8x22 The Party in the Pants

I spent today rewatching season 1 of Bones and I’m having some issues with Brennan’s timeline.

In “The Girl In The Fridge” 1x08 it’s said that Brennan became involved with Michael while she was a grad student at Northwestern, and Michael mentions that she was 23 at the time.

In “The Woman In Limbo” 1x22 Zach says that Brennan started at the Jeffersonian in 1998, while in the same episode it is established that Brennan was born in 1976, making her 22.

Michael and Brennan both applied for the position at the Jeffersonian, so she definitely did not receive the job prior to completing her doctorate. And Northwestern is in Illinois, so I don’t think it’s plausible that she did any kind of interning in DC that they could be referring to.