| How
would you like to prepare an ancient Egyptian mummy for display,
arrange dinosaur bones for an exhibit, or select a valuable
painting to be viewed by thousands of people? If these ideas
excite you, then you might be interested in a career as a
museum curator.
Curators select
science, historical, or art objects for collections in museums.
They also plan how the objects will be exhibited. Then they
mount them for display so visitors can view them. Curators
manage the many items in a museum’s collection so they
are preserved for viewing now and in the future.
Curators can work in many different museums:
Science Museums:
If science and nature interest you, consider being a curator
in a natural history museum, aquarium, botanical garden, planetarium,
science and technology museum, or a zoo.
Historical
Museums: You might enjoy being a curator in a living
history museum where actors portray figures from historical
periods. There also are local, state, and national history
museums for those who are fascinated by history.
Art Museums:
Do you love art and design? Then being an art museum
curator just might be the career for you.
Interview with Cate Hammond, Associate Art Museum Curator:
 For
some young people, going on a field trip to a museum isn’t
just a day out of school, but an exciting adventure. Cate
Hammond felt that way when she would go on a museum field
trip with her classmates. “Also, as a child, I loved
art,” Cate says. It was a natural for her to follow
her love of art as she entered college. At first, Cate did
not think about combining her two loves: art and museums.
“However,
for the art degree, I had to take art history classes and
was bitten by the art museum bug,” Cate explains. “I
found I could use my art degree in a museum when designing
an exhibit. So I went off to graduate school to get a master’s
degree in art history and museum studies.”
The internship
program in graduate school was the most important preparation
in becoming a museum curator. “I learned what happens
behind the scenes in a museum,” says Cate. “This
is something you don’t discover in the classroom.”
Her education and training resulted in a position as an Associate
Curator at the Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia.
What is
the best part of being a museum curator? Cate says it is the
wide variety of job responsibilities. She especially enjoys
setting up an art exhibit because she is able to use her design
experience and her creativity.
“To
set up an exhibit,” Cate explains, “a curator
first must come up with an idea for the exhibit, determine
what the museum already owns, and decide what can go into
that exhibit. There is a lot of planning, research, and decision-making
involved.” Creating an exhibit even includes designing
the signs and writing the labels to accompany each artwork
or item in the exhibit.
The curator
also works with the public relations and education departments
on how to promote the exhibit. Curators make themselves available
to the press and for museum tours to talk about the exhibit.
Curators
at large museums may travel to conduct field research or acquire
items for the museum’s collection or exhibitions. “Even
though the hours are long,” Cate says, “there
never is a dull moment at a museum.”
What
You Can Do to Get Ready:
A young person
who has an interest in becoming a museum curator can become
a junior docent at a museum that has such a program. A docent
is a volunteer who is trained to give tours of a museum.
Cate also recommends
looking into other programs and classes that your local museum
offers. Become a regular visitor and be sure to ask questions.
In college, focus
on your area of museum interest, whether it be science, history,
or art history. According to Cate, the key part is going to
graduate school after college. Curators need a master’s
degree in museum studies or in a specific museum field (such
as art history or natural history depending on your museum
interest). Large museums require their curators to have a
Ph.D.
What
it Pays:
The salary range
for a museum curator ranges from approximately $40,000 to
$60,000 per year. Salaries of curators in large museums are
higher than those in small ones.
Other
Resources:
San
Francisco’s Exploratorium
website has many online science exhibits and experiments.
Explore
the Metropolitan Museum of Art through their MuseumKids
website.
Click on the kids
link on Plimoth
Plantation’s website. You can discover what it was
like to live in 17th Century Massachusetts at this famed lived
history museum.
This site provides
more information on becoming a museum
curator.
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