As I looked at this week’s menu for the readings, it seemed that this was indeed light, but in looking at the opportunities for jobs, the outlook looks grim and bleak. As with any job it seems that knowledge and that term, “experience” is the one thing that is needed before you should even put in a resume to a prospective employer.
The Bureau of Labor Statics was quite surprising in that an Archivist makes more than a Curator. I would think that a person in management would more than a “grunt” doing the manual labor of finding and archiving materials for institutions. I clicked along the top tabs and looked at the various jobs and it listed what would be the top paying jobs and I was surprised that the political scientist would be paid the most. I wonder if it is as a lobbyist that the profession of lobbying legislatures that would pay the most salary if you represented an institution that needed federal funding. The one occupation that I was surprised at was that of the post-secondary History teacher. Teachers beginning salaries are not that much starting out, and I am really surprised that the BLS would publish this.
The one thing that I do agree with my fellow students is that doing an internship or working already in the field will open the doors for full time employment. It is usually word of mouth on how most jobs are advertised and I am certain that this is the same pattern in the public history arena. I know that internships always look good on a resume. I am always asked what I plan to do after I graduate. Being retired, I still have many options open and want to fill my time wisely, and I feel that one is never too old to fulfill a second career. The future is just as bright for me as it is for younger students, so I don’t want to let anything hold me back.
