Graduate Student Symposium

Posted March 29, 2015 by Alison Mitchell

My takeaway from the 2015 Simmons College Graduate Student Symposium: I should go to more events on campus.

Logistically, it’s easiest for me to come to campus only when I have class, so that’s pretty much what I do.   Earlier this winter I submitted a paper to the Graduate Student Symposium, and was happy to be selected, even though I knew it would require a little schedule juggling on my part.  So, this past Friday (not usually a school day for me!), I arranged for my kids to go home from school with friends (thank you, Alenka and Caroline!) and made my way over to Simmons for the afternoon, hoping that the logistical challenge would be worth it.

It was so completely worth it.  So. Completely. Worth. It.  The symposium was well organized and the presentations were professional, interesting and relevant.   I ran into several classmates I haven’t seen this semester due to opposite course schedules (hello, Celeste, Gretyl and Jahan!) and met SLIS students with whom I’ve never crossed paths.  I was impressed with the breadth and depth of the presentations, even (especially?) the topics I knew little about.   It was also fun to talk about my own area of interest — summer reading programs at public libraries —  and I got some great ideas from post-presentation discussions, which I’ll test on my own kids this summer (oh, the benefits of having kids when you’re training to be a children’s librarian!). 

Participating in the symposium made me realize that I should make more of an effort to attend events on campus, even on the days I don’t have class.  Between faculty lectures, student organization meetings and career forums, there’s at least one event each week that sounds great.  I’ll work on that —  part of being at SLIS should include taking advantage of all that Simmons has to offer, which is really quite a lot.