I have been going to museums for as long as I can remember. Growing up the daughter of a history teacher father and early childhood education mother, our family vacations were usually a mix of leisure and education, often including visits to museums, historic homes, living history villages and presidential burial sites across the country. I have always been fascinated by museums and history, and as a kid, places like Ford’s Theater or the Smithsonian (which we visited on a trip to Virginia and Washington D.C. when I was eight) were as magical to me as Disney World. Historical fiction books made up the majority of my early reading material, in the form of series like “American Girl” or “Royal Diaries,” and when I reached middle school and high school I discovered a love for classic literature through authors like Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë. When I reached college age, my interest and aptitude in literature made being an English major an easy decision. But, what I would do after earning my degree, had never been as clear.
Looking back on it, museum studies should have been the obvious choice from the start, but after choosing the English major path, I considered more typical post-English-degree options like book editor, technical writer, journalist and librarian. For a while, librarianism seemed like the most appealing choice. I loved libraries and books, and out of all of my options it felt the most interesting to me. But it still didn’t feel quite right. It wasn’t until after my freshman year that the answer came to me from an unlikely source: the 2004 cult classic “National Treasure.” The film, which has been a favorite of mine since I was a kid, follows Benjamin Franklin Gates, a historian and treasure-hunter who steals the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives to keep the invisible treasure map that is hidden on the back from falling into the wrong hands.
I had seen the film many times before, but one night, after a long day of classes, I had settled down in my dorm room to watch the film and was suddenly struck by a vision of my potential future. The revelation came when the character Abigail Chase, an archivist for the National Archives, who, after having caught Gates stealing the Declaration, goes along with him to prevent him from harming it, delivered a line that stuck with me. As Gates is poised to squeeze a lemon onto the back of the Declaration to reveal the invisible ink that the map is inscribed with, Abigail stops him and tells him that if anyone is going to squeeze the lemon it is going to be “someone who is trained to handle antique documents.”
This line struck me. “Someone who is trained to handle antique documents.” I liked the sound of that. It felt official, academic, learned and exciting, the kind of job that guaranteed thrilling adventures like finding lost treasure, getting into car chases and attending fancy galas. Right then and there, the vast world of museum studies was opened to me, and I had to know more. Although it seems like an odd way to determine one’s future occupation, that instance of watching “National Treasure” furthered my deeply-instilled interest in the museum field. Although I knew that museum professions like archivism and curation existed, I had never considered it a possibility for myself until Abigail Chase inspired me to learn more about the field.
After my revelation, I started doing research into what kinds of museum professions there were, and what I would need to accomplish to be considered for one. After determining which master’s degree I would need, and learning about the importance of field experience for graduate school applications, I started searching for undergraduate internships in the museum field. Eventually, after applying for some that interested me, I was offered a position at a nearby local museum and accepted it. Even though “National Treasure” had convinced me that the museum field was a good fit for me, my internship only further confirmed this. Even though I was nervous to embark on a new experience, I found the internship extremely rewarding and fulfilling and was able to experience what a career in the museum field might be like.
I was able to get hands-on experience in handling artifacts, exhibit curation and digitization. I had the opportunity to work with letters written by Civil War soldiers, dresses that had been worn during the 1920s and photographs from various points in the 20th century. It was remarkable to be able to work so closely with artifacts, each of which taught me something valuable. When working at the museum, I could clearly see a future for myself in the museum field, and I left the internship having firmly decided to pursue a career in museum studies.
Since then, even though I still have a long way to go, I have taken part in more museum field opportunities that have helped to grow my passion for museum work. This experience with “National Treasure” and my internship helped me learn three things: First, that sometimes things come to us from unexpected sources. Decisions like choosing our future careers can often seem daunting, and in our college years we might feel overwhelmed and have no idea which option to choose among the many options we are given. But the answers to our questions can appear in strange ways, and we can learn valuable lessons from sources that we may not expect. It can be easy to get discouraged when an answer doesn’t immediately present itself, but sometimes, the answers to life’s questions can appear when we least expect it.
Secondly, sometimes in order to make decisions, we have to step outside of our comfort zones and put ourselves in situations that will test us and lead us to important conclusions. I may have eventually found my way to museum studies, even without the help of “National Treasure,” but without pushing myself to apply for an internship, I would never have gotten the real life experience of working in a museum that confirmed my career path for me.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the answers to our questions may already be staring us in the face, but sometimes we just need Abigail Chase from “National Treasure” to help us see it.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.