A Conferencing We Will Go!

The American Alliance of Museum's Annual Meeting is coming. What will you do to prepare? Prepare!?! What!?! As a graduate student tadpole years ago, I didn't think anything about preparation. I have since learned a little preparation goes a long way. But don't get me wrong, I am not expert. I will, however, give a little advice about some things to keep in mind. If you have heard and read all this before, please pass your wisdom to a friend.

In my tadpole days, as a biology graduate student, I thought of conferencing as a way to commune with all that was exciting and current in the field. I thought I would listen to cool ideas and meet interesting people. I didn't know that I should be more active in my communing, listening and meeting.

So six years later, with 7+ conferences and one AAM conference behind me, here are a few tips I learned from career advisors, and friends:

Order Business Cards ASAP
At first I thought this was such a waste because I was only going to be in graduate school for another year. The future of most of the 250 cards with a UW logo would be the Seattle recycling bin. But, business cards are a type of currency at conferences. It is how new people remember you, and how you remember new people. I would also encourage paying for 2-sided printing. Adding your skills, or areas of expertise to the back is a good way for people to know what you can do before they read your resume or see your LinkedIn profile.

Make a LinkedIn Profile
If you haven't done it, DO IT! I was slow to accept LinkedIn. I didn't think it would do anything for me, and it would be just another site where I had a username and password. I thought I would only give my credentials via printed resume to potential employers. But life is increasingly cyber-connected and not paper-based. Also, when you give someone your business card, they might Google you or look you up on LinkedIn.

Use the AAM JobHQ
You can create an account and upload your resume. I have never been contacted by a potential employer, but it doesn't hurt to do this. You never know, it could help.

The Thesis (and Yourself) in Under 20 Seconds
People will ask about: where you are from, what you do, what your thesis is about, what you are interested in, and where you see yourself going in the future. Practice answers with a friend until you feel comfortable giving short answers that are true to who you are. Getting nervous at conferences is natural and this will help a little.

Do Not Sit With People You Know (at least 1/2 the time)
It is also natural to stick with people you know when you enter a space swimming with strangers. But in order to make connections, it helps to branch out and sit next to people you don't know. When you attend lunch, a session, or a cocktail event say hello to the people around you, introduce yourself, and ask them about the conference. You never know when the person next to you might be from a museum you admire, a state you want to move to, or someone who could be a conference buddy.

Clothes
To buy or not to buy...that is the question. On a graduate student budget it is hard to find extra cash to spend on new business attire. I do not recommend buying a new suit unless you know you will be wearing it to many future job interviews, and you suspect your future job will require it. I would, however, make sure the slacks, long-sleeve shirts, skirts, blouses, etc...that you have in your closet, are clean, spotless, fit well, and are ironed. Make a list of what you need or don't have, and shop for those items first. If you wish for new ensembles, I recommend the Nordstrom Rack in Downtown Seattle, and consignment shops such as Alexandra's in Downtown Seattle, and Le Frock in Capitol Hill. Sorry gents, I don't have store recommendations for you.

Hope to see you all at AAM!

Patty M.

Life After Museology: Museum Evaluator for Hire

I've been working about 2 months with a small museum consulting/evaluation company located in Washington DC. Here are some things I have learned on the job so far that I think might help others thinking of doing evaluation work after graduation or even while in the New Directions program. 

This maybe a forgone conclusion, but know your SPSS plus other software for statistics. 

At UW you can visit CSSCR The Center for Social Science Computation and Research and go their website for documents related to learning SPSS, SAS, Excel, R, and other software. But if you can't make it to one of their seminars, or you have difficulty learning from a pdf, there are other resources on the web. You can follow tutorials on YouTube!! These are great because, unlike a seminar or class, you can pause the video and rewind. This way you never fall behind.

For YouTube videos on SPSS, search (click on the words in bold to get to the web link):

SPSS

RStatsInstitute

myCSULA (*personal favorite)

While a student at UW, I learned SPSS more than 5 years ago as a young graduate student in biology. But after my first year, the biology department and all other science departments on campus abandoned SPSS for the R project. R is free and a more powerful stats software than SPSS. Since we were in a recession at the time free was much better than science departments paying $1,000s per year for SPSS. YouTube has been great for me to relearn SPSS. 

Buy SPSS before you leave UW. 

The UW Bookstore sells SPSS at a student rate of $90. Get the version that doesn't require a yearly license renewal. If you buy SPSS after graduation you will need to pay IBM $2,000+.  Also, saying you already have SPSS on your computer makes you a more attractive applicant, especially for contract positions. 

What other statistics software should you learn?

Excel, definitely. 

R, maybe.

This is a difficult question to answer because it depends on what potential employers are looking for. 

For example here is excerpt from a recent job ad for Education Research Manager, Center for Learning Innovation and Collaboration

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & ABILITIES

·         Excellent project management skills with strong ability to successfully manage several large initiatives simultaneously

·         Working knowledge of PCs, using word processing, spread sheet and databases software.

·         Comfort with computer-based data management resources (for example: SPSS, SYSTAT, S-Plus, SigmaPlot, R, or SAS, etc.)

·         Comfort with change, innovation, and unique approaches to educational research methods and programming

·         Comfort with approaching members of the public for data collection purposes. 

--Patty M. 

Life after Museology: Moving to Washington D.C.

