The National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE) Internship Program is a partnership with the National Park Service and other Federal agencies with cultural resource protection and public land management responsibilities. Its purpose is to accomplish needed and important work on federally protected lands while providing program participants with professional experience in their chosen fields. Interns work under the guidance of agency staff to complete projects or undertake programs to further the park’s mission.

To be eligible, applicants must be between 18 and 30 years old (or 35 if a veteran) when starting the internship, a college student or recent graduate (within the past 12 months at the time of application), enrolled in a degree-seeking program, and a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.  

Two 1200-hour interns will be hired for this position. The successful candidates will work with the park’s Cultural Resource Program to complete museum collections management tasks in museum and field conditions. One intern will support the project to preserve and catalog rare books recovered from the Oakland Plantation and Magnolia Plantation units of the Park, both of which are National Historic Landmarks. The other will support conservation treatments for historic furnishings recovered from these plantations.  Interns will learn National Park Service (NPS) best practices including proper handling, relocating collections, artifact identification, cataloging, museum housekeeping, minor conservation, and exhibit production. Other duties include physically moving museum objects, fulfilling requests for research, resource documentation, developing social media content, and assisting with interpretive programs.

Interns are responsible for their housing and transportation. The work schedule is full-time (~30 weeks, start date TBD), based at park offices in Natchitoches, LA.  A background security investigation may be required prior to the start date. All NCPE internships accrue 4 hours of PTO for every 80 hours worked.

Qualified NCPE interns who complete their internships may count their position towards earning a Public Land Corps (PLC) Non-Competitive Hiring Authority certificate.  Once earned, the PLC certificate may be used to apply for eligible Federal permanent, temporary, or term positions. Visit https://preservenet.org/ncpe-internships/ for details about this benefit. Successful completion of the internship does not guarantee Federal employment.