I decided on a museum career one unemployed day when I was 27 because I
had always gone to museums on family vacations and kinda liked them.  I
entered museum graduate school at 29 - I applied three times to the
program before getting in, volunteering during those years to get the
required experience the school was looking for.  Of 13 people in my
class, seven were under the age of 25, the other six ranged from 29 to
around 50.  Only one or two had been undergrad history majors, the
others had been in criminal justice, education, marketing, etc.  After
graduation (masters degree in history museum studies), I took a one year
post-grad internship in Philadelphia - low money, great experience, not
a city I wanted to be in (sorry, Philly fans) - followed by 9 months of
unemployment, then a 9 month grant-funded job, and finally a full-time
job that a grad school friend told me about.  I've been working steadily
since then, but there aren't any guarantees.

It's not too late, you're not too old, "No" means reapply until they
surrender, all work experience comes in handy in this field, and you
won't make as much money as you would doing other things.  Big museums
do require PhDs - do you need to work at a big museum to be happy?  Try
different museums - big, small, government, private, for profit (yes,
there are some of those).  As for the economy and job prospects, it's
definitely scary and I'm not sure what I'll do if I lose my job, but
I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it.

Keep the faith, new (and old) people - I'd do it all over again.

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