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Dear All,

Danielle Bronon writes: "If so, what's the value in [advanced] degrees if they do not necessarily advance careers?"

A good question, in response to which -- as somebody who came to the Museum world (and my current job) with a PhD in history and a 20+ career in academia behind me, and as the parent of a newly minted post-graduate with MAs in Museum Studies and Modern History -- I'd offer two observations

Advanced degrees in Museum Studies, Library & Information Science, etc, confer a broader, deeper, more up-to-date grounding in professional practice than any practical on-the-job-training (OJT) scheme can likely match. I'm a librarian/archivist whose professional skills in that field are all derived from OJT. They're good enough to meet the institution's needs in the absence of a trained, MLIS-carrying archivist, but someone with a proper credential and the training that lies behind it could do more things (and do them faster and at a higher level of sophistication) than I -- even with 7 years of intense experience -- can.
Advanced degrees in subject-matter fields (like my PhD in history at my history-centric institution, or an art-history MA or PhD at an art museum) confer professional-grade research skills and deep awareness of the cultural/intellectual landscape from which collection objects emerged, and the historical context within which they are created and have previously been interpreted. Short of a mentorship whose depth and intensity rivals that of an Oxbridge tutorial, it is (in my experience), extremely difficult to get that kind of training outside of a graduate program.

Does everyone working in a museum need a graduate degree? Not at all. Is practical knowledge, accumulated through volunteer experience or by working closely with experienced professionals, valuable? Of course. As someone wrote, up-thread: Grab every chance you get to expand your experience.

But many of the things that Museums do -- including classifying, cataloging, describing, and building webs of meaning between collection items in increasingly sophisticated ways and imbedding collection items ever more deeply and richly in their (multiple) social-cultural-political-intellectual context(s) -- are enhanced (and, past a certain point, only possible) with the skills that come from graduate-level study.

Best wishes,

A. Bowdoin Van Riper

Research Librarian

Martha's Vineyard Museum

151 Lagoon Pond Rd

Vineyard Haven, MA 02568

508-627-4441 x115

On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 12:01 PM Danielle Bronson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Jenna & all,

Jenna — thank you for asking this question! I've been visited with similar fears; I'm also a recent graduate. This summer, I've been studying the GRE and trying to quell the anxiety of the end goals of my education.

My questions for the email list are in a similar manner: is there a preference for degrees (MFA vs MA vs PhD) made in hiring decisions at art museums? Or is it as Michelle and others have echoed, moreso a competitive market for those with work experience? If so, what's the value in these degrees if they do not necessarily advance careers?

With care,

Danielle
Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 23, 2021, at 06:09, Michelle Zupan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Hi Jenna,

I would echo 100% what Marc says about the over saturation of the market with "museum studies" Master's degrees. As someone who hires interns annually, I would much rather have an employee with less education and more work/life experience than one who has an overabundance of book learning and not one iota of work experience. I can teach someone to care for museum collections, I can teach someone how to create wonderful programs, I cannot teach someone with an MA or PhD. how to give a flip about a job, nor am I interested in teaching someone with an MA or a PhD. to have a work ethic and be willing to literally do the "scut work" that is the reality of museum work (cleaning clogged downspouts in a deluge, burying dead chickens, whatever).

Embrace your BA. If you have to volunteer at museums as a side hustle to get your face out there, do it. Get all of the work experience in dealing with people and responsibility that you can. And sell yourself to the museums with that VALUABLE experience.

Best,

--
Michelle Zupan
Curator
Hickory Hill & the Tom Watson Birthplace
502 Hickory Hill Drive
Thomson, GA 30824
706-595-7777
FAX: 706-595-7177

Visit us at www.hickory-hill.org or on Facebook.
Follow us on Twitter: HHEducation

Historic homes of the Watson-Brown Foundation, Inc.

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