Question about Internships

[violetpetals]

Hi!

I am taking a year off and will be applying to MA/MA/PhD programs in the fall. Currently I am studying to retake the GRE (I did okay but know I can do better and every little bit helps!), researching programs/profs and trying my best to pinpoint my research interests.

My question: Beyond prestige, is there a significant advantage to interning at a major museum vs. a smaller, less famous museum?

Thus far I have only interned at galleries but I know curatorial internships tend to be research oriented and much more relevant to grad work (esp. for me because I am not interested in contemporary.) I'm not sure whether applying to internships in large cities will be worth the hassle of moving/finding paying work in said cities when there are smaller museums in my home city that offer curatorial internships as well. Returning home has obvious advantages: saving money, less distractions and it will give me the opportunity to attend the local community college to pick up the ever important second research language.

In your opinion which would be more valuable in an application: a (hypothetical) curatorial internship at a big-name museum or a (hypothetical) curatorial internship at a less famous museum + two research languages?

Thank you for any advice!!

[asdf123]

without a doubt curatorial internship at a less famous museum + two research languages is the way to go. learning research languages will do more to strengthen your application than museum internships will -- so doing both is pretty much a no-brainer. admissions committees at top programs think it "irresponsible" to admit students without foreign language training (particularly German) -- since it is near impossible to learn two languages and finish coursework in a timely manner (and more and more, programs stress getting done quickly). plus, there are benefits to working at smaller museums -- you might have more opportunities to do more substantial curatorial tasks (writing wall text, essays for exhibition brochures, etc.).

[Shelley Burian]

I am a strong advocate for not overlooking small institutions because in my experience, you will get much more experience and skills out of working in them than in larger ones. In larger institutions with a large staff, even being in a curatorial internship may not get you much independent research experience and you most likely will not be involved in the day to day running of the collection. I started as an intern at a small historical society and ended up as the curator in charge of the entire collection, which has given me FAR more skills moving forward than being a virtual volunteer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I would do all you can with the languages, however my experience (and this probably not universal so take with a grain of salt) is that many programs are not going to be that picky about you only having one language to start with if they are really interested in you. I am fluent in written French but my Spanish (which is the necessary second language for my subfield) is non-existant . I was accepted into a top program with this language situation well known to the department and no one cared at all. My advisor told me to just do Spanish when I got there, and many of the other graduate students I met during recruitment were still learning languages as well. If you can get both in the year, that's fabulous, but if you don't learn languages that quickly don't think that it will automatically sink your application.

Edited June 15, 2012 by Shelley Burian