Andrew Phelan Internship

The past two weeks of my work with the Catholic Textbook Project have been much slower than the first four weeks of my internship. This is due to the natural flow of work as they are preparing to transition into another phase of work on the textbook. I have been limited in my hands-on assignments, but have found viewing the process and sitting-in on meetings to be incredibly helpful.

At the end of my fourth week working with the team I performed cold reads for 34 chapters of the Middle Ages reader. This final read marked the end of this stage of production when all of the edited material was sent publishers, historians, and artists to add their final revisions and prepare for the final draft of the work.

While there was not a large amount of work accessible for my experience level this week, it was not a waste of time. I took a more observational approach to the process in order to prepare for the workload of the upcoming weeks. After conversations with my advisors, I knew that once the draft is returned I will be given a good amount of hands-on work that will be reliant on my understanding of the standards of the project. I have to be prepared to maintain consistency is stylistic and historical choices as well as communicate as a larger part of the team. Sitting-in on meetings this week and talking about what the next phases will look like has given me a pathway towards working at my highest level.

I am looking forward to the coming weeks when I can continue my work on the project and grow my role as a member of the team.