Education (Adminstrative, Teaching, etc.): Medievaling on the College Level

Introduction
If you want to become a medievalist, develop a few areas of expertise on the undergraduate level. These might include languages, especially very old ones like Latin, Anglo-Saxon, and/or Middle English; connections between past and present, or the way history is represented in popular culture or literature as refictionalized in modern texts or on film; or an in-depth understanding of the art history of the period. Use your creativity-make a medieval movie or write a script or a poem celebrating this period of the past. A medievalist has many paths open before her.

Job Function
Teaching is fun, and professors can learn a great deal from students on all kinds of levels. Visiting important library collections can be a revelation; museums, too, are pleasurable and instructive to visit. Faculty meetings are sometimes rather dull, however. Advertisement
Lifestyle
Focus, concentration and devotion are all required to become a scholar and a teacher; one must be good in many fields (literature, language, history, art history) yet aware of one's strengths and weaknesses. But there is much play involved, too. Get a chance to look directly at medieval manuscripts outside the exhibition case. Participate in imaginative time travel!

Additional Information
Students, learn what you love and then go for it! If King Arthur and Beowulf and Marie de France and Chaucer and Christine de Pisan interest you, and if you love Shakespeare's history plays, medievaling may be the career for you! Or you might want to become a screenwriter, novelist, or even write operas like Sondheim-the key is in loving the original material, understanding it, and making new art from it. The life of a college professor is challenging, engaging, and sometimes exhausting, but students make the job wonderful. (Thanks, Parice, for getting me into this!)