Student Bloggers

By Jonny S., Museum Studies Internship Program, Scotland

So after my initial move in, I said goodbye to my parents by going to Edinburgh Castle with them on Sunday. I couldn’t really see much that day because of the rain, but the castle was amazing. I also visited the National War Museum of Scotland, which detailed all of the Scottish achievements in war. But I then started to meet more of the people I would be spending the next 4 to 8 weeks with.

In my specific program of Museum Studies, I have two other people in it with me, Rob and Dan. We all share the same apartment but I do get my own room, which is definitely nice. But there are also people who are just in the Scottish History program who are here for 4 weeks. They include Claire, Amanda, Lexi, Gladis, Marco, Brian, Grace, and Shawnim. To get to know each other better, we went out on Sunday night for a ghost tour. While it wasn’t that scary, it was awesome to go on, I learned about all the gross history of the city like how they would dispose of feces 150 years (they threw it out the window). Also, I was able to see the grave of the famous Scottish writer, Adam Smith. This all actually got me very excited to meet my professor the next day.

So my first day was actually pretty uneventful. I found where the Arcadia Center is, which was easy to get to, and I also got to meet the staff. They were all pretty nice, giving me some good tips on what the schedule is. Later that day I got to meet David, the professor for our Curating and Heritage class. It was interesting to meet him since he used to work at the Scottish Museum. He knew a lot about what he was talking about when it came to museums, but he was also very critical of them as well. Everyday, we would go on an excursion to a museum, art gallery, or special exhibit. After each visit we would discuss what we learned from the experience, and what to criticize and look at with the museum structure with David. I soon learned very early on that David is very critical of many museum styles, but this gave us a different perspective of how museums worked and allowed me to look beyond the artifacts. This different teaching method I felt was actually very useful and an interesting way of looking at museums.

My second class that I would have is Scottish History, which included all of the people in our group. Dr. Jen Novotny leads this class, which discusses Scottish history while also going on some excursions as well. I felt this class is good at trying to get through some of the more confusing parts of Scottish history. While we do lecture pretty quickly every Tuesday and Thursday, Dr. Novotny is very good at getting through the lectures while explaining everything. I have found the Pictish society and its eventual disappearance intriguing due to its cultural emergence with the Scots and as it's not really a society I have ever heard of before. What was also good about knowing a bit of history of Scotland was going on excursions and recognizing the names of places and people like Stirling Castle for example.

My first actual day of class was on Tuesday was when we had Scottish History in the morning which ended with us traveling over to the National Museum of Scotland. From there we got to explore the Early Peoples of Scotland exhibit, which was prehistory to late Roman objects. This exhibit was amazing as it included Roman signs, early tools and pottery, and Pictish society relicts. It gave an older look to Scotland. Later that day for Heritage class, we went up to Edinburgh castle on a stormy day. Well actually pretty much everyday in Scotland usually involves rain. While it was very cloudy, we did get to see the crown jewels of Scotland in a very interesting exhibit, which included clay figures in a crammed walkway. We also saw the Prison and War Memorial. I have to say though, while David did have a few criticisms of it, I still found it amazing to walk through.

The next day for our heritage class, we went to the Georgian House in New Town. In Edinburgh there is the Old Town which has much older buildings with curving streets, while the New Town, which is across the bridge, was a well planned out Georgian design in the 18th century. This area has a lot more shops and straight streets. The Georgian House was cool to see as it would have guides in each room in the house to describe what happened there. I found it a very interesting exhibit and I got the rest of the day to do what I wanted.

On Thursday we held class at to Rosslyn Chapel. This Chapel is looked at very differently as it was featured in the movie, The Da Vinci Code. This has caused a lot more visitors there but the stonework was amazing inside. While we had a little time after this, Dan, Rob, and I wanted to find the castle ruins. We walked down 3 different muddy paths in the forest, seeing as it rained before we found the ruins. They actually have some living right next to them but it was cool to see castle ruins.

Every Friday we would go on an all day excursion way outside town. On our first Friday we went to the ruins of St. Andrew’s cathedral. This cathedral had been destroyed during the reformation yet I could see the majesty in its ruins even as it rained all day. Right next to it was a tower in which we could see the whole town. I could even see the golf course there that is said to be one of the oldest golf courses in the world. We also walked to the ruins of the castle as well which had also been mostly taken down. The coolest thing there was exploring a tunnel that was dug to get inside the castle that was very small but certainly something different. We tried going onto the beach but it got really wet down there and I slipped. But it was afterwards that we stopped at Falkland Palace on the way back. This had been a royal residence for many of Scotland’s historic kings and queens including Mary Queen of Scots. Some of the rooms were very well designed, and the garden was huge when we walked though it. The gardens actually included one of the oldest tennis courts still used today. I saw a lot more then I originally thought I would. But I should mention that during the time off we had during the weeks I would do different things. This included going grocery shopping, walking through the city, heading outside the town occasionally, or just hanging out at our apartments with the others. Often many nights I would go out to the pubs to either listen to the local music, which was very good or I would watch the Euro 2016 matches. Either way, I did like going out at night, it was a good option since it would often rain a lot.

Jonny is a student at Iowa State University and is blogging from his summer abroad with the Museum Studies Internship Program, in Edinburgh, Scotland.