How to become a Museum Docent
To understand how to become a museum docent it is quite imperative to know what a museum docent is. Literally a docent means some kind of a teacher or a guider and so is the case with a museum docent as well. A museum docent is the person you see guiding you when you are in a museum. It is the responsibility of the museum docent to guide anyone who enters the museum and inform him whatever stuff is there in the museum. Of course to guide someone else it is very important for the museum docent to have ample knowledge as well of the stuff that is present in the museum.
Being a museum docent is easier than the other similar jobs of its nature like librarians and historians. Here are some steps that you follow in order to get to the stage of becoming a dignified docent.
- The first and the foremost thing you need to do is to check out for local museums that offer docent programs. There are quite some museums that do so therefore getting to one won’t be a tough job. Also there are museums of different natures such as art museums, science museums, war museums and the like. So it is good if you keep a choice in your mind of what museums you would be interested working in.
- Once you are at a museum that you wish to become a docent for you need to inquire about their requirements. Usually the museums require the docents to take a certain program or training. The duration of this training or program can vary. Therefore it is advisable to go through your schedules and see if you can afford the time and cost of it. Also, not all museums charge you for such courses some of them do give you the training for free as well.
- Maybe the museum would require an interview or a test to clear before you go for the training. This is to ensure whether you have the interest and a certain level of beginners knowledge for the training or not. No museum would want to have docents who are not interested in the types of things present at the museum. This is the reason why I would suggest you to have ample knowledge of the museum and its stuff before you go for an interview.
- Volunteering at the museum while your training is also a good way of ensuring your way in to the museum.
All in all becoming a museum docent is not quite a tough job it just needs some dedication on your end.
