My wife was recently offered a year-long fellowship in Syracuse, New York. She started the application process back in April and we didn’t know what her chances were or when we might know for sure if she would get it. At that point, I was still in the middle of my internship at Air and Space and hadn’t really thought too far ahead towards my next internship or what the fellowship might do to our short term life plans. In June, about the time I was finishing up at NASM, she was invited for a phone interview with the director of the fellowship and then shortly afterwards invited for a second phone interview with the team of graduate students already on the project. At this point, it started to seem like there was a real possibility that she would get the fellowship, which prompted us to start thinking about what the opportunity would mean for us.
The possibility of her (and eventually me) moving to Syracuse caused me to do some rethinking of my academic plan. As I’ve mentioned earlier, at the end of my internship at NASM, I was mentally exhausted from the long days and long hours that resulted from me juggling school, work, and an internship. I was really dreading jumping back into a crazy schedule again and was silently hoping for a reason to not have to start until at least the fall.
In addition, after a couple of weeks in a normal schedule, I realized how much happier I was when I was not tired and anxious all the time. There was definitely a marked improvement in our home relationship as well now that we had time to talk to each other and do things together.
So I started thinking, that if the fellowship worked out, perhaps I would delay my graduation until May 2011, finish my coursework this fall, and then finish my final internship in the Syracuse area next Spring. I was keeping my fingers crossed that we would get some good news!
And finally, with just three weeks until the start of the fellowship, my wife was offered the position!
It’s pretty crazy to think that she will be leaving so soon and it will definitely be a challenge to be apart so much of the time. Especially since we haven’t been married that long and we haven’t been apart more than a couple of weeks in the last 3 years. But it is an amazing career opportunity for her and after it ends, it puts us in a much better place to make some decisions about what to do next (on our radar is a year-long working holiday in New Zealand, a relocation to Portland or Denver, or her enrolling in a PhD program somewhere).
Now my job is to find an internship in the Syracuse area. I’ve already emailed my advisors to see if they have any recommendations and to find out about the process of doing my internship away from DC, and now I’m just waiting to hear back.
I think until then, a Google search will be the best place to start.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Lessons Learned Part 1 (cont)
Lessons from…the Exhibit Team (cont)
3. It takes a village
There is a lot of talent involved in making an exhibit. At a small museum this talent may have to be divided between 3 or 4 people. In a large museum the talent is distributed in more specialized areas and there might be 15-20 people involved. If I remember my numbers correctly, on the Time and Navigation team there were 4 curators, 2 designers (one graphic designer and one CAD designer), 2 educators, a fundraising or development manager, an editor/ writer, a project manager, and several other people (fabricators, AV specialists, department heads, archivists) who popped in and out to various meetings. On top of this there is a whole production crew that usually gets involved once the plans are basically complete. That’s a whole lot of people!
And while too many cooks in the kitchen can be a bad thing, as long as everyone has an open mind and perspective on the final goal, teamwork is a GREAT thing when producing exhibits.
4. Poll the audience
One week, the Time and Nav team visited the National Archives to learn about some of the technology that they have used in their exhibits. During the briefing we learned that they don’t do audience testing or polling because federal regulations prevent them. Apparently for federally funded organizations, any poll or question that is asked to more than 9 people needs special federal approval. Since a poll of 9 people is essentially useless in gathering pertinent information, they don’t do it.
As a quasi-funded institution, the Smithsonian doesn’t have such limitations, and it’s a good thing since evaluating the audience is a key step in testing concepts and components of the exhibit.
As part of the Time and Nav process, the Education department conducted several surveys of museum visitors, asking questions about prior content knowledge, interest levels, and even the understandability of certain key sentences from the script. The answers were integral in making sure that the script tailored to the areas of most interest to the audience and helped them see when a concept (clear to an academic or specialist) needs to be broken down and explained further.
Up next: Lessons about day to day work
3. It takes a village
There is a lot of talent involved in making an exhibit. At a small museum this talent may have to be divided between 3 or 4 people. In a large museum the talent is distributed in more specialized areas and there might be 15-20 people involved. If I remember my numbers correctly, on the Time and Navigation team there were 4 curators, 2 designers (one graphic designer and one CAD designer), 2 educators, a fundraising or development manager, an editor/ writer, a project manager, and several other people (fabricators, AV specialists, department heads, archivists) who popped in and out to various meetings. On top of this there is a whole production crew that usually gets involved once the plans are basically complete. That’s a whole lot of people!
