Maria Reilova

Is This Real Life?

There is no denying that nothing is like it used to be, and that a lot of the future will not be like what we expected. School is different, work is different, socializing is different, everything is different. This past month, I have had a dramatic increase of “free time” with every aspect of life being moved digitally, not only my job and my classes, but even my yoga studio and grocery shopping. I am so lucky to be able to work remotely in my role on the Research Services team at Fidelity Investments and my classes have translated to online without much stress considering I was taking 2 out of 3 online anyway. Regardless of that, I can’t say that it has been an easy transition.    I chose to return to Florida to be with my family since staying in Boston alone (all my roommates moved out to be with their own families) would have led to complete and utter insanity. Ironically enough, panic flying to Florida wasn’t really a solution to fix the…

It’s the Final Countdown!

Happy 2020, everyone! I’ve been kind of absent from the blog last semester, so I am way overdue on given y’all a HUGE life update. I’m officially in my final semester and I am busy. Last semester I had the opportunity to work for the Fine Arts Library at Harvard University as well as intern for the Museum of Fine Arts Registrar’s Office. Now for anyone who doesn’t know me, this was a dream come true! My background is in art history and I have always seen myself working in either a museum library or a specialized academic library.  At Harvard, I was working as the Collection Assistant and was able to learn so much about how they run their library and also see first hand some of the incredible things that the Fine Arts Library collects. I also on a few occasions got to work with the paper conservator on flagging some materials for preservation. All the things I loved learning about in my classes were really coming into play in my new role. …

Seoul Much to Say

Now that it is starting to get colder (basically uninhabitable in this poor Floridian’s mind), I wanted to take the time and reflect back on warmer summer days. You guessed it, it’s finally time for my long-awaited South Korea blog post! Just as a little refresher, I was lucky enough to travel to Seoul, South Korea, this past summer as part of Simmons partnership with Yonsei University. Six other Simmons students and I took the long haul flight to Korea as part of our summer Metadata course taught by Jeff Pomerantz. We were in Seoul for a little over two weeks and we tried to cram as much as we could in those two weeks! From gorging ourselves on all the delicious food, hiking up a mountain every night to our dorm, and dragging my fellow travelers on several skincare focused shopping adventures, this was an unforgettable experience that I will be jumping at the opportunity to talk about for the rest of my life. I have always been someone interested in traveling so when…

Touring the Library of My Dreams

A few weeks ago, the Panoptican and Special Libraries Association student groups, put on a joint field trip to tour the Museum of Fine Arts’s library that is located not too far from campus! As a new officer of Panoptican and especially as an aspiring art librarian, I was very excited to attend but also to meet and chat with other Simmons students with similar interests and goals in the library profession. Getting back into the swing of things at the start of a new semester can be overwhelming but I knew this was an event I did not want to miss!  While the actual MFA is basically diagonal to campus, the MFA’s library is offsite on Mass Ave by the Symphony T stop. While the main purpose of the library is to be a resource for the museum staff, they are also open to the public Monday through Friday from 1-5 pm. However, the stacks are closed and anyone interested will need call slips in order to view any materials, which I thought was…

Always Say Yes to Free Pizza

Having survived a crazy, first few weeks of the semester full of extensive planning, and then replanning, I’m starting to finally feel settled again. And with the start of a new semester here at Simmons is all the fun events! Since I haven’t been an on-campus student since last Fall, it was really great coming back and seeing so many familiar faces!  An event that I remembered hearing about last fall, that I was lucky to be able to actually attend this fall, was Pizza with the Dean. Besides the obvious reasoning of free food, I thought this was a really great opportunity to actually meet and talk with our COCIS Dean Marie desJardins in a casual, conversational setting. If there is one goal I have been really trying to work on throughout grad school, it is being more outgoing in a work meets social type setting. Networking has always been a terrifying concept for me and, while I like to think I am an interesting person to talk to, once I start interacting with…

Who Knew Fidelity Investments has a Library?

Hello, Student Snippet readers! Long time no see(read?)! Happy start of the new semester, I have had one of the busiest summers of my life this year. For a quick recap: I had to put my on-campus job in the SLIS admissions office on hold since I was working at Fidelity Investments full-time as their Research Services Intern, while also taking Metadata online which was offered this summer as the SLIS travel course to Yonsei University in South Korea! Since I could write about my trip to South Korea for ages, I thought I’d focus my first “back-to-school” blog post, on my internship this summer. I found and applied for my summer internship using the SLIS jobline. I was fortunate enough interview, and be offered the internship at Fidelity Investments in Boston, where I would be working with their research services team. Now I’m sure I am not alone in that I had no idea that Fidelity even had a library, and with it some super cool librarians! Because it was a corporate library, the…

How a Hungry Floridian Feeds Herself without Publix

Now as someone born and raised in Florida, I have very strong opinions on which supermarket is the best. Publix is the greatest gift that Florida has given to the Southeast and I will always make whoever picks me up from the airport come with a chicken tender pub sub in one hand, and a Publix arnold palmer in the other.  So as nearly a cult member to the religion that is Publix, moving up to New England and not having access to my pub subs and near endless BOGO deals was honestly quite worrisome. But don’t fret fellow Floridians, or any folks who care to read my crazed musings about grocery shopping, I have taken it upon myself to visit the nearest grocery stores to me and let y’all in on all my crazy thoughts and opinions. I’ll not go to in depth since this is one of those weird topics that I could talk about for hours, but honestly I feel like this is helpful information for fellow foodies moving to the Boston area from…

