This is topic Anyone know anything about a career in as a museum curator or conservator? in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.
Eve’s interested in looking into this as a possible career. She has a JD and strong intellectual property experience. She doesn’t have a lot of science now, but has organic and bio chem under her belt (two preliminary courses for a masters in biotechnology program at Johns Hopkins).
She’s heard that the best conservator programs are at the Met in NY and Getty/UCLA in LA. I’m surprised there isn’t a good program in DC, actually.
Does anyone know of any other programs, what kind of prerequisites they generally have, and how competitive the field is?
Thanks!
Dagonee
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
While I don't have any personal experience on the subject, I was suprised to see how much information did appear on Google:
Has she considered approaching a museum curator and discussing the career from an insider's perspective?
-Trevor ("Mr. Obvious")
Posted by Belle (Member # 2314) on :
I like Trevor's suggestion - I've been hitting up every librarian I know, both those that work in education and those that work in public libraries and they have all not only been amazingly helpful, but eager to discuss their career with me. Total strangers - I just go up and ask any chance I get.
The info I got from them influenced where I'm going to school - after learning that one master's program is geared toward public library work and another is focused on library media in education - I decided to go to a different university. If someone likes their job, they are usually happy to share with others. If they don't like their job...maybe there's a reason. Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
Thanks for the links, Trevor. This is the kind of background info we've got, although your search gave us a few new links.
She's planning on going to talk to people over the next few months.
I was hoping someone had either done this already or knew someone who had, so I'm bumping this up to get the non-weekend crowd, too.
Dagonee
Posted by Mrs.M (Member # 2943) on :
Is she looking to work at science or art museums?
I can tell you something about working in art museums - it's very competitive. You have to have an undergrad degree in Art or Art History and at least a master's, too. From what I heard from the Art History majors in college, you also have to have major connections to get into the top programs. The competition just for internships there were cutthroat.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I think she leans more toward art and/or anthropology, but I'm not sure. One of the reasons she's interested in conservator work is that its more highly sought after than pure curator experience. Conservators require some hard sciences - chemistry, materials, etc.
She does not have an art history undergrad degree, unfortunately.
Dagonee
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
I'm not sure how important Art History undergrad work would be in something more scientific like Anthropology - but I wish her luck all the same.
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