And while too many cooks in the kitchen can be a bad thing, as long as everyone has an open mind and perspective on the final goal, teamwork is a GREAT thing when producing exhibits.
4. Poll the audience
One week, the Time and Nav team visited the National Archives to learn about some of the technology that they have used in their exhibits. During the briefing we learned that they don’t do audience testing or polling because federal regulations prevent them. Apparently for federally funded organizations, any poll or question that is asked to more than 9 people needs special federal approval. Since a poll of 9 people is essentially useless in gathering pertinent information, they don’t do it.
As a quasi-funded institution, the Smithsonian doesn’t have such limitations, and it’s a good thing since evaluating the audience is a key step in testing concepts and components of the exhibit.
As part of the Time and Nav process, the Education department conducted several surveys of museum visitors, asking questions about prior content knowledge, interest levels, and even the understandability of certain key sentences from the script. The answers were integral in making sure that the script tailored to the areas of most interest to the audience and helped them see when a concept (clear to an academic or specialist) needs to be broken down and explained further.
Up next: Lessons about day to day work
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Lessons Learned Part 1
As I continue my search for my second internship, I thought I’d take some time to talk about my general observations and lessons learned from my first internship at NASM. My internship was the perfect jump back into the museum design world and despite the hectic schedule, I loved every minute that I spent in the 3rd floor Exhibits Department.
Part one: Lessons on…the Exhibits Team
1. Exhibits take a long time to plan
I was privileged to be able to sit in on team meetings for the developing exhibit “Time and Navigation”, which featured weekly meetings with designers, curators, writers, and educators to discuss concepts, scripts, fundraising, and design. I was present for about six months worth of meetings and during this time it seems like progress was good. However, I gathered from the discussions that this exhibit has been in development for about 10 years and the direction of the content has changed many times. 10 years!
I am glad that my time at the museum coincided with a time when the exhibit really did seem to be moving forward. Not only did the team reach its fundraising goal, but the distribution of funds put an absolute timeline on the project, meaning that there was a timeline for the dismantling of the previous exhibit as well as the construction phase for the new one. I think this timeline really helped the team push forward in the script development, since it is the basis of so many other decisions involving design, lighting, collections, and interactives.
However, even with the forward moving progress, the nature of an exhibit with an institution as large as the Smithsonian is such that the exhibit still isn’t scheduled to open until late 2011, early 2012.
2. Design is intricately tied to the script
Often design is guided by a finished script, and projects, especially graphic panel based exhibits, come to the design department with a clear starting point. At this point it is the designer’s responsibility to take the script and make it interesting and fluid from a visitor’s perspective. This can be achieved with thoughtful space planning and traffic flow or it can be achieved graphically. Often it is both. Usually much of the script is inflexible and the designer must think creatively about how to best present the ideas.
Sometimes, a designer is involved in the entire process of the exhibit and has input in the script along the way. From what I have observed, this is the preferred method of operation, but it does make a designer’s job a challenge. In the early stages of an exhibit the designer often has little solid work because the concepts are still being hammered out in the script. Without at least a good solid foundation, space planning and graphics are hard to visualize and you don’t want to do too much work on a concept that may change in the near future.
At the same time, a designers input can be instrumental in helping the curators grasp how concepts will come across to visitors. Sometimes a suggestion on how graphic panels or an interactive component will actually be placed in the gallery can help a curator realize what their most important concepts are and help them better define them in the script so the concept, and its importance, is easy to understand.
Overall the process requires balance and teamwork.
Next: More lessons on the Exhibit Team
Part one: Lessons on…the Exhibits Team
1. Exhibits take a long time to plan
I was privileged to be able to sit in on team meetings for the developing exhibit “Time and Navigation”, which featured weekly meetings with designers, curators, writers, and educators to discuss concepts, scripts, fundraising, and design. I was present for about six months worth of meetings and during this time it seems like progress was good. However, I gathered from the discussions that this exhibit has been in development for about 10 years and the direction of the content has changed many times. 10 years!
