Inspire the Next by JESSICA

Inspire the Next by JESSICA - March 2020 Scholarship Essay

Throughout the next ten years, I hope to accomplish many things. I’ve always dreamed of working in a museum and being able to create exhibits that people find interesting and inspire them to learn more about the history of the world. In my studies at school, I have found more interest in the evolution of humankind; how we became the group of people we are today. In my plan, I hope to work in many museums to better my education on how to create exhibits, that are interactive to show the differences in species and subspecies of Homo and Neanderthal in the culture of interactions and especially the biology of DNA and anatomy.
My plan consists of me graduating from SUNY Oneonta in the fall of 2021 and hopefully attending the amazing Cooperstown Graduate Program to receive my master’s in museum studies with a focus on science. CGP was one of the first schools in the United States to focus on museum studies and have connections throughout the world from their numerous alumni. From being a part of that school, I will be able to get my foot in the door with many of the incredible institutions. Part of the program is to have an internship at a museum throughout the United States and I hope that I will be able to work at the New York State Museum. After graduation from CGP, I can start work at the New York State Museum and help build up the exhibits on Indigenous groups that lived in the state, which I have experience in from classes I have taken with my Anthropology Degree at Oneonta.
After 3 or so years of working at the New York State Museum creating connections and building a reputation, I hope to find a job at the Smithsonian and be able to focus my attention on their exhibits in the Museum of Natural History where they have a part dedicated to the skulls of past humans and non-humans throughout evolution. I hope that through the use of casts of these skulls, I will be able to create interactive exhibits where people can learn about where we as the human race came from like I one did. As a child, my family took my siblings and me to the Museum of Natural History and out of all of the astonishing exhibits I saw that day, I was awestruck when looking at all the skulls and skeletons of all of these people that lived before who led to me standing there looking at them that day. I hope that in the next ten years, and with the rest of my life, I can inspire kids just like me.