The third year of the program consists of a 12-month internship spent at a museum, library, archives or other cultural heritage institution.
Interns are under the mentorship of a senior conservator working in the student's area of specialization. Placement is made at the department's discretion in consultation with the student and potential internship supervisors. The progress of each internship is monitored by the student's professor through reports submitted periodically by the internship mentor and the intern. Interns may elect a 20-workday privilege for individual research and study with the approval of the internship mentor and their professor. At the close of the internship year, all interns return to the department in September for final oral presentations and to be awarded the master of arts degree and certificate of advanced study in art conservation.
Recent third-year internship placements have been at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston, the Library of Congress; the National Archives and Records Administration, the Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum of American Art, the American Museum of Natural History, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History, the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts-Houston, the Menil Collection, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
