Earning Criteria

• Apply and Interview for Job - Students must submit a compelling application and participate in an interview with 1-3 museum staff to be considered for and accepted to this program.
• Participation in Job and Personal/Professional Development Program – Students must actively participate in their museum jobs for ~5 hrs/week throughout the academic year, as well as at least 12 of the 15 total personal+professional development sessions.
• Reflection activities - In between bi-weekly development sessions, students will respond to reflection prompts to: make connections between their museum jobs, academics, their own lives, and society/environment at large; increase their awareness of self and others; and identify strategies and tools to help them meet their goals. At least once a semester, students will create a summary of their (~40) reflections that will be used as a digital artifact in their publicly accessible portfolio.
• Assessment Activities: Students will complete a pre-program and post-program assessment at the beginning and end of the program. They may also complete a few additional assessments commonly used by HR Departments and Career Services to help students learn more about their personal strengths, emotional intelligence, and work style.
• Interview professionals - Students interview their supervisors and at least one other inspiring professional about the work they do, how they came to do this work, successes and challenges, and other interesting aspects of their career and life that students would like to learn from. Students will use provided interview questions and/or ones they create themselves. They will create notes, and write a reflection about these interviews.
• Peer support - Students will attend/participate/review work that student employee peer colleagues are presenting/doing as part of their museum jobs to be able to offer constructive feedback and learn from each other.
• Community camaraderie - Participate in activities to provide thoughtful collegial support to each other. Students will take images of these products to add to the cohort's final showcase presentation.
• Present in Public Showcase - At the end of the year, students will collectively present a public showcase to share their stories about where they have come from, where they would like to be heading on their life paths, and to share aspects of how this program has impacted them. The showcase will be videotaped and videos of students’ presentations will be added to their publicly accessible digital portfolios.