March Madness

Posted March 21, 2014 by Emily Boyd

Clever title, right? It’s fitting because of everything going on right now, I cannot believe March is almost over already! This semester ends in just about a month and I’ll have finished 10 of 12 classes to graduate. In fact, just this week GSLIS made an exciting announcement, August grads (like me) will be able to walk at the May graduation ceremony. Although it will feel weird to receive a (fake) diploma for a degree I haven’t technically earned yet, I’m so excited to participate in the graduation ceremony! The one downside of finishing in the summer was that I thought I wouldn’t get to walk at graduation, so props to Simmons for changing their policy. It wouldn’t feel real to me if I didn’t participate in a graduation ceremony to make it official.

March madness doesn’t just refer to school and my basketball bracket, last week I accepted a full-time job starting in June! I’ll be working for a tech startup company called Green Mountain Digital working on an amazing (and free!) app called Yonder (www.yonder.it) focusing on connecting people to the outdoors. Stop what you’re doing and go download it now! I’m going to be working with amazing, smart, motivated, innovative people and I’m so looking forward to this new challenge.

Is my job going to be in a library? No, but that’s okay. I’ll be using much of what I’ve learned at GSLIS at this new job, and learning so much more about technology, skills that will certainly translate into a library someday. I’ll also be finishing my degree during a weeklong intensive course in July, I didn’t get this far to bail at the last minute! So why take a job that’s seemingly not in my field, a field I’ve been waxing poetic about for years now? Because now is the time to take a crazy risk. Librarians as a group are not the biggest risk takers and up until now I’ve fit that mold perfectly. Now is the time to change and try something totally different and super exciting. If I’ve learned nothing else during my time at GSLIS it’s that it’s important to do things your own way and to try new opportunities as they present themselves. I’m really looking forward to this next chapter in my life and starting my first “real” (read: full-time) job! My list of books to be read is also looking forward to my homework-free existence.