Student Profiles

Greta Costello, Middlebury College

My month spent at the Middlebury College CMRS Museum Studies program was full of art-historic excursions and enlightening lectures.



We engaged in two courses during our time at St. Michaels’ Hall. How British Museums Work and Perspectives on Heritage were the main academic springboards for our field trips. We met with each of our two tutors twice per week in a collaborative, discussion-style seminar.



Museum trips were frequent and enriching, as we were so often led behind-the-scenes to view special collections of prints, handle artifacts, or break down logistics and marketing strategies with museum staff. While in the Christ Church Picture Gallery or the Victoria and Albert Museum, we were urged to engage closely with one object, presenting to our peers our considerations based on materiality, historicity, and metaphorical meaning. We were encouraged to be critical with regards to everything we saw and heard. The museum and heritage sector is no doubt ethically ambiguous, and as such many of our conversations were tied back to the morality of acquisitions and the logistics of repatriation and restitution.



St. Michael’s Hall was the central hub of the program. When we weren’t being swept off to tours and lessons, there were plenty of opportunities to try something new within the confines of St. Michael’s. I did a bookbinding workshop with our program librarian where I learnt some basic binding techniques, and another where I was able to handle some manuscripts in the program’s very own collection.



The bustling city was always calling. I enjoyed independent trips to the Ashmolean or the Museum of Modern Art, exploring the exhibits at my own pace, and contemplating the works with newfound friends at a local cafe. While there was plenty of exploring, this was coupled with calm moments analyzing course readings and working on projects and papers in quiet corners of bookstores (there were so many!).