How to Have a Job after Graduation

Posted April 16, 2013 by Carolyn Lucas

As I have mentioned in previous posts, one of the things that bugged me the most about my undergraduate experience was the lack of support when they pushed you forth into the world.  When people inevitably ask me what I like the most about Simmons, my answer is always the same: while I love many of the classes and professors, and the students are some of the sweetest and brightest I have ever met, I feel that the support Simmons offers to its students in terms of employment is one of the best things a school can do. 

Simmons is great in that you enter this program knowing that you would like to be employed at the end of it – and you get employment support from the moment you enter orientation.  In the Archives Concentration you are automatically enrolled in two internships – one 60-hour, and one 130-hour – that provide you with experience in an actual archive.  These internships often provide invaluable networking experience, and more often than not the repositories ask the students to stay on for additional hours (either paid or unpaid; it depends on the repository), and even whole projects or getting taken on as a job.  I believe that other tracks within GSLIS are adopting this model and starting to work on providing internships for other students as well. 

In addition to the internships, which as I mentioned provide invaluable experience, Simmons has a model akin to “me casa es su casa” – Simmons’ contacts are your contacts.  Professors within GSLIS often pass along emails with job opportunities, internships, networking opportunities, and more.  I have found that these opportunities are often given to professors before they are posted to public forums, allowing these students a leg-up on the competition.  For example, I will be starting a records management internship this summer thanks to an email passed along by a professor.  This job is a fantastic opportunity, and one that I don’t know if I would have gotten – or even heard about – without the help of the Simmons network. 

There is one caveat, though – while these opportunities are as much as dropped in your lap, you do have to be willing to go out and do them.  There are so many good tools that Simmons provides, but they are only available for a limited time – so make sure you take advantage of them while you can!