1st Step Into The Unknown

Taking your fist step into the unknown can be a daunting task to accept.  Maybe it is your first time in a new town (which is always a fun experience no matter how many times you do it) or adding a new skill or activity to your life.  To help this task we often look to finding as much information as we can on this unknown so that we can come prepared with expectations and assumptions of what will happen.  For myself, what was I getting myself into deciding two years ago that I wanted to get my master in public history?  We will ignore the added effect of moving all the way to Ohio and the expectations of a real winter.

My decision to pursue public history was during my senior year at Louisiana Tech and my advisor asking me what I wanted to do after I graduated.  All I knew at the point was that I did not want to be a teacher, but what else was there to do in history.  He recommended a public history class and like many of my friends and family I did not know what that encompassed really other than it involved museums. 

My understanding of museums was limited to field trips in elementary school and the movies National Treasure, Night at the Museum, and bits of Indiana Jones.  Just giving friends and family the basic idea that it involves museums got interesting results after they stopped staring at you with a blank face waiting for you to explain.  My favorites involved my friends making references of me running around as Dr. Jones and yelling, " It belongs in a museum!".  A fun if a bit inaccurate expectation maybe.

My mom, after her own time spent researching, pushed for the idea to me be like a conservator or an archivist based a bit of what she saw from National Treasure.  She figured my art background would be really helpful.  For myself I did not now what to expect from public history work other than it might involve leading tours, making exhibits, writing labels and that was just the museum portion I was kind of flying blind when thinking about archives.

After a semester we can kind of see how our expectations have been playing out and how well they have matched up or differed.  We all gave Dawne definitions of public history that varied a bit and are getting ready to take a new set of courses that open up new ideas that we may not have thought of.  We may have answered this some what already, but what kind of expectations did you have going into public history and how have they changed since or not changed?