Museum Cultures with Collections Management (MA)

Museums have been of enormous importance in shaping empires, nations and cities, and their collections are connected to wider histories of conflict and social change. Our MA Museum Cultures with Collections Management combines study of the history and cultural significance of museums with opportunities for professional museum experience.

This MA will give you a solid grasp of foundational skills and key issues in collections management. During an intensive week studying current issues and practices you will meet experts in London museums and galleries and engage in hands on activities including documentation, cataloguing and issuing loan requests.

You will also have the opportunity to undertake a 10-week supervised work placement in a museum, gallery or archive. Previous work placements have been offered at the Tate, British Museum, Whitechapel Gallery and Horniman Museum. Past students have documented collections that were previously uncatalogued, helped design and run schools programmes, conducted visitor research and assisted curators in producing exhibitions. There is also the option to join our study trips, offered each spring. Cities visited in the last few years include Florence, Paris, Venice, Vienna, Rome, Berlin and Moscow.

CAREERS AND EMPLOYABILITY

Graduates can pursue careers in the heritage and museums sector, arts, media and education. Possible professions include museum/gallery registrar, curator, or arts administrator. This degree may also be useful in becoming a community arts worker, multimedia specialist, or higher education lecturer.

Read blogs by Danny Birchall, the Wellcome Collection's Digital Manager and Birkbeck student, author and mortician Carla Valentine, who describes how she came to her unusual career and the impact on her work of the MA Museum Cultures.