The Museum Studies program provides a rich and dynamic education in both museum theory and practice. This dynamic and interdisciplinary program connects courses from disciplines such as History of Art, Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Cities, Biology, and Geology. Students learn about the history of museums and their roles in society, and they engage with critical, theoretical museum scholarship. Through coursework and internships, students also have the opportunity to gain practical, hands-on experience in the Bryn Mawr Special Collections as well as in museums, galleries, and archives in Philadelphia and beyond.

This multi-disciplinary minor allows students to complete work in the departments of art history, chemistry, classics, history, and sociology and anthropology. Required coursework introduces students to aspects of cultural heritage and museum studies including looting, trading, marketing, unearthing, conserving and curating. Students take innovative courses with small class sizes that are led by dynamic professors. W&L’s Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies courses prepare students to engage critically and ethically with cultural institutions. The minor affords student the opportunity to handle artwork and curate their own art exhibitions on campus.

Museums and Cultural Heritage incorporates the fields of architecture, anthropology, art, history, and cultural studies to study the identification, preservation, and/or representation of art and heritage materials. Such materials often serve as the evidentiary basis for humanistic, architectural, and social science disciplines. The Museums and Cultural Heritage minor is an interdisciplinary course of study, housed in the School of Humanities.

Here you will learn skills that can be applied to a career in curation, museums, collections, archives, and of course, field archaeology, all while doing detective work to solve the many unpredictable issues that arise when rehabilitating old collections.