Exit Interview

(1) What is your essential question, and what are your answers?  What is your best answer and why?

My essential question is "What is the best way to maximize a visitors' experience at an aircraft or science museum?"

My Answer 1 is "You must be able to effectively balance between communication and knowledge so as to speak with confidence and helpfulness when confronting a guest."

My Answer 2 is "An effective management structure based around the museum's goals/mission must be in place to deal with any situations."

My Answer 3 is "A volunteer program that allows its volunteers to utilize their individual skills."

My best answer is Answer 1. The reason being is that a museum is considered to be a house, source, and provider of knowledge. If a museum's staff are not capable of delivering information to a guest and accomplishing a museum's most necessary function, then a museum becomes nothing more than a place full of pointless artifacts and lost its purpose.

(2) What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

The process I took to arriving at this answer was to first establish what my three answers are, then to prioritize the answers based on its necessity and practicality in a museum. I concluded that no matter how good a management program is or how much skills a volunteer has, it means nothing if they don't know anything about the environment in which they work in and the type of people they encounter.

(3) What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

A problem that I faced with my Senior Project was my lack of knowledge on certain topics. Whenever I work at the California Science Center and Planes of Fame, there arises certain situations in which I wasn't able to answer a visitor's questions because I did not know it such as the features of a plane I was cleaning. To resolve these issues, I take note of what I do not know now and spend time outside of working reading articles that focus primarily on topic. I read topic characteristics such as reading a communications article to better approach people or to read a NASA article to inform guests about the space shuttle program. If a similar situation were to arise, then I am now better prepared.

(4) What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My most significant sources are my mentorships at the Planes of Fame Air Museum and the California Science Center. Working at these museums have allowed me to come with up answers, based on similar scenarios I encountered between the two, which would be later confirmed by reading articles published by various museums, institutions, directors, and managers.