Work experience placement with Isabella: What do you actually do when you work at a museum?
This week, we had the pleasure of welcoming 15-year-old Isabella for a work experience placement at Vardemuseerne. Through wind and showers, she has gained a better understanding of what it means to work at a museum. Read about her experiences throughout the week here – perhaps you can learn a thing or two as well!
I have been on work experience at Vardemuseerne this week, including working as an archaeologist. It has been exciting, cold, and challenging.
When you are on work experience at Vardemuseerne, you get to see the whole museum and the many different tasks involved in working at a museum.
Working at the museum
For example, when pipes need to be laid in the ground, the museum is informed so archaeologists can come out and see whether there is anything in the soil. In some cases, archaeologists have to be present the whole time, and other times they simply go out and check whether there is anything interesting.
It depends on what the land was like in the past – bog, heath, or cultivated. That way, you can determine whether there is a good chance of finding something or not.
If the archaeologists find something interesting, they take it to the storage facility, where they work in bad weather and when they need to do all the computer work. Here they clean the finds, catalogue them with a number, take photos, and document where they were found. Everything has to be digitised.
Then there are the historians, who interpret what is found. And everyone who helps with exhibitions, both building them and giving guided tours and running programmes for children and adults. They make sure that what is discovered reaches people, so they can understand it too and learn about our history. And in addition, there are those who share information about everything happening at the museums, on social media and the websites.
Together, they are Vardemuseerne, where everyone has an important role and tasks that make it all come together.
Experiences
Before I came here for work experience, I did not think there was so much work at the museum, but there is. And a lot is happening all the time. I think I had imagined it more divided up – that everything was of course done, but not in one workplace.
During the week, I have been to a few different places, where I have seen how work is done at a museum and have been part of some of it myself. I have seen some of the museums and, among other things, helped make it exciting and tested an activity.
For two of the days, I was with the archaeologists, where we processed finds and got a tour of the storage facility. One of the days, I also went out to a follow-up excavation they carried out because they might be lucky enough to find something, as the preliminary investigation had uncovered a kiln used for firing bricks and two bases of urn jars. But there was not really anything more – just old rubbish.
And then it was simply dreadful weather, with wind and hail showers – it was cold!
Conclusion
All in all, it has been a good week where I have learned a lot and met many kind people who can talk for a long time about what they do and what is found. I have had a really good experience at Vardemuseerne. And I have gained a good insight into what it means to work here.
I have had some great experiences – whether it has made me wiser about what I want to be, I do not think so, but now I know what it means to be an archaeologist, and it is not as you imagine.