Lesson One: if you are planning to move to D.C. have a job lined up.  

I didn't understand how important this was until I started apartment searching. All the property managers, and craigslist people ask for information about why you are moving to D.C. and for letters from your employer (future or current) to prove you will have income to pay the rent. Luckily, my other half has a job in D.C. and I didn't have to worry about my unemployment status starting in September. 

Lesson Two: Prepare to compete aggressively with lots of people for any apartment.  

Before going to search for an apartment, do some homework on the neighborhoods. We have a friend in DC who was able to tell us about which areas would be great for our lifestyle. We wanted to be close to public transit, walking distance to restaurants and lots of peace and quiet. This narrowed things down a bit and helped when deciding which apartment listings to respond to. When you do meet whoever is showing you an apartment be prepared for something that feels like a job interview. Some property managers and owners not only want to know about your credit history but want to know you as a person. So having a good elevator speech doesn't hurt. In fact, we were put at the top of a list of potential renters because we happened to be environmentally friendly people and from UW. We didn't know that the owner of a 1bedroom apartment in a great area was an environmental lawyer and went to UW for law school! What are the odds? Finally, don't take your time deciding on a place. I hate to write this piece of advice because I think a person should be happy with their apartment if they are paying for it (especially DC prices which are $1,500+/month for 600 sq. ft.). Apartments go fast. If you take more than a day or two to decide before signing a check for the application fee, the apartment will be gone.

What can you do? Schedule lots of appointments on the same day, vigilantly check padmapper and craigslist everyday for new listings, and be prepared to make quick decisions.

If you need advice and help, there is a growing number of UW Museology grads in the DC metro area. 

More to come soon....

Related to that idea I didn't use for Research Design class, I just ran across this article connected with the Trends Watch 2012 (Center for the Future of Museums), Unschooling, Museums & Learning Models for this Century.  Really interesting comment section regarding museums' role in the debate about formal vs. informal education.

Volunteers!

Hi all! Welcome to my first Museoblog post!

I just wanted to take the opportunity to talk about volunteers, because volunteers are awesome! Yes, there is the aspect of "free labor" which, as museums, we are always happy about. But volunteers bring so much more to the table than just working for free! They bring passion, loyalty, commitment, and enthusiasm. They are your institution's community connection, and they can act as ambassadors and marketers. There is no greater word on how your institution is meeting its goals than to hear from a volunteer how excited they are to be there for free!

One of the reasons I enjoy working with volunteers is that excitement and enthusiasm. They are genuinely interested in helping the museum and are always willing to provide feedback and help out when needed. I enjoy reading shift reports because almost everything is "Got to talk with a bunch of visitors today and it was awesome!" or "I love talking with visitors about [exhibit name] because the always teach me something new!". I read a shift the other day where one of our volunteer tour guides got tipped...and immediately donated it to the museum!

There are so many ways volunteers can be incorporated into museums. Special events, front desk, collections, marketing, development, exhibits--anywhere! They have so much passion to share, and guests really pick up on that, and it helps to strengthen community connections.   

Museocomics #2: Way overdue

Yes, Museum Advocacy Day was over a month ago, but any day is a great day for starting important conversations and getting through awkward ones full of Ben Stiller references. 

End of the Quarter Thoughts

As the quarter has been winding down for me and I have had some time to just relax and think, I thought I would be happy. It is near the end of the quarter, I am done my work, my girlfriend is coming across the country to visit, and I am feeling fairly optimistic about summer jobs and internship opportunities. Despite all this, when I slowed down and caught my breath, I began to feel unhappy and unsettled. Although I couldn't make out why at first, I tried to get to the bottom of these emotions. I finally realized that I was unhappy with myself: unhappy with my attitude and approach to grad school.

Normally, I pride myself in being a fairly helpful, caring person. And honestly, this was one of the reasons that I decided to work in museums in the first place. I thought working in a museum would be the best way for me to use my talents in the service of others. It could be a place for me to put my passion and energy toward something I believe in, and share that passion with others, even if it means being a little tired at the end of the day.

What made me so unhappy was how quickly I had lost sight of that throughout the year. I felt as if I had changed, and not for the better. Rather than asking myself how I could help others, I was asking myself how I could make myself look better to future employers. Rather than thinking about what my talents were that I could use to make someone's day a little better, I was thinking about what I could do to beef up my resume. While I think that graduate school is the time to network, develop skills that would look good on a resume, and start to think about jobs, it is not the end the end-all be-all of our future careers. It is a tool to help us achieve what it is we would like to achieve.

I am writing this reflection on my own personal experiences in the hope that it will give others the time to stop and think about their own experiences in our graduate program, or in other graduate programs. Whenever you are feeling stressed about an assignment, busy schedule, thesis paper, or projects, I hope that you think about what is beyond the stress. First, the stress is a sign that you care about what you are doing, and that you are invested in the choices you have made to be where you are today. But it can also get in the way of seeing why we are stressing ourselves out in the first place.

While stress might be a necessary evil in motivating us to get things done, if stress overtakes the love and passion in what you are doing, slow down! We might not turn in the perfect assignment, make a perfect budget, or write the perfect thesis, but we don't need to. What we need to do is make ourselves the most effective museum professionals we are capable of being, so we can be happy with ourselves and spread that happiness along.