Kathy --

I agree with my Cooperstown colleague --stick to your guns.  I started
working in museums when I was 15, and have never left. It has been hard at
times, but I am very happy I continued to keep my foot, or toe, in the door.
  I have also had some horrible jobs to make ends meet and always several at
a time.  However, if you keep thinking of ways to apply your good and
not-so-good experiences to your future museum profession, you can't go
wrong.  Waitressing (my real money job for a long time) taught me to do many
things at one time, how to be a good manager, and how bad it is to work for
a bad manager.  My on-the-job training in "unrelated" fields has come in
handy.

On a related note, try to work in as many different areas the museum field
as possible. Eventually your seemingly limited understanding of what your
co-workers are doing will be useful during compromises later in your career.

Essentially, no experience is useless, and as many as possible are great!
Whatever you are doing can be applied to your long-term goals.

Good Luck!

Erin Crissman
Curator of Collections
Historic Cherry Hill
Albany, NY


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