Hosted by Penn Museum
- Describe your experience working with your host.
Working with and learning about the Penn Museum’s Academic Engagement department has been a valuable experience for me. I always appreciated the museum’s resources and programming as an instructor, so getting to know more about the daily functioning of museums was very interesting. My host, Dr. Sarah Linn, put me in touch with several helpful contacts to learn more about the field. This experience helped to give me clarity about how to apply my academic strengths outside of academia.
- What did you learn from this opportunity (about yourself, about career fields, the job search, etc.)?
Working with the museum, and participating in the CEF in general, has helped me learn a lot about others’ career trajectories, which has given me more confidence in pursuing my own. The opportunity to network and conduct informational interviews helped me gain perspective on the possibilities for work outside the academic job market, and how other people with academic backgrounds have navigated it.
- How does your CEF experience benefit your future career plans?
Beyond the importance of learning about a new field, the CEF’s various workshops and speakers gave very helpful advice on how to translate academic experience and skills into language that non-academic institutions value and understand.
- What was the most valuable part of your CEF experience?
Getting to learn about the state of the museum field from people who work in it was very valuable in informing my future plans.
- Top reason PhD students should apply to the CEF:
The CEF provides a lot of helpful advice and perspective for students looking outside of academia. Moving beyond academic career fields can be overwhelming, and the CEF provided a lot of helpful tools to get started.
