to take inspiration from artwork and incorporate it into her pieces. “I take some of the shapes or colors or anything in it and try and like pay homage to the artists specifically and put it into my art. So I would say the museum specifically has taught me how to do that without plagiarism. So that's a good aspect, of course, especially in art.”