To All the Bookstores I Ever Loved

Now that summer has officially started, I am finding myself with something I almost never have, extra free time! I am interning full-time this summer so I am still busy throughout the day but it is so nice to be able to leave my work at the office and come home and not have to worry about catching up on my assignments or readings for class. So obviously, my conclusion for how to occupy all this new free time is that I can finally start catching up on all my leisure reading.  This also means I have to make a trip to my favorite bookstore because you can never have too many books. I live pretty close to Brookline, and Coolidge Corner has always been one of my favorite areas to take a stroll and hang out when the weather is nice. The Trader Joe’s is there, a great tea shop, a yoga studio (I keep saying I will take a class at one of these weekends), and best of all Brookline Booksmith, (a used…

Finding and Landing a Summer Internship

I had been worried about finding another job or internship over the summer months since I knew that I was going to be staying in Boston the whole time and did not want to just laze about until my South Korea trip. To be honest I was applying to almost every viable job that was popping up on Jobline. I was lucky enough to be asked to interview for 3 positions at 3 very different libraries. It was a hectic fews weeks in terms of every job I applied for emailing me at the same time, while I was also dealing with my general classes and internship deadlines, in addition to also preparing for a trip home to run the Star Wars 5k at Disney World! It was a lot to handle, but I somehow made it through with only slight strain on my sleep schedule (it is always those 5am flights that are the cheapest unfortunately). Which leads to my big news, everyone…I scored my first job in a real library! This is huge…

Trying my Hand at Student Leadership

Taking online coureses this semester has been really great in terms of flexibility in my schedule for my part-time job, and for my internship, but it has been not so great for socializing and being involved at campus events. Since I did not have to come to campus as often for class or meetings for group projects, I spent way more time these past few months in my bed then I’d like to admit. So to get out of my comfort zone and really try to challenge myself, I decided to run for a leadership position in Panopticon,(the student art librarianship student organization). Which means you can now call me Madame Secretary! I knew I wanted to get more involved since time is going by so fast and I want to experience as much as a can in grad school before it’s over! Panopticon has always been the student group I have been most interested in, and I am so excited to now be a part of their leadership team. Having a background in art…

SLIS Career and Networking Fair – Come for the Networking, Stay for the Swag & Brownies

Every spring, SLIS Student Services puts on the annual SLIS Career and Networking Fair for the students and alumni of the program. I am have been looking for some summer internship or part-time opportunities in Boston and I really wanted to attend this event as an informative experience, and a chance to practice my networking skills (something that still stresses me out constantly and I am always trying to improve). I am so happy I went. Even though I did initially have to hype myself up a bit with some caffeine. It was really nice to attend a career fair that was actually catering to my specific field. In undergraduate, I attended one career fair and since my college had a lot of business and technology students I did not feel too well represented as an art history student. There were definitely ways I could apply my liberal arts degree to different careers at the fair but it was nice to have that taken care for me at the Simmons SLIS Career Fair. Some of the…

Accepted Student Luncheon (as a Current Student)

March/April is such a busy time at the admissions office at SLIS, where I work part-time, and just a few weekends ago, we had the Accepted Student Lunch on our Boston Campus for everyone admitted into SLIS for the Fall. I attended to participate on the student panel, help out with the concentration breakout sessions, give one of the largest tours I’ve done so far, and most importantly enjoy a delicious free lunch chatting with future students in the program. What I really liked about being able to participate in this event, is that I actually attended the Accepted Student Lunch last Spring before I was a student, and it was certainly a valuable experience for me as someone who had never been to campus before and was still a little hesitant about moving so far from home (and the sunshine). I remember being the first to arrive at my table and being super nervous about almost everything. Luckily, a few of the other people at my table were interested in the same concentration as…

April Showers, Bring Last Half of Semester Jitters (and Good News!)

March was a complete blur for me. As cliche as it sounds, I can’t believe it’s already April! March was a crazy month since it started off with Spring Break and I had some major assignments due. To start off though just a quick, little humble brag about how I was able to go over to Scotland to visit a friend there for spring break in the beginning of March. It was an amazing trip full of hiking, pubs, and castles! Oh, and lots of Highland cows (photos for evidence because it’s too cute not to share), which are just as adorable in person! My brain always seems to get a little fried mid semester and being able to take a week to decompression is such a blessing as a student. Speaking of having your brain fried, this may not come as a shock to many, but grad school is hard, and in my personal opinion graduate level online courses are even harder. So coming back from break was a little rocky at first! Don’t…

