Student Cohort

Current students

To learn more about our students, browse here for a selection of student profiles.

Recent graduates

Student cohort

As Preservation Studies students, we represent diverse backgrounds, cultures, and interests, making for a rich cohort. Some of us join the program directly from our undergraduate years, and others work in related fields like city planning, historical commissions, or architecture before applying to Boston University. As a cohort, we represent an academic background comprising History, American Studies, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and English – to name a few. We hail from within Boston, the United States, and even from abroad. We each hold unique passions for the outdoors, baseball, gaming, or Nantucket History, but we have a shared passion for preservation and dedicated scholarship.

We work together and individually to learn about the history of preservation in the United States and abroad and prepare ourselves to make a difference in saving structures, neighborhoods, landscapes, stories, and intangible culture. We work in groups through in-class workshops, researching and deepening relationships. Periodical departmental gatherings allow us to meet as a cohort and talk with professors more informally. Field Trips occur periodically in class and as a cohort.  They are usually to local venues and offer unique perspectives on New England history and preservation. They are a great opportunity for classmates to come together and share an engaging experience and talk over lunch. We also come together as friends to share a drink, have a barbeque, and even just walk through historic Boston.

An important aspect of the student experience is the internship, usually held the summer after the first year.  The internship allows students to apply preservation theories as well as connect with the preservation world outside of an academic setting. Our recent cohort interned with the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Massachusetts Historical Commission, and the National Park Service.  Boston is home to many National Parks within the city and around its outskirts. Preservation students graduate to a myriad jobs found at the Massachusetts Historical Commission, the Public Archaeology Lab (PAL), State Historic Preservation Offices, the City of Boston, or even go on to PhD programs in related fields, including at our own American and New England Studies Program (AMNESP).

_{Contributor: Kristen Dahlmann}