A perfect storm? (Part 3)

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Continued from Part 2

ship in heavy seaQuality Control from Students

Empowering students In its own way, the NCPH Guide to Public History Programs is also a best practices document itself. It is an international listing of graduate, undergraduate, and “related” public history programs that can be searched by geographical location, curricular concentration, and type of degree. It also permits an apple-to-apple comparison of programs. Thus, prospective graduate students can compare curricular requirements (required internships or applied theses, for example), opportunities for intensive study and practice (specialized tracks, field schools, courses in new media and digital history), financial assistance that also provides experience (applied assistantships), the record of recent placements, existence of alumni networks, the appeal of a particular regional location, and anything else that students want. The Guide enables these comparisons (a) if students know the Guide exists and (b) if they invest the thought and time to identify core components important to them and then look for programs with these strengths.

In my experience, though, many undergraduates are still trying to figure out what they want, even as they apply to multiple graduate programs and eventually matriculate in one of them. Perhaps the power of the Guide for comparing schools should be made more explicit on the NCPH website; this would require just a few sentences. The more general problem is that students need to be more active and critical consumers of education, as my colleague Allison Marsh points out to me regularly. They need to realize that it matters where they go to graduate school. One of the most constructive roles that history departments could play is to better advise their undergraduates on what public history is, what public history careers exist, the necessity of a graduate degree in the field, and how to choose the right graduate program for themselves. And, it bears repeating that attending a strong program doesn’t guarantee a job. Merely completing a challenging graduate program won’t guarantee a job either. Ultimately each student is going to have to step up to the plate, take the initiative, go the extra mile.

A checklist of questions. NCPH should develop “a student consumer’s guide to public history programs,” a sort of field guide to what every student should know about going to graduate school in public history. It would give prospective graduate students ideas for the kinds of questions they need to think about when they study websites, e-mail program directors, or visit campuses. Again, a “one-size-fits-all” perspective is not fruitful: the key is equipping students with the tools to identify their interests, abilities, and career goals and then to find programs that are a “good fit” for them personally and professionally. Here are some examples; others will have better and more insightful questions based on their own experience, but this will suggest what I have in mind generally.

√ There are lots of public history programs out there. How do I decide if this program is the best fit for me?

√ What is the difference between an MA in history and an MA in public history?

√ I want to work in a museum. Can I study museums and material culture in this public history program?  What are the advantages of training for a museums career in a public history program? Is a museums studies program a better fit for me? (If you don’t know the difference, you need to find out.)

√ I want to work in historic preservation. Can I study preservation in this public history program? What are the advantages of training for a preservation career in a public history program? Would I be more interested in studying preservation in a college of architecture or a school of planning? (If you don’t understand the differences, you need to find out.)

√ I am not ready yet to specialize in one of the subfields of public history. Is this a “generalist” program that will help me decide – but also give me the specialized training I need after I make my choice?

√ I don’t have any experience in public history. I know many programs won’t accept me without experience.  Will this one? (I wonder, though, if I should get some experience, decide what I want to do, and then apply?)

√ What types of digital humanities and technical training are offered in this public history program?

√ What kind of financial support does this public history program offer its graduate students?

√ What placement assistance do you offer students throughout their time in the program?

It matters where you go to graduate school in public history. We had a good example of the need to help students evaluate graduate programs in order to make informed decisions in a recent posting to History@Work on “looking for a job in public history.”  While it inspired extensive commentary, two points are worth emphasizing from the standpoint of the discussion here. One is that an MA in history is a completely different degree from an MA in public history. There is no doubt that the latter degree would have opened up many of the closed doors that the author encountered in his job search. But he seems not to have appreciated the distinction while in school.

Second, the supposed Catch-22 conundrum that “you cannot get a job without experience and you cannot get experience without a job” is actually neither a riddle nor an obstacle for students who have chosen programs wisely. The best public history programs incorporate an enormous amount of hands-on experience into the curriculum. Thus, applied graduate assistantships at public history institutions pay students a stipend (their financial aid package) and they work 15-20 hours/week in a preservation or museum setting, for example. Courses teach real-world skills and require hands-on team projects, often working in collaboration with community partners. Thus, a course in historic preservation might require preparation of a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places for a neighborhood group; a museums course might require some exhibition development for a local historical society. A field school can offer opportunities for real-world projects in distant cities or other countries. A thesis can be an important requirement, and many programs allow “applied” theses that can be extended and engaged public history projects in the community. Good programs require an internship and encourage students to think strategically about it. Thus, most students complete an internship in the summer when they often have a large block of time and the ability to live temporarily somewhere else. If they want to move to a particular city or region after graduation, they are encouraged to do the internship there to build contacts. If they wish to work for a particular type of public history institution, sample it through the internship. If there is something they discover they need to know, and it isn’t part of the curriculum, they can use the internship to build this knowledge and skill set. Bottom line: prospective students need to actively seek out programs that maximize opportunities for public history experience. They need to know that public history cannot be taught just in the classroom. Let’s add this to our student-as-informed-consumer checklist, too.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This four-part post by Robert Weyeneth, President of the National Council on Public History and director of the public history program at the University of South Carolina, is also printed in the September 2013 NCPH newsletter. Part 4 follows.  You may add comments there.