![\"Nora](\"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/603\/2023\/12\/IMG20230326153213_Original-887x1024.jpg\")
Originally from Maryland, Nora is currently based in the Twin Cities and graduated in December 2021 with a double major in English and Art History. During her last semester, Nora worked in the gift shop at the MIA part-time, a job that morphed into full-time employment after graduation. Nora explained that working in curation at the MIA was her \u201cultimate goal,\u201d one she pursued by consistently applying to positions in curation while working in the gift shop. She was eventually able to move to back-of-house, administrative work, and recently acquired a position as a curatorial assistant for Art of the Americas! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nora detailed that the Department of the Arts of the Americas has three curators, each of whom specializes in a different region and subcategory of American art (e.g. Native American art). Nora assists all three curators, so she encounters a myriad of different mediums, artistic traditions, and administrative tasks on a daily basis. Some of her many duties include requesting to move art to display or storage, submitting labels for displayed art, developing contracts for event speakers, scheduling tours and other programming, fielding cold calls from potential sellers or donators, and requesting invoices for acquired art. She especially loves working on the department\u2019s special projects, including, right now, special exhibitions and the development of institutional due diligence guidelines. Nora emphasized that the key to success in an eclectic role like hers is to, \u201cbe very organized, and ask a lot of questions!\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n When asked about how the skills she developed at Mac have come into play after graduation, Nora reflected on how valuable the interdisciplinary work she was able to do at Mac was. She recalled English classes, especially ones she took with Dr. Geng and Dr. English, as offering her lots of room to combine literary theory and analysis with the visual analysis she learned as an Art History major. \u201cSo much of it is being a good communicator,\u201d she stressed about her current work. As multifaceted as Nora\u2019s duties are, her tasks almost always demand excellent communication, especially written communication skills – as well as the analytical skills which she honed in the English and art history departments. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Nora\u2019s advice for current students thinking about postgrad life? If you don\u2019t feel ready for graduate school, don\u2019t give in to the pressure to go right away. And: \u201cbe open to practical concerns,\u201d like being financially stable, something that graduate school might not guarantee. Nora said that she originally thought she would go to graduate school \u201cwithin a year or two,\u201d but securing a prestigious position which she had pursued for several years made her reconsider that timeline. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n In Magdelana Mora\u2019s alumni profile, she highlighted the amount of time\u2013 years\u2013 that it took her to settle into a career that felt like a good fit. Nora\u2019s experience differs from Magdelana\u2019s in that, when Nora graduated, she knew what kind of work she wanted and had a foot in the door. However, both alumni experiences showcase the importance of showing yourself grace and flexibility. Slowing down and being open to change, as Nora\u2019s experience shows, isn\u2019t incompatible with pursuing a career goal\u2013 and sometimes, the most rewarding decisions are the ones you don\u2019t expect! <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n A huge thanks to Nora for her time, thoughts, and coffee! <\/span><\/i>The Words <\/span>highly recommends checking out <\/span><\/i>the MIA special exhibition<\/span><\/i><\/a> that Nora assisted with. <\/span><\/i>In Our Hands: Native Photography 1890 to Now <\/span>is open until January 14th, 2024. <\/span><\/i>Reimagining Native\/American Art<\/a>, a collaborative reinstallation of a suite of American art galleries, will also be on view through May 27th, 2024.<\/em><\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Zo\u00eb Roos Scheuerman ’24 Some people might find it stressful that an English degree doesn\u2019t always match a particular career path the way that, for example, a computer science or premed degree (stereotypically) does. However, the English major\u2019s flexibility and wide-ranging career paths speak to the universality of English skills, not their supposed nebulousness […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":0,"parent":6037,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6073","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8503,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6073\/revisions\/8503"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/the-words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}