Let's start off with a very interesting post indeed! We are ART education graduate students, but many of us are on a "museum track". Chew on this post for a moment, if you will: Warning: Museum Graduate Programs Spawn Legions of Zombies!, There are huge number of comments, but they're fascinating.
Here are the major points that Nina Simon makes in this post, critical of the Museum MA (I'm taking them out of context to form a list):
1. Standardizing the field limits the potential for radical change.
2. No one can list the tangible skills these programs impart.
3. The credential is a crapshoot [in terms of finding a job]
4. The semblance of a credential creates a red herring that employers latch onto.
Museum educators I know are concerned about all of these things too. In a later response to a comment, Nina goes on to worry that these degrees will become a necessity to museum work, and I think that is happening. Especially in a bad economy when many jobless folks are flocking to grad school, I can freely admit that a major factor pushing me into grad school was feeling surrounded by an ever-growing number of MAs.
Anonymous commented:
I tend to feel that the students in the MA Museum Studies program are a little too idealistic, and not realistic enough. They don't have a grasp on the real world (period), and they certainly don't have a grasp on the reality of museums.What do we all think of that?
An there's much more, so read on...
2 comments:
I think all of these points about MA's have some credibility. I've had conversations with other faculty who definitely share concerns about student job prospects and expectations. But I'm not sure what can be done about it.
On a side note, I have always been a big proponent of the practical experience aspect of museum/art education work. You've got to get out there and get your hands dirty to know how things work. You just can't get some of that experience in the classroom. By having students go out in the world and work on projects, hopefully they gain some experience and background which does support their 'grasp' of both the world and museums.
This is really interesting. When I had my first museum internship as an undergrad, some of the best advice I was given was about this balance of academic experience and work experience. They warned us about going straight into grad school without balancing it with a lot of practical work experience in museums because you could come out both over- and under-qualified all at once. I'm probably now biased, since I worked for a few years before going to grad school, but I think this is sound advice.
I do worry about the red-herring point now. I see postings for LOW-level museum jobs where a masters degree is "preferred." Come on! That person is going to be doing administrative grunt work.
What I find even more unfortunate is that the work of teaching artists in museums (work that would ideally require a higher level of both artistic education and practical teaching experience) is rarely available in forms other than contract or part-time positions.
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