GreenePony

My high school/college break job had me speaking to groups up to 250 multiple times a day. I hated it and found making eye contact really comfortable. You have the right idea of looking behind. I tended to either find an older person who wasn't paying attention anyway, or look just above their heads. My high school speech class took off points if you visibly fidgeted. I found if I had a little trinket (usually cloth since it didn't make noise) on the podium I could fiddle with that without being noticeable and that helped a bit. With that and my job I found if I had something in my hand (trinkey, microphone, etc) I did better because I had something to slightly distract me.

This time last year I was on my honeymoon- think we were still on Maui at that point- starting to write up my findings from field school the month previous for a writing sample. I ended up giving up on the paper when it started to get really wishy-washy. I was also panicking because I was out of shape from field school and band week started the day after we got back to Texas (ended up with tendonitis again, not surprised). I guess I wasn't really worried about my last few ug classes and I had already picked out what programs I was applying to months earlier. I expected to be moving a considerable distance around this time, just hopefully an hour north of where we actually are moving. I didn't expect one of my friends would be going to the same program, that's a bonus.

For the boot ladies- these are possibly one of the most comfortable all-weather boots ever but I'm concerned if I wore them in the city, even switching to nicer shoes once indoors I'd get very weird looks. Thoughts? http://www.doversadd...oot/p/X1-38762/ http://www.doversaddlery.com/middleburg-all-weather-boot/p/NA-3854A/&re=viewbuyrec/ (better idea of how they look on, they wear so beautifully too) (I've been trying to find justification for these for the last 10 years but never had the budget to spend 150+ on tall boots I couldn't show in but I killed my teal paisley 15 dollar rain boots this year so...).

I was having an impossible time finding clothes that fit this year so I ended up spending most of the summer sewing. It definitely gave me something to focus on until the puppy came and the packing started. Aside from getting a pair of trouser jeans, I think I'm pretty well set for the fall. Just picked up a great shirt at the Campbell & Kate sample sale the other week for 1/5 of what they normally go for, so I even have a white shirt that I don't feel frumpy in! (may even wear it for the first day, it fits that well)

I think Dal PhDer and ticklmepink gave great advice. I would definitely talk to your adviser to see what they think. I'm not sure you even need to mention that you're hesitant because they're teaching it, just see their opinion about you taking it at all. If they have concerns because they are the instructor, I'm sure they will let you know. This fall, of the two classes I'm taking in my department, I'm taking one with my adviser and one with the adivser of a friend. She is also taking the same classes so runs into the same adviser as instructor situation. For me I'm seeing it as a way to make sure I don't get lost in the department (both are great resources and well known in my area of museums) especially since in UG neither my major or minor adviser knew me that well until I took small classes with them. The benefits of taking a class from them are outweighing any possible awkwardness from being an advisee.

Are these movers packing, loading, driving, unloading and unpacking or just un/loading and driving? The 2 loader/unloaders we hired at each end are 60-80 an hour. When we were getting quotes from national companies for load/unload and drive (this is a 1500 mile trip, mind you) it looked like it would be around 2700 if that gives you an idea.

Oh goodness... my dad is a notoriously scary packer, I'm not sure his pack jobs could survive that... I may need to supervise more than I thought. DH was watching The Great Escape with me, the other night, inspiring talk of jerryrigging some sort of protection for the TV/larger frames and canvas, I'm not sure if I should put my foot down for a better system, now.

Thank you for reminding me to make sure my AAA subscription is up to date!

It's just funny word choice but you should probably be aware there aren't as many 'museum science' as 'museum studies', just so you know what you might have better luck searching. I'm not sure the actual value or what the requirements are but I know GWU and Leicester have mstd online cert program (ul is an 18 month distance learning postgrad grad diploma which is pretty much the same thing from what I can tell), I think Johns Hopkins may have one as well.

Another forum I am on is doing similar- however they also have a (secret) rotating number of times the new poster must be approved before they have free rein so that spam bot aren't just set to go over that number. It seems to work fairly well (but like you said, it relies heavily on the mods).

I wish we could do that- Between downsizing to a Civic when DH discovered he cannot stay on the road in the snow last year(still bitter about that one) and having a 2 bedroom with enough stuff for 3 - we need the 20' Uhaul. Thankfully my dad, and possibly my mom are flying down to drive it up- I can't drive long vehicles and after the snow incident... DH is not allowed. The in-laws feel guilty they'll be off drinking wine in California when we move (we didn't plan that at all ) so they're paying for move-in/move-out movers and the Uhaul, nice when we're moving out of a 3rd floor walk up. While googlemaps says it should take 23 hours, I've done a slightly longer drive in the general area in 22. With puppy potty breaks and time to actually sleep (I'm not doing that straight again) we'll probably do 12 and 10 in two days.

