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Infotech sounds awesome.
As a fellow man-of-many-majors (Currently undergrad at Carnegie Mellon as (hopefully) a Critical Theory in Art and Literature double-major) with an interest in Museum Studies (I've interned at the Computer History Museum and a few other institutes), I feel like the whole field of Museums, Art Galleries, Libraries, and other Points of Cultural Collection is moving towards computer immersion.
Fundamentally, although they all deal with analog objects, the only sensible way to deal with such objects is via computer tracking systems- catalog and tag everything, scan as much as possible, and have as many ways as possible to use a database to find things rather than an individual human. IE, the whole system is going to have to adopt an approach much like amazon.com or google - a warehouse of stuff in the middle of nowhere, but all of it available on computer request- over a system like an old bookstore or small museum, where one currator is the only repository of information, and as soon as she goes, most of the historical record, organization scheme, etc, goes with her.
As much as computers and databases are currently key to running a museum, in the future this will only get worse (or better, depending on how you look at it). If you learn how to manage information systems now, you will be ahead of the curve compared to 95% of the field, most of whom learned it on the job anyway (IE, without formal training).
Note, however, that when I say "manage information systems" I am referring much more to the higher level orchestration of inputs and outputs to the system, rather than the actual coding, hardware, etc. I get this idea from my roommate, who is doing a Masters in Information Systems here at CMU. Much of his work is writing system outlines, not code. Coding is for Information Network majors (EE or CS). Information Systems, at least here at CMU, is much closer to Buisness Administration (but, you know, difficult).
So go for the PHD at iSchool. My two cents, anyway. |
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