If you're happy and challenged in your current position, you should stay put. I, too, have a lowly museum studies certificate and while it was useful in some ways when I was on the job market, it was networking, my work experience, and my curatorial portfolio that got me my most rewarding jobs.

On the other side of the coin, I have hired dozens of staff and volunteers over the years, and  I have found that academic degrees are the least reliable determinant of a person's qualifications and ability to get the job done. I assume other museum CEOs have had the same experience.

 It's not easy to find a good museum position in the best of times, and taking a career break now for a degree that may only marginally enhance your career options seems risky.

Sep 6, 2012 03:26:12 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:

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Hello everyone,

I'm stuck in a sticky situation and I was hoping some of you had some advice. I volunteered/internship/did independent studies at the undergraduate level at the Arizona State Museum (ASM) in Tucson, AZ (as Southwest archaeological museum) for about two to three years and then managed to get a student position in the Repository and held that for a year, graduated with a BA in Anthropology and Creative Writing and I am currently employed full time at ASM working on a major repatriation project as well as working on finishing an article on a research project I did with Southwestern Prehistoric pottery that I hope to get published. Before I got the full-time position I had applied to Arizona State University's Museum Studies Master program and was accepted. I am scheduled to start classes Fall 2013 (I've already postponed enrollment the max amount of time, due to a different situation). My employers already knew about my plan to attend graduate school in a year before they hired me, so that is not a factor.


I am wondering whether it would be better to stay at my full-time position and pursue a Masters later (in other words tell ASU I will not be attending classes in Fall 2013, potentially closing that door permanently) or if I should leave my full-time position to attend classes as originally intended risking not having a job when I graduate.


An idea I had was to get an online Museum Studies Certificate while still working full-time at ASM and possibly do night classes to get an Anthropology MA. But I'm not sure how highly or lowly Museum Studies Certificates are viewed in the museum world.


Any advice/opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,
Melanie Deer





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