I'm not sure how much help this would be for you as this is about 4 years out of date but this was put together by someone else on the AAM's COMPT http://perceval.bio.nau.edu/downloads/acumg/museumstudiesprograms.pdf I would probably multiple the average applications per year by at least 3, for instance it listed Cooperstown as getting 50-75 per year and they said they got over 200 this past season (but still only around 15 slots from what I heard)

I think I would be excited if I were applying this year (I was not pleased with my quant score, meh overall, good for my field but terrible compared to DH's 2 points shy of perfect). I wonder how/if this will affect adcoms since I'm sure they will know about this and realize that scores can be a bit more carefully groomed on the student's side as opposed to seeing a fuller range of how the student can do on standardized exams.

DH and I did a possibly foolish thing and have never actually seen our new condo/apartment except through pictures (which at least are current and make it look immaculate). I could have theoretically visited earlier this summer but I hate apartment shopping on my own, and he used all his vacation time for the last 12 months on the honeymoon and Christmas. Just spent hours scouring the apartment sites. Packing up our stuff is enough stress- its taken me a year to find a place for wedding gifts and left over wedding stuff and now it's back into boxes, ugh! DH is counting down until we move (10 work days since he gets the last Friday off) since that means he gets 2 weeks paid vacation until he starts up again as an at-home contractor. His department seems to be starting to panic (he's the "normal" one) and they just implemented a new system this week that it looks like he'll have to be the point on.

That's definitely more useful than the response I got- they didn't even actually read my email and started talking about MPN and entrance interviews. Oh well, thanks. I guess I should have known better than to hope they'd be more on top of things than my UG.

Anyone else have their loan info 'received, not reviewed' according to the banner site? I sent mine at the beginning of June and nothing has been done about it- same with a friend in the my program.

Those in my ug (when I was in an anthro dept) did contact professors at the programs they are interested. The justification I heard it that competition is so great that getting your name in certainly cannot hurt your chances and it will also show that you won't be spending two years studying something that won't set up for your PhD work. I know someone who was assigned to a professor whose research interests matched her's and from what I understand, this led to an increased assistant.

As far as interest in museums go- if you look at some of the museum threads in the humanities section, it's been the general consensus that to be a curator in an art museum, you generally need a PhD in art history (I know one or two who focused on art education but still have a PhD so...). If you were in interested in another area of museums (collections, exhibits) you can get away with a masters (in smaller museums, a BA and some experience). Like others have said, if you think that may be what you are interested in, get more experience- volunteer, get internships, etc. When I was applying for mstd programs I was seeing that the top applicants had multiple museum experience, not just my museum library job, classes and respectable internship but multiple internships, "real" museum jobs, etc. I'm not sure how this crosses over into art history but it may be something to keep in mind. Here are some threads that may help (I know there are others out there, for some reason can't find them now):

I'm going to GW's MSTD program in the fall after coming out of Baylor's mst minor program. Both programs are great but since I did my undergrad at Baylor there would be a bit of intellectual inbreeding, so to speak, since the department isn't that large and I've taken the basic museology classes already with the same professors who teach the grad level. It's also hard to beat GW's location and connections. I was accepted to University of Leicester but I wanted a more practical, less theoretical program (1 internship v 2, different class size and structure, etc) and it worked out better for my husband and I. I know people who are going to Texas Tech's museum science program but that seemed primarily for financial reasons (in state, state school, etc) but the application process there was a bit of a pain for them, took forever to get word that sort of thing. I've heard terrific things about Winterthur's Material Culture program and Cooperstown Graduate Program (mst) but competition for those is incredibly difficult. I have a list from a member of AAM's Com for Museum Professional Training on programs to look into... somewhere What programs have you been looking at? More importantly- what do you want to do with the degree? That can help us give advice on which programs may fit your goals better.

I'm doing the inverse. My department was small in UG (I think there maybe 5 who graduated with me) and I'm going to a much bigger department. I really enjoyed having small classes since that meant the professors tended to interact more with the students in discussion but it also meant I had to be careful about not burning any bridges no matter what I thought of the other people in the program (a friend in the same program- and going to the same grad- got to hear what I really thought ). I'm going to really miss the department I'm coming from, it was a bit like a slightly dysfunctional family- everyone tended to know each other and their quirks.

My husband operated under that rule before we met (it seems to have been around before parks & rec), the only time we discouraged friends from dating older/younger is when a 30 yo wanted to date a not yet 21 yo (never-mind that their personalities wouldn't match) so it violated the creeper rule. DH and I are 3.5 or so years apart (albeit in the reverse of your situation but in my mind, at the age you are talking guys seem to have more or less settled into their "adult" personality) and we started dating when I was 18 so I personally don't see a problem with an age gap if personalities are compatible. Of our coupley friends, there are age gaps between a couple months to close to 7 or so years with sometimes the wife being the elder.

I'm moving from Texas to DC for GW's MSTD MA program. Orientation is, I think, August 23 but I'm moving in August 7 because of my husband's job. It's going to be a long 2 day drive (I'm not doing that drive straight again, did that in undergrad too often).

As people will definitely tell you, it varies by program, your application etc. I will tell you I graduated with a ~3.3 but had a stellar writing and pretty good qual score and got into 2 out of 4 programs for museum studies, I also went in with internship and work experience. I would have had a much, much better chance getting into my dream program if I had a higher GPA. **edit** I would post in your specific subject area if you want more detailed responses