Before you encourage her to further her education in the museum field make sure she thoroughly understands what's at the end of the rainbow: steep competition for jobs, more candidates in many instances than there are jobs to be had, low wages in more instances than there ever should be, and lots of hard work. Make sure she knows you do this for the love of the profession and not the riches you acquire. That is NOT to say she should be discouraged from considering such a career. It's just to make sure she goes into it with her eyes wide open. Make sure she has the advantage of looking at this: http://www.bls.gov/opub/ooq/ Good luck. ________________________________ From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2008 7:34:18 AM Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Museum Careers Question We have a wonderful high school student who is finishing her internship with us this week. Unfortunately, the biggest thing she has learned is apparently that a small museum like ours is not what she is interested in—not enough daily interaction with the public. She is still interested in going into a museum-related field, and I would like to give her some advice, but I don’t have a background in museums—mine is in research and teaching. The closest career recommendations I could come up with for her would be to go into either library science or the antiques business. With the strengths and weaknesses listed below, could some of you museum professionals suggest museum-related careers she might look into? Strengths: very bright, good at integrating diverse facts with things she already knows; articulate; a good writer; interested in literature and history; dependable; a helpful and reliable assistant during educational programs; likes to talk to people one-on-one; prefers a job where she has a lot of interaction with people; eyes light up when she is working with some artifacts. Areas she has not shown strength or interest in: quiet, not interested in teaching or speaking to groups; when asked to research an artifact and design a small exhibit explaining it, she conducted the research but found the exhibit design difficult and barely met the extended deadline; hand-eye coordination is only average, so I would not recommend that she specialize in cleaning or restoring artifacts; states that mathematics is not her strong point. Thanks in advance for any replies. Kim Elmore Outreach Coordinator GwinnettHistory Museum 455 S. Perry Street Lawrenceville, GA 30045========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes). ========================================================= Important Subscriber Information: The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes). If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).