Anonymous asked: I saw your respond to kissestofilm and i'm currently taking Archaeology in my undergrad but I want to go onto Museum studies. Should I be worried about the field I want to go into, about being able to find a job? At the moment I don't know a whole lot about it. I'm currently a camp counselor at a Museum but I never thought there was a choice about loving what you do and money.
Museum jobs are nearly impossible to come by. I would highly encourage you to do some personal research to see if you think it’s worth it before you begin a program.
To give you an example, our curator just left his job at our museum. When he started twenty years ago he was getting paid about $38k/year. In that time, he received a few raises which brought his salary to $42k/year. That is after two decades of dedicated work. The job he is taking across the country pays less, and does not offer relocation expense reimbursements - but it is close to his family.
Because of budget cuts at our university, they have offered to pay me .25 time for 1 year to partially take over the open position, but that’s as much as the department will afford. This is after 2.5 years of nearly full-time volunteer work… they would pay me about $9/hour for 10 hours of work a week. Many museums and universities are choosing to not fulfill current openings, are laying off staff, offering early retirement incentives for certain positions, and cutting entire programs. I’m not trying to be a downer, but it is important to keep these things in mind before you take out a large amount of money in student loans.
kissestofilm asked: As someone who has dedicated their time to research and seems to be very passionate about what you're focused on, did you ever think "well researchers don't make much" or have people turn that idea down? For me, I'm interested in research but not science. I'm interested in film history and film restoration, but I find what you do very interesting and inspiring. I'd just like to do it with film. Did you ever feel like you had to decide between money and what interests you? thanks for the input :)
Anytime someone tells me they hope to work in a museum someday, I am conflicted between feelings of pride and excitement for that person, and incredible depression that they have no idea what they’re getting themselves into. One thing our curator told me when I was accepted into my MA program was to be prepared to always be fighting for your collection. You fight for space and funding, you fight against pests and infestations, you fight for attendance and publicity, against movie theaters and amusement parks, you fight for your job in lieu of local and federal budget cuts, you fight against the government wanting to take away your tax-exempt status… all of the while knowing that what you are caring for is the essence of the world around us, our history, our culture, our heritage and the articles of our collective existence on this planet. But for those who don’t care about that, despite the adversity, and for those who are satisfied with the difficult work of preserving what we know in our hearts to be inherently and inarguably important no matter what the current society or governments think - that is worth more than any paycheck.
lies asked: I'm curious why you took down your post titled "Raptured". It was heavy stuff, but having gone through something like the experience you described it rang very true. Did some of the people described in it object to your publishing it, maybe? It's none of my business, obviously. But I just thought I'd ask. Thanks for sharing it, albeit briefly.
It was therapeutic for me, but my family was not pleased.
Two years ago, I had no idea what tumblr was. My first introduction to this site happened because I was in charge of the online publicity for our BFA Senior Thesis show - it’s still online. Even then, I hardly understood what it was; we didn’t follow anyone and basically used the blog as a hosting site for our artwork.
I graduated, and over the summer my mind was occupied with the idea of blogging. I did some research about tumblr to find out what it was all about (I still don’t get it), and came to the conclusion that if I was interested in blogging at all, having a community like that behind tumblr was going to be my best bet at getting my message into the world. When I decided to launch my own tumblr (formerly UMZoology, now TheBrainScoop), it was immediately well-received, and I had a few hundred followers within the first month.
My tumblr grew, was featured in the Museum tag, gained popularity. My tumblr helped me get into graduate school, as it demonstrated a knowledge of social media and community-building. My tumblr and its audience got Hank’s attention when he first visited our museum, and my tumblr remains what I believe to be my fundamental foothold in the Internet community. I’ve grown intensely fond of it. I firmly believe that I owe everything that has come of my life through museum work to tumblr. That sounds an awful lot like a kind of cult mentality, but if two years ago I hadn’t decided to start blogging about my museum work, none of this would have come to fruition as it did.
If Yahoo buys tumblr and everything changes for the worse, I will definitely be disappointed. I’m aware all good things come to an end, but this site has given me so many opportunities beyond my wildest dreams that I can’t even imagine robbing other people of those possibilities - that is, if they choose to pursue a tumblr outside of the Supernatural/Dr. Who/Sherlock fandoms, at least. Regardless, something else will inevitably crop up and take its place. If that’s the case, I’m just happy I was given a chance to create my own little niche in our happy online community.
<3 You, tumblr.
Anonymous asked: Considering you have a hard time sleeping, what other activities do you do to keep yourself entertained at night? I have a similar issue and usually spend my time drawing things.
- Bake
- Stare into space
- Sometimes doodle
- alphabetize my books/DVDs
- realize that alphabetization isn’t the most efficient categorical system and reorganize based off of arbitrary standards which I won’t remember in the morning
- Plan big projects and then have a difficult time sleeping because I’m excited about aforementioned projects
- Wait excitedly for tomorrow because there’s so much stuff to do
- get distracted reading about the evolution of the mammalian inner ear
- pull up JStor, type in a scientific name, and fall into a pit of scholarly journal articles
- Feel obligated to save the rhinoceros from the brink of extinction
- feel bad that I probably can’t make this happen on my own
- plot ways to single-handedly save all of the rhinos and stop the perpetuation of the black market trade for their body parts (and other protected/endangered/threatened species)
- stare into space
- etc
- etc
morelighthanheat asked: Why do you answer so many questions at 3:30 in the morning?!
Because I have a difficult time sleeping.
