FEATURE
Fish Out of Water:
Transitioning from an Environmental Educator to a History Pro
As a child, it seems like everybody has a dream career. Classes are full of future firefighters, doctors, and teachers. Career days offer a chance to meet your heroes and can be transformational for some. Others, like myself, constantly changed paths. One week I would want to be a zookeeper, and the next, I would want to be a chef. Most famously in my family, for a short period of time I wanted to work on an assembly line at the Utz potato chip factory, as I was sure this would allow me to eat chips day in and day out to my heart’s content. It really wasn’t until I went to college that I even had an inkling of what I wanted to do.
Growing up, I had always loved the outdoors. I spent countless hours memorizing animal encyclopedias, and I was at home in any space that was green. I wasn’t sure exactly how that could be turned into a career, but I knew it was a passion. When I arrived at Cornell University, after a short stint as a music major, I made the right call of switching to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences so that I could shift my major to Environmental and Sustainability Sciences. Here, I thrived! I had weekly classes that involved all kinds of field work, from identifying trees to catching birds in mist nets to building up my own personal insect collection. I still wasn’t completely clear on how diving deep into all of these facets of environmental science could be a job in the future, but for the time being, I loved it.
As I progressed through my studies, more and more people began to ask me what I planned on doing after graduation. I adopted the vaguest, easiest answer I could use, and would regularly tell curious friends and family that I would be working in “research.” It wasn’t until my junior year when I finally had a spark. To fulfill my communications requirement, I enrolled in a course called Naturalist Outreach Practicum. As part of our coursework, each student had to pick an environmental topic that they were interested in, and then we would travel around to schools in the Ithaca area teaching short classes. As a former theatre kid, getting to stand in groups and talk about topics I loved was a dream come true. During a guest lecture, when an educator from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology (or as we called it, the Lab of O) came to speak with my class, I realized that this fun semester-long project could be translated into an actual career, and I was hooked.
I spent the remainder of the time in undergrad taking as many outreach classes as possible. I began teaching tree identification classes to Cornell staff members. I joined the ranks as a tour guide at the Lab of O. I even became a teaching assistant for the field biology classes that I had enjoyed so much. As graduation rolled around, I realized that I would need even more experience to get a full-time job in environmental education, so I decided to continue my schooling. I took a gap year to work as a tour guide for a brewery and for the town of Hershey, while also volunteering at the Hershey Gardens in their butterfly atrium. During this time, I also applied for museum education graduate programs. I really searched for schools that would allow me to focus on living collections, and after a year of applications, interviews, and tours, I was lucky enough to join the George Washington University’s Museum Education Program.
Liz worked as Conductor with the Hershey Trolley Works, where she led tours around the town of Hershey, Pennsylvania. Photo by Laura Mueller.
The International Spy Museum is home to the largest collection of international espionage artifacts on public display. Opened in 2002, the museum moved to its new expanded location in 2019. Photo by Nic Lehoux for the International Spy Museum.
From the start of the program, I made it extremely clear that I was there to focus on environmental education. If my cohort had a dollar for every time I mentioned a “living collection,” we could probably all pay off our student debt. I ensured that I wasn’t simply talking the talk, but also walking the walk by spending my first internship planning a field trip for students to the National Museum of Natural History’s Insect Zoo and securing a second internship with the education team at the Friends of the National Zoo. I was getting closer to my dreams, but there was, of course, that aforementioned student debt. In order to put myself through graduate school, I took up a part-time job as an educator at the International Spy Museum (SPY). Although very outside of my wheelhouse, the content was interesting and it was the “cool museum” to work in. Little did I know, this simple part-time job would end up completely changing my career trajectory.
Graduate school was going great. I was networking with lots of colleagues in the museum field, gaining great experience, and learning a ton. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, a harsh reality my cohort faced when our internships and classes suddenly went virtual in March 2020, during our second to last semester. While I am fortunate that I was able to stay happy and healthy in my apartment with my sweet cat Simcoe, so many aspects of my career changed because of the pandemic. I watched as colleagues I had worked closely with left the institutions I cared about, and entire organizations, including my internship, shuttered their doors for good. My future in the field seemed bleak, but luckily there was one thing that stayed constant: SPY.
RIGHT: Liz began an internship with the Friends of the National Zoo in January 2020, not realizing her time onsite would be cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Photo by Unknown (tourist walking by).
Liz Mueller demonstrates the use of a cipher wheel during an educator open house. Photo by David Moss for the International Spy Museum.
Classes at SPY cover a variety of topics, from the Culper Spy Ring to code cracking. Here, Liz Mueller leads a class on fingerprint analysis. Photo by David Moss for the International Spy Museum.
While COVID-19 certainly shocked the world, SPY was able to navigate through the turbulence. The museum had already been hosting virtual field trips and experiences for years, so while other institutions had to quickly adjust to this new format, SPY was already ready for it. Although during the first wave of lockdowns I couldn’t enter the space to run their birthday party programming, I was able to host virtual events for kids around the country and world. When the next school year began and the world was still social distancing, I began leading their virtual field trips. Before long, I was teaching kids about the Cuban Missile Crisis, Culper Spy Ring, and microdot concealment devices every day.
When a full-time role appeared in the museum about a year after lockdowns began, I jumped at the chance to fully join the team. Talking about our content had become second nature to me, and I was thrilled to finally have my first “big kid” job, a full year after finishing graduate school and three years after undergrad. I began studying even more information, listening to experts speak, and really immersed myself in SPY content. I was and still am by no means an expert, but as someone with almost no background in history, I needed to be caught up to speed.
I absolutely love my job, but I also recognize that it is by no means what I thought I would be doing at this stage in my career. Despite years of experience racked up in the environmental field, I am in a role where I don’t frequently get to discuss topics that I consider to be my strongest. Because of this, like any interpreter, I have had to adapt my skillset to my environment and learn quite a bit. I still find ways to bridge spying to the environment. I can talk for days about how spies have utilized pigeons and no child comes to the museum who doesn’t want to talk about our tiger dung transmitting device. I have learned that some aspects of a museum also make interpretation a bit easier to plan out. I don’t have to worry about the weather when I am setting up for a field trip, or come up with a backup plan in case the animal I was hoping to lead a lesson on isn’t visible in its habitat. At most, I occasionally have to pivot when an artifact I was planning on showcasing has been taken off exhibit, but I can rest easy knowing that I am surrounded by nearly 1,000 other options on display at any given time.
SPY’s Youth Education team runs a variety of programs at the museum, including field trips, girl scout workshops, educator open houses, and community events. Here, the Youth Education team (Lucy Stirn, Liz Mueller, and Jamie Panzarella) pose for a photo during an Access to SPY evening. Photo by Michael Newman for the International Spy Museum.
What this career has taught me is that whether you have an exact plan for your future, or you are considering multiple paths, change is inevitable. It may come when you are least expecting it, but as an interpreter, it can be extremely exciting. This field is all about expanding the knowledge of our audiences, and the best way we can grow is to learn more ourselves. You never know what twists and turns you might take, but if you are open to learning, your ability to spread information will carry you through. Your abilities as an interpreter stretch far beyond the site you work at, and whether you are teaching audiences about echidnas or enigma machines, with a strong interpretive skillset, you can navigate any change sent your way!
