Back and Forth

So, I think I'll continue on chronologically. At least until that system breaks down. In January of this year, I became a scientist again! Well sort of. I have a degree in biology and art history and have been working in the arts since I graduated ten years ago.

I love science, I just couldn't stand a career in it. I've kept up my knowledge over the years with coursera courses here and there and classes at Rice in their continuing education department. Then, I got the opportunity to actually put my scientific knowledge to good use.

In 2015, I made the decision to go back to UH and get a Master's degree in Arts Leadership. I heard this explanation today that I liked from a former teacher: "an MBA for art organizations." It was a two year program, with classes at night so I could still work full-time. There was one part of the program that almost scared me off. For this degree, there is a requirement for a practicum, 300 hours of work in an arts organization. 300 hours is a lot. I had already done more than that in an internship 7 years prior. That unfortunately didn't matter. So finally in my last year of study, I chose Houston's Children's Museum to get more experience with youth education. They only had openings in the science education department which surprisingly my director approved. I like that I have been lucky enough to bounce back and forth between my two passions - art and science. Well, and that I stuck it out even though 300 hours is a scary number. This experience gave me a fresh perspective on my career that I didn't even know I needed and led to some pretty big changes (in the year of everything is upside-down aka 2017.)

I'll be posting links to some of the activities I worked on this year. The picture above is the aftermath of one of those activities, an explosion of dyed, soapy water, after being dumped into liquid nitrogen. You know, just a normal day at work.