As an experience architecture student at Michigan State University, Jason Fagan Jr. (class of 2024) was focused on honing his skills in computer coding and developing experiences in the digital space. He didn’t have any of the university’s world-class cultural institutions on his radar.
Yet, looking back, Fagan Jr. sees his undergrad employment at the MSU Museum as a vital step in his career development.
“That ended up being one of the most, if not the most, valuable professional experiences I’ve had,” Fagan Jr. said, now living in Phoenix and working on aerospace software. “I learned so much about project management at the museum, which was not something I expected.”
MSU’s four primary arts and culture venues — MSU Museum, the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Wharton Center for Performing Arts and the Beal Botanical Garden — inspire thousands of visitors annually. As gateways to campus for Michiganders from approximately 850 ZIP codes per year, they are spaces of “firsts” for many of us — first museum visit, first botanical garden experience, first Broadway show and more. They are also an essential asset for MSU students both in the classroom and in their free time.
But did you know they have a transformative impact on the career readiness of students, too?
Real-world experiences that foster university students’ adaptability and open-mindedness help ensure they are prepared for the professional landscape both the day they graduate and into the future as the world continues to rapidly change. Paid internships in the arts at MSU are helping students develop those essential skills and prepare not only for careers in the creative sector, but across industries.
Building a professional toolkit through the arts
Research has linked arts participation with critical thinking, creative problem-solving, effective communication, empathy and the ability to navigate complex challenges. A 2025 study of more than 400 college students found significant positive associations between engagement with the arts during their university experience and critical thinking and creative problem-solving. Similar findings have come from the National Endowment for the Arts, which identifies communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity — the “four Cs” — as skills developed through arts education and closely connected to the demands of 21st-century work.
Employers increasingly seek individuals with exactly these skills in their professional toolkit. In fact, new research culled from nearly 15 years of data from occupations across industries recently discovered that these foundational “soft” skills that MSU students develop in arts internships have a direct correlation with career progression. They even advise that leaders screen for these skills in the hiring process.
Ensuring that students have access to high-impact experiences throughout their time at MSU is part of the university’s new Career-Connected Spartans initiative. By providing real-world experiences on campus for any student, regardless of major, these arts and culture venues are helping undergrads gain career confidence and the ability to communicate their competitive value in a national job market.
‘Practical’ passion for the arts
Maria Bonucchi (class of 2025) grew up playing piano, auditioned for “America’s Got Talent” at age 12, acted in high school musicals and got college scholarships in theatre. Hers was a resume rich in the arts, yet the metro Detroiter pursued what she considered a more “practical” path outside the arts her first two years at MSU.
It wasn’t until junior year that Bonucchi discovered the Wharton Center Student Marketing Organization, a group that learns from and supports the venue’s professional marketing team. It proved to be the perfect mix of PR and her passion for the arts — and a springboard for the kinds of professional skills she thought could only be found elsewhere.
Bonucchi turned her involvement in the student club into a paid Wharton Center internship, becoming one of hundreds of MSU students working in marketing, public relations, house management, administration and the box office at the venue that year. In addition to cranking out press releases and organizing media junkets, Bonucchi developed foundational skills such as collaboration, interpersonal communication and a curiosity both willing to ask questions and eager to explore creative solutions.
Those are exactly the kinds of durable, 21st-century skills vital to the workforce of today — and adaptable to the rapidly evolving workforce of tomorrow.
Through her work at the Wharton Center, Bonucchi made connections that helped her land a postgraduate internship with an agency representing touring Broadway shows. After a few months, that internship turned into a full-time job as a tour marketing and press coordinator. She even got to return to East Lansing last winter to promote the North American tour of “Back to the Future: The Musical” during its engagement at Wharton Center.
“When I first decided to go into public relations, I completely put entertainment and the arts out of reach because I thought that was not going to be possible,” said Bonucchi, who is looking forward to returning to Wharton Center again through her work on the North American tour of “The Notebook,” which will run Oct. 27–Nov. 1 of this year.
“The arts at MSU created an environment where it is possible. I’m very grateful that I found that outlet where I’m able to still be so connected to the arts.”
Making professional dreams possible
For sure, Bonucchi’s love for the stage is part of what launched her career in the arts. Yet, it was her time as an MSU intern that really sent her on her way. It’s much like the path Lillian Young (class of 2022) took in her Master of Fine Arts program.
As a grad student, Young worked both a fellowship and an internship at the MSU Broad Art Museum, which hosts artist exhibitions and offers hands-on creative experiences for guests of all ages. It was a chance for her to balance her craft as a painter depicting moments of Black history and lived experience with her dream of becoming a museum educator.
At the MSU Broad Art Museum, Young learned many aspects of running a museum and gained experience collaborating with different departments, partnering with community institutions, giving public tours, and managing junior interns. She even learned how to code and build a website.
“It definitely gave me a lot of opportunities that I wouldn’t have expected,” Young said. “Working in the arts at MSU exposes you to a lot of new experiences. I got a lot of life skills.”
Those skills helped Young get a job right after graduation as family programs coordinator at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, one of the first museums in the U.S. to have an education department. Over the last four years, she has drawn on her experience at the MSU Broad Art Museum to develop programs and events for the Brooklyn Museum’s youngest visitors, while still making her own art.
Young calls her job at the museum her “9-to-5” and her painting is her “5-to-9.”
“At least once a month I say, ‘Oh, at the Broad we did this.’ And then we do that at the museum,” she said. “A lot of the projects I did at the Broad we’ve redone at the Brooklyn Museum and they’ve been well-received.”
The MSU Broad Art Museum introduces hundreds of children each year to transformative power of the arts, and now Young has carved her own career path doing the same for children in New York City and beyond.
MSU arts: creative outlet and economic engine
If you visit the MSU Museum today, you can see for yourself what Fagan Jr. worked on as an intern a few years ago. The museum features RFID technology that makes exhibitions more accessible and engaging for visitors — technology that was fully developed by MSU students.
Since graduating from MSU, Fagan Jr. has worked in state government, government consulting and now aerospace. In each role, the project management, presentation and budgeting skills he developed at the MSU Museum have been instrumental. And the creative problem-solving nurtured through his internship has gotten only more valuable over time.
“I have a little more agency in my jobs than I have had in the past in terms of ‘This is the problem. Help come up with a solution,’” Fagan Jr. said. “There was so much room in my internship for experimentation, and that was big.”
For Fagan Jr., an internship in the arts at MSU didn’t lead to a career in the arts, but that was not his aspiration. Instead, his experience is another illustration of how the arts at MSU are more than just a creative outlet. They are an economic force in the region, equipping students for the opportunities and challenges of the future with whatever they go on to do next.
His advice to current MSU students: “Keep an open mind about what kinds of skills you can learn in different places. There’s a lot of opportunities in the arts — whether you’re in computer science, experience architecture or maybe something totally different.”
This originally appeared as sponsored content from University Arts and Collections for MLive.
