Material Culture Program

[Ellie]

This would be a great area of study for you Fedora Lounge college students. You can obtain a Bachelor's or Master's in Material Culture and focus on a particular period in history at this university. Material culture meaning every day objects such as clothing, jewelry, ephemera...

http://www.materialculture.wisc.edu/

I know someone who will be focusing on the Victorian Era in the graduate program.

 

[Shearer]

Ohhhh, it's things like this that make me wish I had been more choosy about where I went to college. But when I was 17 and sending out applications, I had no idea things like this existed! So I end up with a Lit/Writing degree with an emphasis on the Middle Ages.

That degree is really useful, let me tell you lol

Maybe a Masters in mid-century vernacular photography is in my future!

 

[Ellie]

I hear you on that one Shearer! I have a bachelor's in Art History & Criticism, and yet I have to work two minimum wage jobs (neither of them relating to my area of study) in order to pay the bills. But alas, graduate school in Library Science is on the horizon.

Ooh! An emphasis on the Middle Ages?! That is one of my favorite periods in art history!

 

[Baron Kurtz]

That degree is really useful, let me tell you lol

About as useful as a Material Culture degree, i'd imagine.

A degree is what you make of it. Any degree is useful given the correct career path.

bk

 

[LizzieMaine]

When I was in high school, the guidance counselor was all hepped up on the Popular Culture program at Bowling Green University in Ohio, and was all over me to consider it -- but being a practical sort, I just couldn't see any way in which such a degree would be useful unless I wanted to become a professor of popular culture. And to my literal-minded 16 year old way of looking at the world, that didn't seem like a very dignified way for an adult to earn a living, so I didn't give it any further thought.

College wasn't an option for me anyway, for financial reasons, but in the years since I've wondered if that program would have been a good choice. Lecturing kids about comic books and TV shows often sounds more fun than lecturing kids about cleaning the butter grease off the popcorn popper...

 

[Shearer]

About as useful as a Material Culture degree, i'd imagine.

A degree is what you make of it. Any degree is useful given the correct career path.

bk

No doubt! Maybe even less useful, seeing how a Material Culture degree can get so specialized. I love my degree... it's actually rather flexible. I just like to give it a hard time

Oh well... that's what hobbies are for. I love ephemera, but I imagine it could get pretty old trying to think up theses for ever Lucky Strike ad I came across lol

 

[Sweet Leilani]

A possible application of a material culture degree could be in the museum or conservation fields. It was part of my course work for a Master's in Museum Science. My particular specialty was the mid-20th century, especially plastics. I have found it to be quite useful working in an aviation museum!