I started at the Museum of Arts and Sciences this week on Wednesday and had a lot of firsts. I shadowed my supervisor as she gave a tour in the Root exhibit which goes over the history of the Root family, a family which bottled for Coca-Cola and donated a bunch of Coca-Cola memorabilia to the museum; I also shadowed one of the other staff members as she gave a tour of the Prehistory exhibit, an exhibit which holds fossils (namely a giant ground sloth) as these are the two exhibits that I’ll be giving tours on throughout the summer to summer camp groups for younger kids. I was also able to sit in on a planetarium show for the young kids and it was fun to see how excited they got for the live show. I met everyone in the Education Department and got familiar with their roles and how I’ll fit in!

Apart from beginning to revise and shadow for tours, I was also given the responsibility to make labels for a new exhibit we’re planning to open. There’s about ten or so different items that I need to research and give a summary on (when I say label, I’m referring to the description one would find under or beside an object under a museum that describes its origin, function, reason for being there, etc.). It’s a lot of fun, even if it is a lot of work! I’m learning a lot by doing it and I can’t wait to have the exhibit open knowing that I had a hand in making it.

The staff at the museum are incredibly kind and I’ve been quick to fit in there, which is nice. I was worried about feeling left out, but they’re already including me in their jokes and conversations, especially since the lunchbreaks are in the small office for the Education Department, so it only took about a day or so before I was tagging along on tasks and part of some of the inside jokes. All in all, it has been a lot of fun and I’m incredibly excited to get back to work next week! I can’t wait to see what it has in store.