I am glad that my time at the museum coincided with a time when the exhibit really did seem to be moving forward. Not only did the team reach its fundraising goal, but the distribution of funds put an absolute timeline on the project, meaning that there was a timeline for the dismantling of the previous exhibit as well as the construction phase for the new one. I think this timeline really helped the team push forward in the script development, since it is the basis of so many other decisions involving design, lighting, collections, and interactives.
However, even with the forward moving progress, the nature of an exhibit with an institution as large as the Smithsonian is such that the exhibit still isn’t scheduled to open until late 2011, early 2012.
2. Design is intricately tied to the script
Often design is guided by a finished script, and projects, especially graphic panel based exhibits, come to the design department with a clear starting point. At this point it is the designer’s responsibility to take the script and make it interesting and fluid from a visitor’s perspective. This can be achieved with thoughtful space planning and traffic flow or it can be achieved graphically. Often it is both. Usually much of the script is inflexible and the designer must think creatively about how to best present the ideas.
Sometimes, a designer is involved in the entire process of the exhibit and has input in the script along the way. From what I have observed, this is the preferred method of operation, but it does make a designer’s job a challenge. In the early stages of an exhibit the designer often has little solid work because the concepts are still being hammered out in the script. Without at least a good solid foundation, space planning and graphics are hard to visualize and you don’t want to do too much work on a concept that may change in the near future.
At the same time, a designers input can be instrumental in helping the curators grasp how concepts will come across to visitors. Sometimes a suggestion on how graphic panels or an interactive component will actually be placed in the gallery can help a curator realize what their most important concepts are and help them better define them in the script so the concept, and its importance, is easy to understand.
Overall the process requires balance and teamwork.
Next: More lessons on the Exhibit Team
Thursday, July 8, 2010
A Lack of Motivation
I seem to be in a bit of a motivation slump at the moment. Part of it might be the weather (my computer telling me it’s over 100 degrees outside doesn’t exactly spur me into frenzied action), but I suspect most of it is contributed to a bit of mental exhaustion.
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I had to catch a pre-7:00am bus to get to my internship by 7:45. After three hours at NASM, I embarked on my daily 30 minute walk to the GWU campus for work, and then commenced an eight hour workday, leaving campus around 7:30 at night. Once a week I had class, and twice a week I had to commute home by metro and bus, walking in the door of my apartment around 9:00 at night. Perhaps twice a week my fiancé and I would make it to the gym, and then get home with enough time to eat a quick dinner, talk for a few minutes, and fall into bed.
The previous semester, I had juggled a very similar schedule in order to take two studio interior design classes, both of which were held during the day, rather than at night.
Now, I absolutely think that the crazy schedule was worth it—I loved my interior design classes and learned so much that will be extremely useful in my career, and my internship experience was everything that I had hoped for.
But regardless of the worth of it all, I reached the last day of my internship and the last class of the first summer session breathing a sigh of relief to finally have a bit of a break. For at least one week I would have a normal 8:30 – 5:00 day, have time to go to the gym before dark, time to make and eat dinner with my fiancé, and time to enjoy some free time.
That was a week and four days ago and I am no closer to finding a second internship than I was in March. I don’t think it is for a lack of trying since I have been persistent in my emails with a design firm in Fairfax that say they want to meet with me, but that haven’t replied to my many emails telling them my availability. I know that in the very near future I will have to start the search over again and I know the day is fast approaching where I will have to go back to a crazy schedule if I even have a hope of finishing my degree by December.
As of right now I have my old list of internship possibilities and contacts on my desk, I have a small network of professionals at Air and Space whom I can call on for recommendations and referrals, and number 2 on my To-Do list is “Find and internship”.
But all I want to do right now is breath…
As I mentioned at the end of my last post, I had to catch a pre-7:00am bus to get to my internship by 7:45. After three hours at NASM, I embarked on my daily 30 minute walk to the GWU campus for work, and then commenced an eight hour workday, leaving campus around 7:30 at night. Once a week I had class, and twice a week I had to commute home by metro and bus, walking in the door of my apartment around 9:00 at night. Perhaps twice a week my fiancé and I would make it to the gym, and then get home with enough time to eat a quick dinner, talk for a few minutes, and fall into bed.
The previous semester, I had juggled a very similar schedule in order to take two studio interior design classes, both of which were held during the day, rather than at night.
Now, I absolutely think that the crazy schedule was worth it—I loved my interior design classes and learned so much that will be extremely useful in my career, and my internship experience was everything that I had hoped for.
