Putting art theory into practice
25 January 2010
History of Art & Museum Studies students benefit from work placements.
Final-year History of Art & Museum Studies student Carla McManus is presenting a joint research paper at a Symposium at Loughborough University. Carla is presenting ‘Research with Recent War Veterans’ with multimedia artist Imogen Stidworthy and Steven Griffiths of the charity ‘Combat Stress’.
Carla began working on this topic in level two of her degree when she undertook an internship at FACT in Liverpool as part of an assessed module for her degree. She found the work fascinating and continued her partnership with FACT after her module ended. The team at FACT were so impresed with Carla’s work that they soon offered her the permanent part-time position of Projects Programmer. Carla now balances this high-profile work with completing her undergraduate degree.
History of Art & Museum Studies course leader Dr Emma Roberts commented: "It is rewarding to see the career benefits that have already resulted from performing an internship as an LJMU module."
In addition to Carla's success, fellow student Sarah Ryan has found career enhancing benefits working with the environmentally-sound chocolate company, Divine.
Packaging and products by Divine are already much more ‘green’ than those of rival companies, but Sarah is working to find ways in which they can further reduce the use of plastics and increase uptake of recycled materials.
The project came to light through an earlier collaboration between Dr Emma Roberts and Geography department Senior Lecturer, Dr Sara Parker. Emma commented: “It is great to see the results of collaborations between programme staff and schools. Not only does this benefit Sarah by enabling her to produce an exciting assessed project for her degree, but it allows her an insight into the real world of work.
"From this, she may be able to make interesting industrial contacts as well as adding an interesting element to her CV. It also serves to show that History of Art students can use their research and public presentation skills to serious advantage in the workplace."