Never Thought I’d See One of Those in an Archive…

I am now approaching my 5th week of interning at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design Archives and it could not be more of a perfect fit! After graduating with my MSLIS, my dream is to work as an art librarian, so you can imagine my excitement with my placement at this institution! To further sweeten the deal, MassArt is right next to Simmons and my supervisor is a Simmons alum! So easy it is an easy commute and I love hearing about her experience while she was in the program. Just as a quick recap in case anyone isn’t too familiar with how the LIS438 internship works, you are required to complete a 60 hour internship in conjunction with your regular course assignments. The great thing about this internship is that Simmons set it up for you so there is none of that application stress and decision fatigue. I should point out though that the one downside to that is you don’t have any say in where you get placed. You fill out…

Going Home and Going Online

I got back from winter break a little later than everyone else since I had my brother’s wedding to attend the last week of January. If anyone needs a refresher (I’m sure I mention it in nearly every blog post) but I am from Florida, and in true extra Florida fashion, my brother got married on a 3-day Disney cruise to the bahamas. It was fantastic, I got to spend quality time with my own family and my new sister-in-law’s family, most importantly though I got to spend that time with family in the sunny caribbean. I mention this lovely vacation not to brag (that’s a lie, I am totally bragging about how great Florida is) because in order to spend the most time with family over break and for the wedding, I decided that this semester I will be taking classes fully online!. It just made the most sense given that I wanted to spend as much time as possible home in Florida. Which is one of the great things about Simmons, they offer…

Resume Review & Planning for the Future – Ready to Upload

Whenever the end of the semester rolls around, I always start thinking about the future. I have a very day-to-day planning style throughout the semester. I plan my days out and try to focus in the moment so as not to overwhelm myself with how much I have going on. Luckily for me we have the Library and Information Science Student Association (LISSA) on campus that sends out emails every week with all the events going on around campus! This is how I found out that Student Services was organizing resume reviews with Amy Ryan, a former president of the Boston Public Library and honorary advisor at SLIS. I have to start off by saying I am a shy, sensitive soul (shocking for a library student, I know) and was genuinely terrified of having someone look over and critique my resume and cover letter. Especially someone as impressive as Amy! I was very worried about the regular things about one’s resume, is what I have enough or not enough? Should I put my education above…

International Opportunities at Simmons SLIS

One of the great things about Simmons SLIS is how many events are hosted each week! We have a very active student body and there are more panels, workshops, field trips, socials, etc. than anyone could ever hope to go. While being a graduate student is synonymous with overbooking your time, I have made an effort to attend a few events, specifically anything that has to do with international librarianship. I have always loved to travel and learn as much as I can about different cultures. So any chance I get to combine this passion with my passion for libraries, I will seize it! In this past month, I went to two really amazing presentations from faculty about their work abroad. The first was with Professor Lisa Hussey, who I currently have for 407, and Professor Nanette Veilleux on their Summer course in Rwanda. This program is only a year old but offers students interested in international librarianship, archives, and computer science an opportunity to gain hands on experience working with a handful of schools…

Wait…It’s almost Thanksgiving?!

So it’s November. Already. I’m not sure where September and October went but apparently it’s the past. These first few weeks of grad school have been a whirlwind and when friends and family ask me what I’ve been up to my brain just goes blank and my response is always something along the lines of “library things” and “school stuff”. Being halfway through the semester is both exciting and terrifying. I’m glad to be done with some of my projects but I still have a ways to go before the semester is over. I love my classes but I am very excited for Thanksgiving for a little time to breath in between all the craziness of papers, group projects, and final assignments. Since I am taking all my the 3 core courses this semester the workload has been heavy, especially since I’m taking 415 and 407 back to back on Thursdays (hello overlapping deadlines!). I’ve survived midterms though, which means I’ve survived three group projects all due the same week! Nothing like group assignments to…

Public Transport Rant: The Good, The Bad, and The Super Delayed T

Being from a small town in Florida means that for most of my life, I have had pretty regular access to a car. My high school didn’t even have a school bus option for where I lived. The closest grocery store was under 5 miles away but there was no direct bus line and if you wanted to walk it would be through 90 degree weather and 100% humidity, not my ideal afternoon out. Also subway systems in Florida just don’t exist since Florida is basically sand. So moving to Boston and having so many public transportation options is a super new concept for me. I’ll start by saying that I am very lucky to have been able to live with my cousin whose from MA and lived in Boston for a little over a year, so when I arrived in August I had a guide waiting with a Charlie Card for me. I still remember though my first T ride alone following along on my phone with google maps. I quickly learned my stops…

Starting Strong and Staying Strong

A little over a month into my first semester of grad school and, oh boy, what a whirlwind! From really nailing down my commute in from Brighton, (never thought I’d be team bus over T) to learning how to layer (someone please teach how to scarf) so as not to over heat during said commute, these past weeks have been quite the experience. But enough about my struggles over the weather, let’s talk classes. For my first semester, I chose to take the 3 core courses to get them out of the way before the snow hits too hard and I lose all motivation to leave my bed. This means that I’m enrolled in 407-Information Sources & Services, 415-Information Organization, and 488-Technology for Information Professionals. I was warned by my advisor before the semester that this course load would be tough with a lot of reading and a lot of assignments. Personally, I always feel more energetic and refreshed Fall semester since it’s a new school year and you’re coming off from ideally a relaxing…