History Majors and Museum Studies

The field of museum work is no longer the old mental picture of dusting off bones and mounting insects in some huge stuffy old building. Careers in the museum field are numerous and exciting. There also are thousands of sites and museums to work in. To learn more about museums in a certain state, list of different types of museums, find directories of museums, how to pursuer a career in museums, etc., use this link to the American Association of Museums (AAM) site. Museum education helpers are provided by Museum-Ed, and Public History helpers are here.

The places to get museum-related degrees are not prolific, but they certainly have increased in the past few decades. I have noticed the major fields and school departments directly tied to museum degrees are art history, science education, and history. For a list of graduate schools offering museum degrees, check out the GradSchools.com Eastern U.S. list, the NC Museums Council college survey, the Smithsonian list, or the international ICM/ICTOP list. Also, you can go the homepage of GradSchools.com, under Search Graduate Programs by Subject select Humanities. A long list of options will come up including museum-related fields like Historic Preservation, Museum Studies, and Public History. Using these resources, some of the programs and schools I have looked at are: the Leadership in Museum Education program of Bank Street College Graduate School of Education in New York, the M.A. in Museum Education or Museum Communication from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the M.A. in Museum Studies from the University of Kansas, the M.A. in Historical Administration from Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, and the UNCG Public History Program in Museum Studies.

Of course, many degrees can get you a job in a museum, depending on your area of interest. Marketing, finance, business administration, curator/collections management, art history, science, education, architecture/exhibit design, graphic design, archeology, anthropology, history, etc. are all degree areas that can be used in a museum. The University of Michigan: Museum of Art has a page to help their museum program students find a career. The following is a list of sites to help people locate jobs in museums or just locate a museum: Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) job list, MuseumsUSA museum directory, Canadian Museums Association, Western Museums Association, Museum Education Roundtable list of professional associations, National Association for Museum Exhibition job listing, and the AAM job list.

For those interested in a history degree (not museum studies / public history), here are a few sites to help with that. Wake Forest University has a page on internships, graduate schools, professional schools, careers for historians, etc. Also, the American Historical Association (AHA) offers help in finding a history career as well. Humboldt Sate University History Department is also a good resource for history majors. To find a school that offers the history PhD specialization you want, use the AHA History Doctoral Programs in U.S. and Canada page as a good start. Another possible help is a history program ranking site to help you locate a history program that fits your needs best.