Jihoo Lee, MA ’24 in her internship at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Summer 2024
The Art & Museum Studies MA curriculum provides a sequenced approach to museum study.
Museum Studies Foundations
In the first semester, students take the required Museum Studies Foundations core course as well as two electives and an internship at an area museum or arts institution. The following semester, students take four electives in Museum Studies, Art History, or related fields.
Art History Seminars
Students are required to take three credits of upper-level Art History in order to complete the program. Course offerings vary each semester, but have recently included Picturing Death, Arts of Zen Buddhism, Queer Art and Visual Culture, Writing Cultural Criticism, and Art of the Black Atlantic.
Internship
Students are required to undertake an approved three-credit internship at an area museum or arts organization in the program’s first semester. Course meetings, readings, and evaluation are required to complete the internship. F-1 international students must be authorized for curricular practical training (CPT) for both paid and unpaid internships.
Students unable to find a Fall internship may postpone the requirement to Spring. Students who postpone the internship must take a different 3-credit course in Fall for 12 credits total.
Sotheby’s Institute of Art
Those interested in the commercial side of the art world may elect to attend Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London or New York, and take an intensive course in a selected field, such as art business, decorative arts or contemporary art. The Institute’s coursework emphasizes connoisseurship and hands-on study of artworks and incorporates study trips to public and private collections, auction houses, and art fairs. No separate application is required.
Summer Capstone
In the summer term, students complete a combination of full-time or part-time internship, a research paper and/or practicum project, and course meetings culminating in a Capstone Symposium presentation at the end of the semester.
Program Structure
The standard program structure is 30 course credits, taken over fall, spring, and summer semesters. This schedule allows completion of the degree in 12 months. Other options – including taking fewer courses in a given term – may be approved by the program director. Students also have the option of doing the spring semester at Sotheby’s Institute of Art.
- Fall – core course, two electives in art history seminars and museum practicum courses, one internship – 12 credits
- Spring – four courses at Georgetown University or one semester-long program at Sotheby’s Institute of Art – 12 credits
- Summer – internship, paper, and or practicum project combined with a capstone workshop – 6 credits.