Dr Morgane Andrieu, recently joined MOLA as a Trainee Roman Pottery specialist, was invited to return to the Sorbonne University, where she studied, for a one-day meeting on Cultural and Heritage Careers. Morgane was able to share with current PhD students her experience of working at MOLA, which she writes about in this blog.
The meeting, organised by the Training and Careers department of the university in partnership with Sorbonne's graduate school of Art History and Archaeology, took place in the heart of Paris, in the famous Campus des Cordeliers.
As a former PhD student of this top-ranking French university, I was invited alongside nine other speakers to present on the benefits of our PhD training and how it helped us along our chosen career paths. The day was an opportunity for all the current PhD students and recent graduates to ask questions of the speakers.
My detailed PhD study of graffiti on Roman-period ceramics has been a useful specialist skill that has complimented the current research tasks I am undertaking at MOLA: identifying, dating and recording assemblages of Roman pottery. This work has enabled me to view the results of my PhD within a different context (ie another province).
Working at MOLA has been a great experience and a rare opportunity to develop my profile internationally. The high standard of training I am receiving as a trainee specialist in Roman Pottery is something I would readily recommend in order to bolster anyone’s academic profile. The intensity of archaeological work in London, as well as the experience of working for a large organisation, is the basis for a dynamic research programme based on a solid foundation of knowledge.
