Decisions, Decisions

As a rising senior at Dickinson College, it's that time of year to begin thinking about graduate school programs. Ever since I was little, I've always loved history and art, and when it became time for me to decide my track senior year of high school, I had difficulty choosing which way to go. Since I wanted a well-rounded education and not just an art school, I decided to go for history. Over the years, the artist in me has been itching to get out and use my creative skills again. I realized that with museum work I have the ability to combine both my love of art and history, something I never thought about doing previously.

Now that it is that time of year to decide, yet again, what path to travel on in the future. I have been talking with various people at my internship, both volunteers and coworkers who have gone down similar paths to me. There are two career options in the museum world that interest me the most. The first one is exhibition design, which could include anything from creating the didactics or script to the exhibit to creating the general layout and design to researching ideas for exhibits that will captivate audiences. The creative person in me loves the idea of being able to use my history research and artistic skills. The second career path I am looking at is collections management. With collections management your duties are mainly organizing and cataloging artifacts in a museum's collections as well as making sure measures are taken to keep objects as well-preserved as possible. This appeals to the part of me that likes to organize things and preserve history for future generations.

This past weekend I've started studying for the GREs and looking at graduate programs in both DC and NYC. My plan is to hopefully get into a university at either of these two major cities where I could intern or volunteer at major museums that would hopefully lead to a job after I finish school. Where my passion truly lies though is in smaller museums, ones that I have worked in for most of my young life. Many of them have problems with attracting visitors or sustaining enough funds to keep them alive. I would love to manage one of these smaller museums and help to get them back on their feet.

I realize that I am fortunate to know what career path I want to take, and that over the past 8 years I have worked towards this goal. I never thought I would have trouble deciding which way in the museum world I want to go!