17 Best Art Internships for High School Students

An internship is a great program that makes students put into practice all they have learned in class. Going for this program equips you with a better understanding of your chosen career. Applying for the best art internships for high school students is a fantastic way to work and build on your skill and acquire professional experience. Art internships allow those who major in arts to undergo a practical experience in the field.

If you are looking for an art internship that will boost your academic qualification and future career, there is a wide range of them.

Types of Art Internships Available for High School Students

There are different types of art internships that high school students can apply for in line with their career prospects. The top list of summer arts internships will be considered here for your advantage.

• Advertisement Internships: this is one of the top summer art internships that can benefit you enormously as a high school student. If you are interested in becoming an art adviser, guiding clients on how to buy and sell art pieces or collections, this is worth considering. To apply for this type of internship, you have to consider private advertisers for intern opportunities. This program will open you to things like appraisal, framing, restoration, and cementing relationships with art collectors and clients, among other things.
• Animation Internships: with animation, moving images can be created for visual effect. There are lots of animation studio art internships that can absorb you in. In this internship, you may be stationed in a specific animation area, and your employer may also make it flexible for you to learn each area. Some of the specialized areas in animation are storyboarding, computer graphics, general design, and many others.
• Fashion: this is one of the art industries that is very large and filled with a series of opportunities. You can get an internship from a different aspect of the industry, such as in fashion retailers and apparel companies, as well as fashion graphics designing.
• Film: applying for an internship in the film industry will expose you to various activities behind the scenes before the final production. Going for a film internship will stir more the artist interest you have. Different activities under this include sound equipment handling, lighting, footage editing or video, carrying out research, script writing, and many more. And this will give you broad exposure to the industry and prepare you for your career.
• Gallery: This internship will open you up to the management and operation of art galleries. As an intern in this field, different tasks may be committed to you, such as administrative responsibilities, maintenance of the gallery space, installing and uninstalling artworks, organizing art exhibitions, and many more.
• Game Design: this type of internship is meant for those considering a career in the video gaming industry. In the industry, video game developers constantly absorb art students who will handle the conceptualization, style, and design of their game and many other graphical aspects.
• Graphic design: one of the significant aspects of art that deals with communicating messages through graphics and visuals. A graphic design Internship can be obtained at art studios, advertising firms, and private companies. This internship will expose you to designs that speak visually with various graphic elements.
• Photography: this involves capturing pictures with the camera. This field of art has different branches, such as portraits, wildlife, wedding, sports, fashion, and many more. Any of the fields or all can be explored to have advanced knowledge of the field. Internships in photography can be secured in places like photography studios, newspapers, and magazines.

17 Art internship for High School Students

If you are looking for where to have professional development to have a solid background as an art student, there are wide ranges of summer art internships and online art internships for high school students that can be applied for. In applying for an art internship, do not delay till the late hour to have the opportunity of securing the program.

Metropolitan Museum

Metropolitan Museum opens its internship program for school-year and summer to students in their sophomore year and those below. The museum has 17 departments where high school students can be placed for internships. Interns have 40 hours working duration in total at the metropolitan museum. Some activities interns are exposed to are event planning, career workshop, and arts administration, among others.

Their summer art internships run from July to august, while their all-year internship is from February through June. At the end of the internship, stipends are given to interns. If you are applying for the summer internship, your application must be made before April, the deadline. If it is the school year you are applying for, your application must be submitted before October.

Boston Fine Arts Museum

The internship program of the Museum Fine Arts runs for 12 months, and it is meant for high school students in their sophomore year, juniors, and seniors. There are various sections that students can choose to work within the museum. There is the STEAM Team, Curatorial Study Hall, and Teen Arts Council. As an intern, you can do hands-on projects, network, and have behind-the-scene experience at one of the sophisticated art collections. Aside from all the experiences that will be gotten, the museum pays out stipends per hour to their interns.

Art Institute of Chicago

The internship program at the Art Institute of Chicago is a paid art internship, and it runs all through the year. The museum has lots of areas through which your knowledge can be impacted. It ranges from event planning, art making, and interacting with visiting artists.

Dallas Museum of Art

The internship program at Dallas Museum is tailored explicitly towards high school students between the ages of 14 and 19. The internship is in categories; there is the Teen Advisory council internship that runs all through the year, and there is also Teen Ambassador Program that runs from June to August. Each of the programs has its attractions. For instance, the Teen Advisory council has youth events and other programs yearly. Stipends are given to their interns, free parking, and free admission to special exhibits. The Teen Ambassador program has gallery teaching and various art activities.

Arts for Learning Artworks

This internship is open more to high school students residing in Florida. It is a paid art internship program. One good thing about this internship is that it is not limited to students with an art learning background. It is open to those with arts experience and those who do not. The program runs for six weeks, working 180 hours alongside a mentor. There are different areas of specialty to apply for, such as visual arts, dance, creative writing, theatre, music production, and animation.

Brooklyn Arts and Culture Interns

Brooklyn Academy of Music runs a 12 months paid internship program for high school students. Before students start the internship proper, there is artistic training, college preparation, and professional development in the form of workshops that run in July. After completing the workshop, the internship commences from October to June. This internship helps you to connect with professionals and receive waivers for college applications.

