by Horace Holloman With graduation quickly approaching, Georgia State History major Hannah Terry said she was unsure what she wanted to do with her career. Now, after interning as an archivist at the Computer Museum of America in Roswell, home to one of the world's largest collections of artifacts from the digital age, Terry has found her path.
“I’m really enjoying my internship,” Terry said. “It can be tedious work, but ultimately, I find it very rewarding. You have the opportunity to preserve history and make sure it’s not forgotten. If I can have a career working with real-life history, that would be perfect for me.”
Through her internship, Terry is responsible for organizing and categorizing items collected by the museum. Items like old computers, software, CDs and floppy disks. She makes sure each of those items is archived in the museum’s cataloging software.
“I get to examine items that most people don’t really get to see, let alone know about,” Terry said. “In my major, getting to actually work with some of these historical items is so precious.”
The Computer Museum of America’s exhibits feature 70 supercomputers, original Apple Computers, Nintendo Gameboys and an Enigma Machine — a machine used by German soldiers during World War II to secure communication between military personnel.
Terry has always had a passion for history. Growing up, she would often watch the History Channel and she enrolled in AP history courses at Arabia Mountain High School in Stonecrest, Ga. Terry said this internship has fulfilled her love of learning how the past can impact the present.
“Because it's a computer museum, you get to see older technology from the 60s, 40s and even 30s. At the museum, they have wooden pay phones, which I didn’t even know existed,” she said. “When I’m working at my internship, I’m able to observe the advancement of technology. I get to see the technological culmination of human effort and human progress.”
Terry plans to attend graduate school after graduation and pursue a master’s degree either in library science or public history. She is currently working toward becoming an archivist and has applied to other internships with museums to gain experience. Terry dreams of one day working in a museum that highlights Black history.
“There’s so much of African American history that has been made inaccessible,” she said. “I want to do the work to preserve our history and tell our stories.”