Blog post 1: a final beginning

Hello! I'm Taylor, and like almost everyone else in this class, I'm starting my final year of my Museum Studies degree at RIT. The past three years have absolutely flown by, and I find myself oscillating between excitement and terror, proud of what I've accomplished thus far, anxious about my future. I think that's fairly typical of any big life change though, and what could be more life changing than writing the longest paper I've written in my life just to top off my college experience?

Over the past three years I've been incredibly fortunate to have lots of different job experiences in the museum field. My first two internships were in archives, sorting, labeling, and boxing hundreds of cameras and Kodak paraphernalia on Ridge Road. During the school year I also worked at the RIT Archives, and at Paley Studios, however my favorite position I've held has to be the internship I had in the programming department of the MIT Museum this summer. Prior to the internship, I'd been leaning towards the public-facing side of institutions more than the archives, but this summer confirmed all those hypotheses I had been making about my future. Helping kids discover how to make a paper circuit, dreaming up events and then bringing them to life, just interacting with visitors daily - all these things made my summer great! Here's some photos from my whirlwind summer:

Cup towers - an architectural challenge!

These men were in Cambridge from Paris for a conference at Harvard, they're all PhD candidates, but that didn't stop them from playing with some toothpicks and gumdrops.

Catherine, me, and our boss, Jenny.

The interns! (Tara, Catherine, Me)

This semester I'm looking forward to exploring programs and how they can enhance a visitor's experience, as well as how those in charge of programs can help the museum to reach a larger audience. I can't wait to go through the year with everyone else in the class and to watch all of your theses grow and develop! Good luck with week 2 my friends!