silverink | Life and Future Plans

I recently (well, mid November-ish. I'm only just getting around to posting about it lol) attended an informational webinar about careers in museums and what kind of education you need for that, and I think this is officially what I want to do when I leave college! I've been thinking about museum work as a career option for a while, but I'm pretty convinced now. I love the idea of giving the general public access to history and educating them in a way that's available to anyone. I've pretty much always loved museums since I was a young child, and I want to give other people that same experience and love of history, especially kids. Museums are so important to educating people and making history interesting, and I'd just love to do something related to that! I'm not exactly sure what position I'd want, but I think I'd like to either be a curator or set up/arrange exhibits. Hopefully I'll be able to do an internship sometime this summer to learn more!

Also, I just got diagnosed with ADHD, so hopefully I can get meds and coping strategies that work for me for next semester. I'm going to get a Franklin planner soon, and I really think that'll help with organization for school and life in general. Very excited about having a good organization and planning system that I can personalize! In general, feeling positive and excited about the future <3

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It was my dream as a kid to be a museum curator, but I eventually settled on library sciences. I wish you the best of luck! Are you specifically interested in any field or concentration? I know there's a lot of smaller museums that focus on local history, at least in my area. But you seem like a bigger picture kind of person. :)

As odd as it sounds, congrats on your diagnosis. It's one big step towards management of your condition. I hope your organization plans go well!

Aw thanks so much! I've actually considered library sciences a little too tbh XD

And yeah I think something in the bigger picture would be more my thing XD I'm not sure exactly what field I'd want to do, but probably something to do with ancient history since that's what I'm most interested in generally! American history would be interesting to work with too, though.

Haha yeah it's kind of strange to say isn't it?! It's definitely been a relief to know for sure what's going on though. Thank you very much! I hope so too :D And hopefully I'll get my planner tomorrow!

>> I love the idea of giving the general public access to history and educating them in a way that's available to anyone. I've pretty much always loved museums since I was a young child, <<

<3 mathom-houses.

>> and I want to give other people that same experience and love of history, especially kids. <<

Collect the weird and gross bits. Lots of kids love that. You can also net them with the history of any topic that kids love (bugs, princesses, trucks, dinosaurs, television, gaming, etc.). Another approach is to demonstrate the concrete uses of history: you can use it to avoid mistakes, to get a job, to learn survival skills, and so on. Don't be afraid to write your own history texts. The best history class I ever had didn't have a textbook, just Mr. Butler's handouts -- and you can thank him for the part of my plot skills that aren't Tolkien's Hurt/Comfort ratchet. *chuckle* "Everything is geopolitics!"

>> I'm not exactly sure what position I'd want, but I think I'd like to either be a curator or set up/arrange exhibits. <<

No reason you can't do several. A small museum has few employees. A large one has scads of jobs and people can often transfer among them. Try both to see which environment you prefer. Bigger has a bigger budget, but smaller gives each person much more power.

If curating interests you, then you can do that now. There are lots of underserved populations and topics. Pick something that doesn't have any, or many, museums serving it and start a collection. Or you could collect modern art by same. You can make a very big splash in a small pond.

A lot of museums suffer deeply from ingrained prejudices, resulting in slanted collections, but the problems are easy to fix if people could be arsed to do it. Collection is 97% male, 3% female, 0% other? Add more stuff by nonmen. People your age are a lot less tolerant of such prejudices, on average, than many older people. To keep audience interest, museums need more diversity -- that is, big ones need to diversify, and we need more thematic ones devoted to diverse history. It doesn't mean pester thematic museums to break theme.

*ponder* I wish somebody would collect Confederate statues before folks start smashing them, a very credible threat given historic examples. Put the stuff in a place where people can still study it if they want to, but it's not out in the street annoying modern tastes. That shift is a very interesting thing to study and record, and we're right at the peak of it.

Or ephemera. You can't go wrong collecting that, almost nobody ever thinks to, but it's precious as a glimpse of everyday history. Especially now, so much is on the internet, it mostly gets lost in a few months or years. Plus collecting ephemera is among the cheapest pursuits, and easily the cheapest that can have big impact. Shakespeare's old broadsides, slave manifests, Beatles posters ... that kind of thing.

Something else you can do now: pop-up exhibits. My college used to do those fairly often, not just history students, but most departments would pitch displays on their topic. Check your college's event policy and what it takes to reserve a room or put a table in a high-traffic building. Ours were often in the Student Union, or else in the department building. The Women's Studies department did pop-ups a lot, and English/Rhetoric did rare books sometimes. Better yet, get some friends together and each put a table of your favorite topic. The more you have, the bigger the draw. Another option, if you're any good at website building, would be to do an online exhibit. Many museums duplicate some or all of their exhibits online, so that's a marketable skill too.

I love museums, I've seen dozens if not hundreds, and I'd love to see more. The last one I hit had a sale going -- they were cycling out old art, so I bought gifts for my parents at absurdly low prices. And the gift shop had mini-collections of Civil War relics, which are all over the ground there.

>> Also, I just got diagnosed with ADHD, so hopefully I can get meds and coping strategies that work for me for next semester. <<

I know a lot of neurovariant folks. The problem is that almost no therapists will teach you how to work with the brain you have and how to capitalize on things you do well that most people don't. Can you lock on a favorite topic to the exclusion of all else? A lot of neurovariant people can, and neurotypical people don't usually do it as well, if at all. Consider finding older people with your traits. They will often have ideas on how to solve problems that are baffling you. The mainstream health system has its uses, but it generally wants to make cookie-cutter people, not enhance rare traits to their best potential.

In particular, consider state-dependent memory before you decide whether to alter your biochemistry with ongoing meds. Think about what you want, and who's likely to help you get it. This a much more sensitive issue in memory-dependent fields than action-dependent fields. Some people find that they think much better with meds, others that it gets in the way.

>> I'm going to get a Franklin planner soon, and I really think that'll help with organization for school and life in general. Very excited about having a good organization and planning system that I can personalize! <<

Many people benefit from planners. I keep a desktop calendar myself. I just made a post about bullet journals.

Life and Future Plans

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