Asian Art Museum

High school students in their sophomores, those below and above this stage, can apply for the museum’s art Speaks internship, which runs for ten months, from August to May. The working duration per week for this internship is between 6-8 hours per week. During this internship, you will engage with various Asian arts, attend local artist workshops, develop and teaching of activities for arts, and many more.

Museum Contemporary Art

It is an internship program for high school students that run for 12 solid months. The students to apply for this internship fall between 14 and 19 years. When you apply for this internship, you will do two weeks of intensive summer. After the two weeks, interns meet during the school year for event planning, collaborative projects, workshops, and cultural site seeing.

Bronx Arts Museum

Bronx Museum has two paid internship programs for high school students and teens. There is the Teen summer and the Teen Council. The Teen summer lasts for four weeks and focuses on the collaborative exploration and cultural highlights in the communities. The Teen council, on the other hand, is for eight months. During the internship, students will organize exhibitions, interview artists, and feature video projects.

Seattle Art Museum

This internship program runs from October to May (8 months) during the school year. It is meant for students interested in the event planning aspect of arts. If you are applying for this internship, you will participate in artists’ selection, organization of gallery talks, and coordinates community programs with the staff. There are also multi-session workshops focusing on art-making techniques and public design that interns will partake in.

Inner-City Arts

Inner city-Arts engage in works of art for high school students to explore their college and career prospects. The internship is equipped with lots of activities that will benefit interns in terms of skills acquisition, training, and all the experiences required that will see them beyond high school. Enrolling in this internship, you will learn about careers in the arts and creative economy with career-focused events and activities. The internship program can be applied for at any time of the year.

New York Historical Society Museum and Library

It is a historian internship program for high school students from October to June. In the summer internship at the Historical Society Museum and Library, 25 participants are always selected from different schools to undergo the six-week program. During this program, participants will conduct research around the city of New York to create digital projects. Interns will be eligible to free or reduced lunch, and a school will get a stipend after the program while others will be given community service.

National Museum of Asian Arts

This museum offers the Richard Louie Memorial Internship for 12 months. The internship program has three stages that can be applied for: the spring, summer, and fall application. The internship program aims to introduce high school students to the Asian art museum and open them up to unexpected rewards and self-discovery. As an intern, you are to handle a project independently under the supervision of the staff in the department that your internship falls under. The internship demands that participants complete 200 working hours within a year. At the end of the internship, interns are given a stipend of $1,500.

Whitney Museum of American Art

Whitney Museum of Art offers Youth Insights Artists internships for high school students, which run for four months. The interns are paired with contemporary artists to work together, think, and discuss art creatively and critically. To cover participants’ weekly meetings, a MetroCard is given to interns, and materials that will aid their internship program are given for free.

The Montclair Art Museum

Montclair Art Museum has an internship for high school students to enable them to explore different career paths in arts and museum work. In this program, there is a lot to gain from professionals in the field. Interns will be equipped with firsthand experience in content creation, event planning, and lesson planning. As interns acquire experience, they also get paid per hour with a minimum of $13.

Greater Philadelphia Cultural Appliance

Greater Philadelphia Cultural Appliance offers Bloomberg Art internships for high school students. Two internship programs are available under this cultural alliance; the Bloomberg Art internship, with eight weeks duration for summer, and the Bloomberg Arts Internship school year program, which lasts for eight months. The eight weeks internship is a paid program that exposes interns to local arts and culture. The eight-month internship connects students with paid positions where they are to work for eight hours per week. During the program, interns will develop self-advocacy, self-actualization, and public speaking abilities.

New Bedford Art Museum

New Bedford Art Museum offers a Teens Artist Internship Program in the form of studio art internships for students interested in visual arts. Interns will be paired with local professional artists who will introduce them to the arts community, host them in their art studio, and guide them in creating and exhibiting art through technical and professional aspects. The internship runs for nine weeks, from January to March, and it’s a free and competitive program.

Benefits of Joining Art Internship Programs in High School

Going for art internships while in High school has many advantages, academically and career-wise. Here are some of the values attached to high school internships.

• It helps you have a holistic decision on the career to go for after trying some of the options.
• It allows you to develop your art skills by merging your academic knowledge with professional and practical experience.
• Art internship programs will allow you to build connections with professionals and local artists in the field, serving as mentors for you.
• Through the internship program, you can quickly secure full-time employment after the employee has tested your ability in the field and your enthusiasm for the career.

Wrapping Things Up: Best Art Internships for High School Students

After considering the best art internship for high school students and the benefits attached to going for an internship program, here are five picks of the internship that tops the list.

1. Metropolitan Museum of Art high school internship: the internship demands just 2 to 4 hours of commitment per week to the activities. The program connects interns with professionals in the field to have solid knowledge.
2. Teen Program of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: the internship is focused on helping students to develop leadership skills and work with professionals in the museum.
3. Arts for learning Artwork: this internship does not require having arts experience. Students are allowed to go for their choices like visual arts, dance, music, theatre, and many more. A stipend is also paid to all interns.
4. Brooklyn Interns for Arts and Culture: as an intern, you have two options: doing the internship at Brooklyn or online. It has the most flexible commitment time, once per week, and students are impacted to serve their community and be the best version of themselves.
5. National Museum of Asian Arts: the internship runs for a year with solid activities that will bring out the best in the students for their careers. It is the only internship program for application during summer, spring, and fall. Interns who undergo the 12-month program are paid a stipend of $1500, which can support their academics.