An Alexius daemon

[annwfyn]

He is currently an ocelot to my eyes. I believe this may change...

In other news, I'm in an odd mood today. For assorted reasons, college has been a seething cauldron of insecurity today.

It started with museology this morning, where Eve Graves (the head of museology) was muttering darkly about a move coming from Europe to change the criteria by which conservators are considered to be qualified internationally.

At the moment, all conservators are expected to do a 3 year undergraduate degree, and then a 2 year masters degree. This is referred to as the '3 + 2' formula, apparently, and was codified in the Bologna document a couple of years back. In the UK, in addition, we're meant to apply for accreditation by the professional body once we've been working for a few years as well. The 2 year masters degree is pretty much always in conservation, or conservation science, but the 3 year undergraduate degree can be in any subject at all. My course is a positive grab bag of undergraduate degrees!

However, there is some pressure for this to be tightened up, and there to be an international requirement that all five years are spent studying conservation. This pressure is mostly coming from Europe, where in countries such as Finland, or Germany, it is already the norm for their conservators to study solely in conservation for five years solid. Of course, this may be helped by the fact that trainee conservators in Scandanavia, at least, get full governmental funding, and a living allowance while training, and so it is a massively popular course with 15 applicants per place, and a very very rigorous set of entry criteria (including a test in how good one is with origami. Seriously)

The UK is currently determinedly trying to vote against any such changes being made, as there are very UK conservators who would then qualify as conservators under such routes, but it's all up in the air. And that makes me sad. I don't want to only count as a qualified professional in the UK and the US.

My mild insecurity then continued with one of the girls on my course chatting to someone finished her MA this time last year, who apparently said that of her entire year, only one person had got a job in conservation. This turned into a group wibble, I think, which was mildly assuaged by Mark Sandy, head of Conservation, saying during our chemistry lecture that he would normally expect between two thirds and three quarters of graduating students to get jobs in conservation, as long as they persevere. Admittedly, he then said that perserverance could mean many months of looking for a job (although he did say it normally took less than a year), but he would expect any of us who complete the MA, and really want to work in conservation to end up working there.

And this all leaves me feeling a tad anxious. I really really do want to work in this field. I want this to work out. And I'm not sure that there is much else I can do, with my CV looking the way it does now. All I've got is academia and conservation!

*sighs*

Let us hope.

And I have one other question floating through my mind. Why am I waiting around college for two hours for a one hour lecture on William Blake's artwork?

Will I go the distance?

Answers on an LJ...