Laura Kiely
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Hello! My name is Laura Kiely and I’m in my second year of the master’s program here at SLIS. I moved from Iowa to Boston to study library science and archives management, a move inspired both by the school itself and by my desire to uproot my life and try living somewhere new. I grew up and went to school in Iowa, so living in Boston is a brave new world for me! I will be writing about my classes, the process of moving to Boston, and the variety of jobs I have found here to support myself in my day to day life. I may also toss in a book recommendation or two—I am a librarian, after all!
Entries by Laura Kiely
I moved to Boston from Iowa, where I grew up and completed my bachelor’s degree. Because my undergraduate campus was 100% residential, I had barely ever lived on my own or paid rent before! I did of course work throughout my undergraduate degree, but the money went either into savings, living expenses, and fun. So moving to Boston was quite the lifestyle change! Rent anywhere in Boston is astronomical compared to Iowa, and I had utilities and groceries and all the added expenses of adulthood. However, going to school full-time does to an extent limit one’s ability to work full-time, and vice versa. It’s not strictly the case, there are ways to make it work, but I knew I wanted to focus on academics, which meant finding part-time work. Before moving to Boston, I was sending applications all over the place, largely coming up empty-handed. I decided to expand beyond libraries and archives, into a bit wider of a net. And it worked! I am by no means wealthy, but I am making monthly rent…
In my last post I told you about the courses I took during my first semester here at Simmons SLIS. In this post I’ll discuss my second semester courses! After getting required courses out of the way, there’s a lot more wiggle room for which classes you want to take. I’m working on the Archives Management concentration, which has a more prescribed series of courses. My second semester I went from taking more general library courses to archives courses! I rounded out my central three required courses with LIS-488, the course on technology. Now, I have mixed feelings about this class. It’s a phenomenal course for people who come in with very little computer science knowledge or background, so I figured that having only taken a couple of courses in undergrad meant I fit into this category. The good news is that I know more about computer basics than I thought! The bad news is, I did have several days in that class dedicated to information I already knew. That’s not the end of the…
My first and second semesters here at Simmons were dedicated largely to completing the required courses here at Simmons. I am attending Simmons full-time, meaning I am taking three classes per semester each Fall and Spring. There are three courses that everyone here at SLIS are required to take: 407, 415, and 488. In the archives concentration, there is a similarly prescriptive set of three classes, but these are to be taken in sequence: 438, 440, and 442. My first semester here at Simmons I took 407, 415, and 438, which I think was the best introductory set of classes for the archives concentration. For more context, I am taking classes in-person in Boston, so some of my class selections have been made based on course availability, as I find I learn best in person, but this selection of first semester classes would be equally effective online. LIS-407 is truly the most introductory class to the concept of libraries and library science, so I find it is most valuable in your first semester. The three…
