Arriving at the National Museums Scotland staff entrance was a daunting experience. Turning up at the door at ten o’clock exactly with my packed lunch in my bag and my itinerary in my hand, I walked in and got my visitor’s pass ready for the day ahead. Soon after arriving I was shown into the office by Sarah Worden and introduced to everyone in the World Cultures department. I was shown my desk and given the museum newsletter to read for future reference. I was then set to type up a pamphlet for the recent Livingstone exhibition and my work experience began.
One of my favourite parts of my time here was going down to the National Museums Collection Centre at Granton, where I got to see lots of items that are not on display. It was really cool going down there and observing the wide variety of objects the museum has and learning about their history. My time there was also made even more enjoyable by the great people who work there, who were happy to talk to me and show me what they were working on, despite their busy schedules.
I also liked going to staff meetings as it meant I got a good insight into how a workplace functions and what is involved in bringing together such a large body of people to function in a correlating and amicable way.
It was a great experience and I am very grateful to everyone who made it possible to give up their time and let me tag along with them and look in on what they were doing. Everyone was very friendly and I really feel like I have learnt a lot, both history and work wise. I’m very sad that my week here went so fast but who knows, I may be back in the not so distant future!
