Guest Blogger: Katelyn Duncan
Posted September 20, 2015 by Katie Olivo
Katelyn Duncan is a former Spanish & Italian literature student who stumbled upon librarianship after realizing she wanted to balance her fondness for academia with her love for helping people. During her five semesters at Simmons, she took courses focusing on reference and academic libraries and worked in the SLIS Tech Lab as well as a small college library. In March 2015, she became the first Simmons student to go to South Korea as part of a dual degree program to get a second master’s in LIS from Yonsei University in Seoul.
We’re delighted to have her share a few posts with us this semester so that we can all learn about her dual degree program at Yonsei University!
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When I first came to Simmons in summer 2013, I knew I wanted to take advantage of international opportunities if I could. I thought that would mean participating in SCIRRT (the LIS student group focusing on international librarianship) and attending one of the short summer study abroad sessions in Korea, France or Italy. What I never expected was to visit Korea for three weeks, love it, and be offered the chance to come back on a scholarship to study for a year and get a second Master’s in Library and Information Science through Yonsei University.
This March, I moved to Seoul with a pretty small suitcase, a taste for adventure, and a fair amount of nerves. Since then I’ve visited a royal library in a secret garden, learned basic Korean with students from all over the world, and participated in research projects, student events, and many explorations of Seoul and beyond.
Some things about life here aren’t that different: an average day involves waking up, having a brief conversation with my roommate, and heading out for lunch in the student union before research meetings or classes. On the other hand, there are so many eye-opening details about living in a completely different culture and environment, and learning what being a librarian or library and information science means here. Sometimes it’s really cool – like when I talk with people on the street whose reaction to me being a librarian is “ooooh, wow!” (can’t say I got that one a lot in the good old US of A). Sometimes it’s a little weird, like realizing that reference librarianship is one of the last things people think of here, although I know some people who are working to change that!
Either way, as I work through my last semester here and prepare myself for the culture shock of coming back, I’m excited to share some of my experiences.