When I applied to the Museum Studies Concentration, I had my heart set on art conservation. I had even mapped out my schedule to include a chemistry minor that didn't conflict with my study abroad plans. I enrolled in a general chemistry course and an art conservation class, but to my dismay nothing clicked. Organic chemistry was a foreign language that I could not comprehend. Cleaning and preserving art and art objects was less exhilarating than the opportunity to display them -- a skill I had begun to develop in a portraiture class.

In that class, my peers and I worked together to curate an exhibition featuring portraits of women. In pairs, we each selected a piece from Smith's Cunningham Center for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, and wrote a label for it. Curating was different from chemistry; there was room for nuance and interpretation. Curating pushed its way to the foreground while conservation faded into the distance. 

I pursued my interest in curating through an internship in the curatorial department at the National Museum of American Jewish History, and I saw the way exhibitions shaped marketing materials. The colors and themes were an inherent part of print and online materials. I also saw the need to integrate technology into exhibition spaces. With historical documents dating back to the late 1700s, interactive video and audio allowed visitors to have a meaningful hands-on experience without putting the objects at risk.

I then put what I'd learned about marketing to use when the Smith College Museum of Art gave me the opportunity to develop marketing materials for its Night at Your Museum event. In a way, creating the print and online media was a form of curating. I wrote the text and picked color schemes and images but instead of going on gallery walls the posters went up in academic buildings. Between the Facebook event, newly acquired instagram, and campus-wide posters, 1,100 people showed up - approximately half the Smith campus. In follow-up surveys, we learned that 47% of attendees had heard heard about the event through social media compared to 33% who heard about it through print. Social media brings people into a museum.

I love marketing for the same reason I love curating; each allows me to be creative in a way that results in public outreach and engagement.  Whether I curate the next award winning exhibition or market a huge fundraising gala, it is clear to me that my work needs to help others see that museums are so much more than the art on the walls and the objects in display cases.

By pursuing opportunities in different museum departments, I developed interests in multiple fields. Every experience provided new insights into my likes and dislikes. I preferred marketing over museum education, curating over conservation, cataloging art over caring for artifacts. Being able to shape my interests through a multitude of different experiences was crucial, as museums are ever-changing spaces.