Hello All,
I've gotten in to two public history/museum studies programs. The one at Brown is called "Public Humanities" and seems to be focused on a lot of interdisciplinary and theoretical work. The program at George Washington seems more vocational, offering classes in collection management, conservation, etc.
I want to be a curator. That's all I've ever wanted to do, and in the years I've spent researching the job and completing various internships, I still can't discern a clear-cut path towards my career goal. I feel like I already have enough experience as a grunt worker (two years as a research assistant/exhibit construction), and now I want to aim a little higher. I applied to two PhD programs in history and got rejected from both -- one prof wrote me a note saying that I didn't need a PhD to work in a museum... I wish I had the guts to write back and say, "actually, Professor, I plan on being pretty important. So I'll need that PhD to give me street cred." (Don't get the wrong idea. I'm really not so obnoxious I would say something like that).
So what should I do? The program at George Washington seems more geared towards actually training me for jobs, but I'm not sure those are the jobs I want. If I become a registrar, am I stuck with that for the rest of my life or is it possible to crawl up the ranks and eventually become the director/curator? I'm also discouraged because I'm female and it seems to me like most small to middling sized museums are filled with women with MA's who do all the actual work, supervised by a male curator who got into museums after working in academia for 35 years.
I'm also thinking about just sticking in the work force for a while... Only I'm currently unemployed and the opportunities are not too plentiful.
Any advice will be greatly appreciated!