Museum Studies / Public History Masters Programs

[Kalila]

Hello everyone, I am hoping to get some information on either public history or museum studies programs. I am kind of on the fence as to which area to pursue. I have had a hard time getting in touch with people about programs, as I always get referred to the website. I know the websites have some great information and maybe it's just me, but I have always preferred having some human contact about a commitment as big as grad. school. Has anyone here gone through either museum studies or public history programs? Enrolling? Applying? If so, which programs and what was the appeal? Any previous experiences with specific programs would be great, as I am not getting the best feedback as of yet. Thanks everyone!

[GreenePony]

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.

[GreenePony]

I'm not sure how much help this would be for you as this is about 4 years out of date but this was put together by someone else on the AAM's COMPT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)

[estargrl88]

Hi, I just applied to public history programs for Fall 2012. I think partially it depends what you want to do later on. I decided that public history would give me more historical background and also not limit me to museum work. I've heard that if you want to work in a museum, especially in something more like education, registrar, etc., that museum studies programs are better. But when I talked to public history professors, most all of them stressed the importance that having more academic history work can provide. As for programs, I tried to apply to ones that were more in my geographic area. I would definitely suggest getting in contact with some professors of the programs and talking to them. There are lots of programs out there and it came down to fit in terms of curriculum and money for me. I was also told to look for programs that are a bit more established and where there is more than one faculty member involved with the program. There are some programs which are supposed to be very good, but I never heard of any that were really to avoid. Here is a list with most all the public history programs: http://ncph.org/cms/education/graduate-and-undergraduate/guide-to-public-history-programs/.