Sustainable heritage alumni experiences

Since graduating I have been using data science skills learnt from the MSc straight away in my role as Preventive Data Scientist at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in coding applications for the prevention of damage to museum objects from the climate, insects, light and other risks to the objects."

My experience on the MSc Sustainable Heritage course led to a successful internship opportunity at Historic England, where I had a very enjoyable experience after graduating. Meanwhile, the knowledge I gained during my postgraduate studies helped me to become more certain about the kind of work I want to do in my future career in relation to public engagement and urban renewal.

UCL’s Sustainable Heritage MSc was the first step on the route to a new career for me, after 17 years in finance. I’d long had an interest in old buildings, so it was a real boon, in amongst all the other projects and topics, to find myself studying environmental management strategies for historic houses with the person responsible for this area at the National Trust."

Embarking on a mid-life career change from publishing to heritage was a daunting prospect, but from the moment I met the UCL Sustainable Heritage course tutors and my fellow students I knew I’d done the right thing! The course stretched me in ways I couldn’t have anticipated."

What I personally most enjoyed was learning about heritage and the great mix of modules, which really allowed me to be creative. I also got to work on some techniques that I'd never used before, such as when I built a graffiti image classifier which was one of my favourite projects."

The MSc helped me to broaden my view about what sustainability is and how best a holistic approach can be implemented, whilst providing the technical skills and using systems thinking in various fields.

The Sustainable Heritage MSc is perfect for someone looking for an intellectual challenge, and complements a variety of future careers relating to the built environment or museum collections. I not only gained a wealth of knowledge, but I have also widened my skillset through teamwork and project management, which will be invaluable in my new role.

First, and most importantly, savour your time at University College London. For students interested in pursuing a future Ph.D. or another master’s degree, my advice would be to establish a strong foundation in your interest research area. Data Science for Cultural Heritage program would be a good choice because of its professional supervisors and a range of cross-discipline courses.