Internships
Career Prep: Resume Revamp & Career Fair
Posted April 20, 2022 by Katie Dillon
April in Boston means occasional sun, occasionally moderate temperatures, and more than occasional networking opportunities! Besides a slew of conferences over the next few months, the Simmons SLIS career fair was this past week. SLIS hosts the career fair virtually on Handshake, a networking app specifically for students and recent graduates. Since I’m still a year away from graduation, I used the career fair mainly as an opportunity to learn about a few potential future employers (and, of course, getting my name out there couldn’t hurt!). I’m on the fence about whether academic or corporate libraries would be the best fit for me, so I signed up for group info sessions for a few of each. I particularly enjoyed a session on Data Management services at the Harvard Medical School library – one of my favorite information science topics from a library on Simmons’ back doorstep! Naturally, I want to put my best foot forward. The Simmons Career Education Center has plenty of advice, but I’ve learned a lot from other sources, too. In March…
Career Fair in Review
Posted April 14, 2022 by Bryanne McArdle
Last week I attended the Simmons SLIS career fair. It was a really informative experience that allowed myself and other students to talk to current LIS professionals about current job opportunities and fields that we should keep an eye on. I personally attended to get an idea of where the field was at. I used to, before studying for my masters, work for a museum internship program and would attend these fairs on “the other side of the table.” So, I was going to see what had changed since then, what my perspective as a student had changed, and hopefully to get some information on the state of LIS fields. I walked away feeling much more informed and confident about my job prospects once I graduate this May, regardless of where I end up. Everyone I talked to was really kind, helpful, and happy to answer questions. The best thing was a walked away with was interest in fields, like development fundraising research to law libraries, that I had not before. And as someone who…
There You Are
Posted February 15, 2022 by Abbey Metzler
Lately when I am not in class at Simmons, it feels like I’m only ever at my job. It isn’t technically a bad feeling in itself. I work, essentially, as records management at a financial firm right off the Boston Commons. When you squint, my job responsibilities look like archival work. I am tasked with taking the old files from my office basement, some older than myself and all slightly funky with various degrees of water damage, and digitizing, organizing, then shredding them. My closest colleague is our network room printer. He is large and one of the more temperamental machines that I have had the pleasure of toiling beside. I don’t do much appraising, just checking that the tax returns are over seven years old before I send them to the document organizer where all files go to die. The problem is that this feeling of constant work is paired with the second semester of graduate school conviction that I am terribly behind everyone else. My work does not have a museum…
Working in an Archive
Posted February 24, 2020 by William Crouch
For LIS 438-Intro to Archival Methods, one of the required aspects is a 60-hour internship with an archive. For the class, Simmons helps you find an archive that will work well for your own situation based on your interests, transportation options, and where you live. I was assigned to work in the City of Boston Archives and Records Management Division with SLIS alum, Marta Crilly. For my internship, I was introduced to all of the other archivists within the office and they were all Simmons alumni which was really cool because it made me see just how big the alumni network is for SLIS. The City of Boston Archives has all the governmental records for the various divisions within the government like the fire department, police, and obviously the mayor’s office. My project for this semester will be going through boxes of photos from Mayor Raymond Flynn’s administration from 1984 to 1993 which had previously had been digitized onto a Flickr account. Over the course of the 60 hours I’ll be working there, I’ll be…
It’s the Final Countdown!
Posted January 27, 2020 by Maria Reilova
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. …
Who Knew Fidelity Investments has a Library?
Posted September 6, 2019 by Maria Reilova
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…
Finding and Landing a Summer Internship
Posted June 7, 2019 by Maria Reilova
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…
April Showers, Bring Last Half of Semester Jitters (and Good News!)
Posted April 2, 2019 by Maria Reilova
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…
Library Instruction: What I’ve Learned
Posted March 21, 2019 by Megan Ondricek
Last week I had my final “big” teaching day at the internship: a packed morning with three classes in a row. I’ve now taught the same lesson to eight unique sections belonging to four unique faculty members. While I in no way consider myself an expert, I do feel qualified at this point to talk about some of the big things I’ve learned through this experience. 1. It’s okay to be nervous. Experiencing nerves does not mean that you are doing something wrong or are not up to the task ahead. I’ve heard from several experienced instructors that they still routinely get nervous. For me, my nerves generally fade away once the class is underway and I get into the “flow” of the lesson, but they can still show up again at seemingly random moments. 2. Every class is different. Even though I had the same lesson material for eight classes, each one turned out a little different. I asked different questions, said different things, and spent more or less time on certain parts of…
Enjoying the Journey
Posted February 28, 2019 by Megan Ondricek
As the semester goes on I continue to feel very pleased with the way that it has turned out. Taking that two-week preservation course at the very beginning was the best thing I could have done. I enjoyed the topic more than I thought I would, and it left me with just one class to worry about for the rest of the semester! It does feel a little strange to not be driving up to South Hadley every Saturday, but I am thrilled to have my weekends back and to spend them with my family. It is a good thing too, because the weekly class schedule for metadata makes all the assignments and discussions due on Monday – which means I’m pretty busy over the weekend. Fortunately my internship makes up for the missed classroom interaction and sociality I enjoyed up at SLIS West. On Thursday I got to observe Matt, the senior instruction librarian, teach the class that I’ll be teaching next week! The lesson plan, activities, presentation and materials are already provided for…