Our curriculum is designed to afford you maximum flexibility in tailoring your experience to your particular career goals and professional interests.
Our curriculum
Core courses
Our core courses are designed to provide a strong cohort experience and a solid foundation for your exploration.
As a cohort, you will take two courses that provide bookends to your experience: Intro to Museology (MUS 500), and Careers and Social Capital (MUS 599). In spring quarter of year 1, you’ll develop a plan for your thesis research or project in Thesis Design (MUS 570).
The remaining two core requirements, Internship (MUS 601) and Thesis (MUS 710/720), add crucial dimensions to the student experience. Museology students must complete 6 credits of internship (equal to 180 hours) and 10 total credits of thesis. Learn more at our thesis and internships pages.
Electives
Beyond the core requirements, students have an array of electives to choose from, with guidance provided by their faculty mentor and the graduate advisor. Particularly notable amongst our electives is the series which makes up our specialization in evaluation.
Students must also complete at least 2 courses outside the Museology program.
Want to sketch out what your two years in the program might look like?
Having a hard time picturing how the above information translates to the overall student experience? Use the visualization linked below as a starting point for sketching out what two years in this program could look like for you.
At our courses page, you’ll find more information about each course, including the quarters in which they are typically offered. Note that some courses are offered every other year, and quarterly course schedules are not fully set until the middle of the prior quarter. In other words, all of this information is intended to help you get a general sense of what the Museology experience might be like; it is not intended to be used to make firm plans. You can find an archive of previous quarters’ offerings at the UW PCE Time Schedule page.
Museology students enroll in a minimum 10 credits per quarter (usually somewhere between 10 and 12), and must complete a minimum total of 60 credits over their six quarters in the program. Summer quarter is a vacation quarter, offering students the opportunity to travel (whether to conduct internships, visit home, etc.), work full-time to fund their studies, and/or enjoy the beautiful Pacific Northwest summer!