Museum & Curatorial Studies Minor

The Museum & Curatorial Studies Minor invites students from diverse majors to engage in the study of museum history and practices including curating, managing collections, and designing exhibitions. The minor provides a foundation of museum history and theory spanning multiple disciplines and professional training through an internship at a local museum, gallery, or archive. The methods of collecting and organizing objects for display are shared among the arts, sciences, history centers, and culturally specific institutions that tell stories about the interconnected world and its cultures. Historically, collections of natural history and visual culture were entwined since the premodern era, and this minor reveals connectivity across fields to demonstrate the shared work of museums to preserve and present knowledge and culture, whether botanical specimens or ancient sculpture.

Through a rigorous combination of coursework and professional experience, this program prepares students for graduate school and/or entry level positions in museums, galleries, and archives. Internships and electives will provide students with opportunities to learn skills such as the collection of object-based data, digital documentation, cataloging objects, and the use of digital tools for spatial planning. They will also learn to conduct scholarly research and to write clearly and concisely for a range of different audiences. Skills learned through the minors curriculum contribute to career readiness for related fields including design, digital communication, writing and journalism, collection management, intellectual property, education, and administration.