But regardless of the worth of it all, I reached the last day of my internship and the last class of the first summer session breathing a sigh of relief to finally have a bit of a break. For at least one week I would have a normal 8:30 – 5:00 day, have time to go to the gym before dark, time to make and eat dinner with my fiancé, and time to enjoy some free time.
That was a week and four days ago and I am no closer to finding a second internship than I was in March. I don’t think it is for a lack of trying since I have been persistent in my emails with a design firm in Fairfax that say they want to meet with me, but that haven’t replied to my many emails telling them my availability. I know that in the very near future I will have to start the search over again and I know the day is fast approaching where I will have to go back to a crazy schedule if I even have a hope of finishing my degree by December.
As of right now I have my old list of internship possibilities and contacts on my desk, I have a small network of professionals at Air and Space whom I can call on for recommendations and referrals, and number 2 on my To-Do list is “Find and internship”.
But all I want to do right now is breath…
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Landing my first internship
After failing to land an internship during my first summer in DC, I was determined that I would have one secured before the end of the fall semester.
As some background, I am on a 2 year, 2 semester plan in my program, facilitated by the need to work while in school, and because of this I won’t be able to finish my degree until December 2010. I had originally thought that I could somehow finish up my course work by the end of summer 2010, then stop working and be able to focus on two back to back full time internships or two simultaneous part time internships. However, with my fiancé also a full time graduate student and a post-graduation job not a guarantee, I realized that it was necessary for me to keep working and to try to find a way to do an internship while still fitting in my 40 hours a week for work.
An internship for my program requires 260 hours of time and because of my work schedule there was no way that I would be able to put in more than 12 hours a week at an internship. When I did the math, it broke down to about 6 months per placement—which meant that I would have to start an internship by January, then go directly into another internship in July in order to finish by December. With this in mind I started searching.
Well, in actuality, I didn’t search as much as contact. I used one of the few museum professional contacts I had made the previous year—an exhibit designer at the National Air and Space Museum who had been my professor for my very first class at GW. Having been part of a small group of students who took on an extra design project for our student exhibit, I had spent my Sunday evenings at the museum and had felt like I had made a good connection with our professor. At the very least, I thought she would remember me in her sea of students.
In October I emailed her, inquiring if the exhibits department would need an intern starting in January. I contacted her early because I didn’t want to get beat out by any of the students that she had in class that semester. I got lucky and that one connection was all that I needed. She remembered me and told me they would need an intern. Then as icing on the cake, she informed me that they had just hired a Museum Studies graduate and it turned out to be Ashley, who I had taken classes with and had gotten to know fairly well the past year.
I was really excited to be working with Ashley. Not only could we relate over GW stories, but I also had a tremendous respect for her design talent. I think I got really lucky being paired with someone who understood exactly where I was coming from and where I wanted to end up after school, and who understood exactly how to tailor my internship experience to make sure that I learned the skills and got the insight that would really help me in the future.
And so, on January 4, with a massive head cold, I caught the 6:56am bus from my apartment and arrived at NASM excited for what was to come.
As some background, I am on a 2 year, 2 semester plan in my program, facilitated by the need to work while in school, and because of this I won’t be able to finish my degree until December 2010. I had originally thought that I could somehow finish up my course work by the end of summer 2010, then stop working and be able to focus on two back to back full time internships or two simultaneous part time internships. However, with my fiancé also a full time graduate student and a post-graduation job not a guarantee, I realized that it was necessary for me to keep working and to try to find a way to do an internship while still fitting in my 40 hours a week for work.
An internship for my program requires 260 hours of time and because of my work schedule there was no way that I would be able to put in more than 12 hours a week at an internship. When I did the math, it broke down to about 6 months per placement—which meant that I would have to start an internship by January, then go directly into another internship in July in order to finish by December. With this in mind I started searching.
Well, in actuality, I didn’t search as much as contact. I used one of the few museum professional contacts I had made the previous year—an exhibit designer at the National Air and Space Museum who had been my professor for my very first class at GW. Having been part of a small group of students who took on an extra design project for our student exhibit, I had spent my Sunday evenings at the museum and had felt like I had made a good connection with our professor. At the very least, I thought she would remember me in her sea of students.
