My name is Rebecca Jarrett, and I'm a fourth-year student. This is my second semester in the Museum Studies program. It's nerve-wracking to start the thesis process, but I am excited to see where it leads me. I love public history and am primarily interested in curation, education, and visitor studies. Conservation is also intriguing, but my hands are definitely not steady enough for that! I want to spread historical knowledge to as many people as possible because it teaches us so much about our world and is applicable to every area of life. In my free time, I like to write and watch video essays on YouTube.
I got my first experience in museum work this summer when I started volunteering at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. I worked in the Astronomy Education department, which runs an on-site observatory, as well as indoor hands-on activities. I worked with solar telescopes outside, and then inside with Discovery Stations about meteorites, spectroscopy (the study of the light spectrum from celestial bodies), and a black hole model. The position is year-long, so I will be returning there to volunteer during holidays. Below is a picture of the Phoebe Waterman Haas Public Observatory, which is the main base for observatory volunteers if the sky is clear.
