out about student destinations and the employment records of graduates from the course.
Career prospects
It is important to be realistic about career prospects in the museum sector. It is a highly competitive market and not everyone will succeed in getting their ideal job. There is also considerable debate about whether a postgraduate museum studies course is essential for museum work, with conflicting messages coming from employers. On the one hand, job criteria often specify a postgraduate qualification, while on the other, applicants are often told they are over-qualified and have not acquired the desired practical or managerial skills on their course. There are other ways to begin a career in museums, such as traineeships, apprenticeships, or coming in from another sector such as education or marketing. Therefore it is important for you to decide that the Master’s degree is the route for you.
In addition to the benefits outlined above, until recently a postgraduate museum studies qualification, along with two-year continuous professional development (CPD) was one route for eligibility for the Museums Association AMA. The MA expected the qualification to demonstrate a broad understanding of museum work and museum principles. Whether or not a postgraduate qualification remains as one possible criterion for the AMA, knowledge of the sector beyond your own workplace is likely to be required. The broad view and theoretical underpinning delivered by a postgraduate course is very useful as you begin a career in the museum sector, and is not something you can acquire from work experience. The research, organisational and communication skills acquired from writing a dissertation, the ability to absorb and evaluate information and to think critically and reflectively will never be wasted as they are skills which are transferable to most areas of museum work.
Case Studies
The following three case studies feature graduates from the University of St Andrews’ Museum and Gallery Studies course. They have been chosen to illustrate the variety of backgrounds from which students come and career paths they follow, show something of the range of topics that can be researched for a dissertation and to demonstrate some of the benefits of a Master’s degree.
Interview with John Burnie, volunteer in an independent industrial museum
John took the two-year part-time MLitt in Museum and Gallery Studies at the University of St Andrews. His dissertation looked at the development of quality assessment schemes in museums, such as Registration and Accreditation. This gave an historical and theoretical context to the actual work going on at his museum.
‘As a volunteer in a mainly volunteer-run museum, there were two main reasons for my seeking a qualification in museum studies. The first was that Accreditation required my institution to have a qualified museum professional available to it, and the second was that as a self-taught museum volunteer (a process that consisted largely of learning from mistakes), I needed a more rounded view of the body of knowledge that a museum person requires. In addition, there was the interesting, if slightly scary prospect of going back to university after a decade or two in industry.
‘The course was accessible to me because it was available on a part-time basis, over two years, through just a few concentrated weeks of teaching at St Andrews, with assignments and project work to do at my own pace in between. My organisation was able to get a grant to cover part of the cost of the fees. It was good to meet other students sharing the same professional interests and excellent to add knowledge to my existing museum experience.
‘This was a very practical course, and the project work was planned between me and my tutor to be both instructive and of useful benefit to my museum. As a result, while I use my new knowledge usually without thinking how I came by it, I still use several of the assignment outcomes in my daily work, and think of sunny days in St Andrews!’
Interview with Jessica Burdge, Curator, Museums Collection, University of St Andrews
After her undergraduate degree, Jessica took the full-time one-year MLitt Museum and Gallery Studies course. Her dissertation topic was Curating Architecture at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
‘With an undergraduate joint honours degree in art history and English and some time working in a library as well as a little experience in cataloguing on a SCRAN12 project, I felt that an MLitt in Museum and Gallery Studies would offer the professional preparation required to embark on a career in the museum sector. It provided me with a greater level of practical experience through work placements and