It all began when Amya Wise chose City Charter High School over her existing school, SciTech (Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy). “I needed a fresh start,” she reveals. She figured that since both schools had similar curriculum and students loop with their same teachers at both schools, she would give it a shot. Especially, as fate would have it, her mother also attended City High. 

 

Amya Wise is headed to the University of Pittsburgh, David P. Frederick Honors College and the University of Pittsburgh and the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences in Anthropology. Over 700 applied to the Honors College for 50 spots. Amya was just one of seven selected for an interview and awarded a full scholarship.

 

“City High is closer to college than most schools,” She adds. “So I feel more ready for what the world is going to give me when I leave. You meet a lot of people here… [make] connections to people from different places based on your internship, field trips… college tours. That was an amazing part. It’s what I love most about it.”

One of the most important connections Amya made was with her internship mentor at The Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Amy Covell-Murthy, M.A.; Collection Manager, Archaeology and Head of the Section of Anthropology.

City High is the only high school internship program in the Museum’s Anthropology department. So, Amya worked alongside college interns and professional staff learning proper care for artifacts, digitizing archives, accessioning and deaccessioning objects, and most of all, using her creativity to build protective supports for the objects in the collection, especially from digs at Bâb Edh-Dhrâ' in Jordan.

That makes perfect sense, as Art was one of her favorite classes at City High. “My favorite is probably painting: watercolor, oil, acrylic, also sculpture painting – sculptures out of papier mâché and then painted realistically. And it turned out very, very nice. It was very enjoyable for me as an artist.”

During her 13-week internship, Amya spent a lot of time with her mentor learning how to properly care for human remains in museums and other collecting institutions. “I would like to work more with artifacts or bones. I just enjoy it,” Amya reveals. And, it was her work-skills classes that led her toward anthropology. “I studied forensic science and anatomy which helps to get to know body parts of animals. We also had a class on the skeletal system that focused on the bones.” These helped prepare her for her internship and helped her to clarify her college/career direction.

Ever curious, Amya was up to the challenge of her internship. She didn’t know how complicated identifying artifacts and their sources could be, ”…but it was a happy surprise. What intrigued me the most,“ she added, “was how the pots looked very different. A lot of them were maybe from the same dig site, but they might not have been from the same place. So it was very interesting to see the different textures, the different colors of the pots… some of them were very cracked, so I would only get the base, and not the full pot. It was interesting to imagine what this could have been. Sometimes, you do see what they actually are and it’s nothing like you would have imagined.”

Amya remembers fondly her time at the Museum working alongside Ms. Covell-Murthy. “She wasn’t the one who taught me how to make the pot stands, but she took me upstairs to the people who knew how to make the pot stands and teach it better than her. If I had any questions, I would ask her and she would give me advice. She showed me around the library and gave me the opportunity to explore that. And gave me the opportunity to be more curious. She would go on for hours if you had a question… and it was great!”

The fact is, each day was a new challenge. According to Ms. Covell-Murthy, “We never know what’s going to happen around here in a day. There would be days, I’d be like, ‘Hey, who wants to help move a 2,000 year old Egyptian coffin?’” Sure thing!

Ms. Covell-Murthy confirms that the internship was successful. “Amya was always on time, works very hard and follows direction really well… was very good at asking when in doubt instead of apologizing for doing something wrong… which is really good when you’re working with thousand year objects. It was fun to have her around for the conversation and beneficial to the museum for the high standard quality of work that she did while here.”

As Amya heads off to pursue her career in forensic anthropology, she will cherish the experiences – and the connections – she made at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History… as well as the full scholarship that will make her promising career possible.