Let’s Talk About Homework!
Posted October 10, 2025 by Brooke Thomson
I have two in-person classes that meet once a week on Boston campus. Much of my workload takes place outside traditional lecture hours, but what does that really look like? I’ll tell you!
LIS488 Technology for Information Professionals is one of the four core courses all MLIS students are required to take. It provides the conceptual foundation and context of computing, the Internet and related technologies as used in information-intensive professions. I like to call it ‘The Coding Class,’ because I have to do a coding lab every week. The end-goal is to create a website using what we’ve learned about things like HTML, CSS, Python and XML.
I chose to create a blog for my website. With each subsequent lab, this blog becomes slightly more sophisticated and recognizable. Of the three classes I’m taking this semester, I would say this one is the hardest because I’m brand new to this subject and easily confused. Coding calls for precision, just like math. Either you did it right and it works, or you didn’t and you get nothing. Then you spend an hour or more trying to find where you made a mistake (I do this so often). Here’s what my screen looked like when I was working on the CSS lab:
Outside of coding, I also have to work on both an individual and group presentation. I signed up to complete my individual presentation earlier this month. Now I don’t have to worry about it for the rest of the semester! For my individual presentation, I had to select a word from a list of key technology terms curated by my professor and then teach the class about it. My term was ‘Creative Commons.’ I dedicated a week to drafting up a snazzy Google Slides presentation and practicing my oral presentation to the imaginary audience in my bedroom. In the end I think it went well! These are some screenshots from my presentation:
The other big assignment for this class is to provide a technology tutorial. My classmate and I have been meeting in Beatley Library to plan out our presentation on Citizen Archivist, and we’ll be presenting it within the next few weeks. I definitely recommend the school library to study or do group-work. My mom went there to work for a few hours while visiting me, and she liked it too!
My other class is LIS448 Digital Stewardship—AKA the reason I wanted to talk about homework for this blog! I have consistently needed to go to local LAMs (Library, Archives and Museums) to conduct homework for this class, something I find particularly unique. Most recently I visited the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to select items for a group digitization assignment. We were focusing on items relating to Boston History over a certain time period, like these:
Before that, I also needed to go to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for a separate digitization assignment. I wandered around the grounds with a pencil and paper, taking notes on the items I found and photographing to the best of my ability. My favorite subject was the Farnese Sarcophagus, but the whole place is gorgeous.
Because this is a digital stewardship course, I also frequently conduct research on digital collections and discuss them for my weekly assignments. Most recently, I had to analyze the efficiency of search engines in digital collections like The Library of Congress and Europeana.
For my third and only online class, LIS 407 Information Service, Behaviors and Ethics, I write papers! The last one had me choose an information behavior study to analyze and review. The study I picked was: I Saw It in a Movie”: Mass Media’s Influence on Young Children’s Understanding of World Cultures, by Heidi J. Torres. My routine for doing 407 homework is usually to set up shop at my desk with comfy clothes and some cinematic music playing in the background—my go-to’s are the soundtracks from Game of Thrones and Attack on Titan. By the time I get up to eat, I’m usually stiff like a dead spider and need 3 to 5 business days to get my joints working again.
And of course, the Number 1 homework assignment for all of these classes is readings, readings, and more readings. I’m sure every SLIS student can relate!