In October I emailed her, inquiring if the exhibits department would need an intern starting in January. I contacted her early because I didn’t want to get beat out by any of the students that she had in class that semester. I got lucky and that one connection was all that I needed. She remembered me and told me they would need an intern. Then as icing on the cake, she informed me that they had just hired a Museum Studies graduate and it turned out to be Ashley, who I had taken classes with and had gotten to know fairly well the past year.
I was really excited to be working with Ashley. Not only could we relate over GW stories, but I also had a tremendous respect for her design talent. I think I got really lucky being paired with someone who understood exactly where I was coming from and where I wanted to end up after school, and who understood exactly how to tailor my internship experience to make sure that I learned the skills and got the insight that would really help me in the future.
And so, on January 4, with a massive head cold, I caught the 6:56am bus from my apartment and arrived at NASM excited for what was to come.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Networking
I hear it all the time in the Career Center—one of the surest ways to find a job is to network.
According to dictionary.com, a network
Used as a verb in a professional context, networking
Networking is so successful because it puts a face to a person’s qualifications; if I came up to you at a cocktail party and we connected over our shared interest in museum technology, and then you told me that your museum is looking for a new web editor and that I should apply, then BINGO, I have made myself and my resume more visible in your selection process because someone at the museum can say that they remembered talking to me.
Of course, more often than not, a job suggestion will not fall into your lap with every professional conversation you have, but the point of networking is to get your name out there to the people in your field who you might end up working with in the future. The more contacts you have, the more likely you are to hear through the grapevine that a particular company or organization is hiring. If you can go further in your initial meeting and exchange business cards, then you have an at-the-ready contact that you can reference anytime you need to in the future.
Now, I have to admit that networking is not my strength. I am shy and introverted and am drained after an hour or so of small talk in a crowd that I’m not familiar with. I tend to shy away from social situations where I don’t know people and I have a hard time promoting myself and my accomplishments because of a fear that the other person won’t be interested in hearing what I have to say.
However, just because I’m not comfortable with standard networking, it doesn’t mean that I can’t still successfully network. Instead of signing up for networking events, I try to accept invitations to events where I know at least one or two people. In these situations, at least I have the comfort of one person to talk to, and I am more comfortable and confident meeting new people if there is someone else around to share the conversation burden. I also try to foster a good relationship with any professional that I do have a reason to come in contact with—for example, a professor or a guest speaker that I feel at ease talking with because I am able to get to know them more gradually in a group setting.
In fact, the latter technique is exactly how I managed to land my first internship at the National Air and Space Museum.
Up next: How I finially landed my first internship
According to dictionary.com, a network
is an association of individuals having a common interest, formed to provide mutual assistance, helpful information, or the like
Used as a verb in a professional context, networking
is used to cultivate people who can be helpful to one professionally, esp. in finding employment or moving to a higher position
Networking is so successful because it puts a face to a person’s qualifications; if I came up to you at a cocktail party and we connected over our shared interest in museum technology, and then you told me that your museum is looking for a new web editor and that I should apply, then BINGO, I have made myself and my resume more visible in your selection process because someone at the museum can say that they remembered talking to me.
Of course, more often than not, a job suggestion will not fall into your lap with every professional conversation you have, but the point of networking is to get your name out there to the people in your field who you might end up working with in the future. The more contacts you have, the more likely you are to hear through the grapevine that a particular company or organization is hiring. If you can go further in your initial meeting and exchange business cards, then you have an at-the-ready contact that you can reference anytime you need to in the future.
Now, I have to admit that networking is not my strength. I am shy and introverted and am drained after an hour or so of small talk in a crowd that I’m not familiar with. I tend to shy away from social situations where I don’t know people and I have a hard time promoting myself and my accomplishments because of a fear that the other person won’t be interested in hearing what I have to say.
However, just because I’m not comfortable with standard networking, it doesn’t mean that I can’t still successfully network. Instead of signing up for networking events, I try to accept invitations to events where I know at least one or two people. In these situations, at least I have the comfort of one person to talk to, and I am more comfortable and confident meeting new people if there is someone else around to share the conversation burden. I also try to foster a good relationship with any professional that I do have a reason to come in contact with—for example, a professor or a guest speaker that I feel at ease talking with because I am able to get to know them more gradually in a group setting.
In fact, the latter technique is exactly how I managed to land my first internship at the National Air and Space Museum.
Up next: How I finially landed my first internship
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