College and Career Research

Chosen Career: Art (museum) Curator

1.      Why did this career field appeal to you?

The career that I chose is a Museum Curator. This field appeals to me in that, unlike other art and photography careers, this one seems more tailored to ones who appreciate the historical, cultural and aesthetic values that significant artwork brings, as the main responsibility for museum curators is the preservation, display and ultimately research and cataloguing of such products under their care. For those who appreciate art but prefer to use their writing and research skills in a more artistic fashion, this is the career to be.

2.      What are the pros of going to this college program and/or career?

Some pros in terms of going to this career is that, as an overseer to culturally and historically significant artifacts, museum curators hold the prestigious responsibility of being an important figure for the preservation said artifacts. However, more than just the prestige is also the benefits of being able to increase skills in researching, organizing, as well as being able to reach out to the general public by organizing fundraisers and creating exhibits to display certain artifacts. Being a curator also means being able to expand and gain knowledge from a variety of different areas based on their educational background, as they can readily apply past knowledge from large selection of other career fields such as scientists, mineral scientists or paleobiology. Because of this, aspiring and future curators can choose which specialized subject area they want to explore.

3.      What scholarships or grants does the college offer to financially assist students?

At the California College of the Arts, this college’s financial aid package consists of merit-based scholarships to students applying to CCA. As with standard protocol for many other colleges, students are encouraged to complete the FAFSA to receive additional financial aid. 

4.      How long is the college program? Associates or Bachelors?

The California College of the Arts offers a two-year Graduate Program (the first of its kind in the west coast), with the first year having an emphasis in core classes that require gaining essential skills, while the second year focuses more on actually testing those skills as students are challenged to independently manage, direct and run their own exhibition and research on an art topic of their choice.

5.      What is the common earning (i.e. salary) of someone in this position? (might need to go to Career Cruising for this)

The average earning that a museum curator works per year full-time is around $28,000 and $88,000 a year. 

6.      What is one interesting fact that you learned from the college website?

One interesting fact that I learned upon exploring what this college offers is that, as mentioned before, its graduate program is one of the first programs of its kind, as it further supports the rapid growth of this specific career field in the art world today, due to the expansion of larger museums, art galleries and with the advent of the internet which allows for the display of art through blogs, websites, and through other digital means, the art of curating is becoming widely accessible, both as a career field and even in “unofficial terms” applied to everyday life situations by “curating” one’s won facebook or twitter page. With that said, the rise of digital technology has led to the birth of actual digital curators, whose main role is to catalogue and digitally preserve significant works of arts through the vast repository of the internet.