Library Science Realization

Posted March 14, 2018 by Sarah Callanan

I’m only halfway through my first semester of library school and I’m loving every minute of it.  However, making the decision to go to library school wasn’t an immediate realization for me. 

When I was in undergrad, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life- I just knew I didn’t want to work in the medical field or be an engineer.  I chose my major and minor, communications and English, because I thought they would pair well with my love of reading and writing.  It was not until I met with a career counselor during my second year at UNC Chapel Hill that I started to consider pursuing an advanced library science degree.  Most of the people in my major were planning on getting their MBA, getting a law degree, or working in social media and all of those careers did not really sound appealing to me.  I knew I could do those jobs, but my goal was to be happy in whatever career I ended up pursuing.  During the meeting, the counselor asked me about my interests, and I described to her my love of books and writing, how I enjoyed research and information, and that I spent most of my free time reading.  Based on my response, she encouraged me to research a library science degree, which I had never considered before.  To be completely honest, I had never heard of a library science degree before that meeting.  But the more I read about the library and information science profession, the more it made sense for me to pursue it.  Most of my free time in college was spent in the library and as much as I love to write, I have always enjoyed researching a project far more.  I realized that being a librarian would be the career that would make me the happiest in life, and in order to achieve that dream, I needed to go to grad school. 

I’m so happy at Simmons and I’m really glad I had that meeting with the career counselor at UNC Chapel Hill because otherwise, I have a feeling that I never would have ended up in library science, or it would have taken me a few years to finally come to the realization that this is where I needed to be.