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
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.
