Mentoring
Summer Wrap Up and First Week of Classes
Posted September 11, 2024 by Aurora Daniel
It’s so nice to be back at Simmons after a jam-packed summer! I was a fellow for Warrior-Scholar Project, which is a nonprofit that helps veterans and active duty service members transition to college through one to two week bootcamps focused on building core study and writing skills as well as providing information about how to apply to schools. Over the course of the summer I worked at Yale University, the University of Notre Dame, Cornell University, and the The California Institute of Technology. I was a participant way back in 2018 and wouldn’t be in grad school now without it so it was wonderful to be able to give back. Additionally, being a fellow ensured getting some teaching experience under my belt, which was one of my goals for grad school. I led morning study groups and evening college success sessions, helped grade problem sets, and tutored students on their writing and physics. On top of getting to travel and building my professional skills I also made friends and had a lot of fun…
Conferences
Posted February 14, 2024 by Isabella Rodrigues
In the journey from academia to professionalism, library conferences can be an excellent tool for networking, updates about the industry, and job searching. Simmons holds memberships with many prestigious organizations such as the American Library Association, Massachusetts Library Association, and International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions. A comprehensive list of these organizations can be found here. A great in to these places and the greater community of librarians nationwide and worldwide is by attending yearly conferences. Ask your professors or advisors about the conferences they attend! Ask other SLIS students! Here are some of the advertised conferences for this year! Many organizations are still updating and listing their dates so check in frequently for more information.
Mentorship in the Massachusetts Library Association
Posted February 27, 2023 by Magenta Jasinski
One of the biggest assets to the Simmons Library Science program is being able to make connections outside of the program, surprisingly enough. Because Simmons is so widely recognized in Boston and New England as a highly ranked library program, many organizations form partnerships with the university. One of the partnerships I’ve benefited from is with the Massachusetts Library Association (MLA) and their mentorship program. I got an email about the program several months ago, and I’ve been working closely with MLA, the “Up Close and Personal” Mentorship program, and my delightful mentor. There are a few aspects of this program that I find unique and highly beneficial to my library praxis, so I’ll go through them here. First, the program set me up with my mentor, who works at Buckingham, Browne & Nichols (BB&N), an independent school in Cambridge. I hadn’t heard about this school until I met my mentor; it is a hop, skip, and a jump away from Harvard. Their motto is “honestas litterae comitas,” which means “honor scholarship kindness.” The school…
Book Events in Boston and Baltimore
Posted November 23, 2022 by Magenta Jasinski
As we approach Thanksgiving and eventually finals for the Fall 2022 semester, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the book-themed events I’ve attended this semester. I’d like to highlight the following three: First was the Boston Book Festival, which happened on October 29. (See Claire’s post about it if you’d like another perspective.) I went as an attendee in the morning and a volunteer in the afternoon. I had a chance to go to a comics panel at the Boston Architectural College which I’ve walked past many times but have never gone into. The inside of the building is very visually appealing with displays of architectural models, hardwood, and a spiral staircase. The event space was large despite the small number of attendees, the book sale table was well-stocked, the authors had a great conversation, and the questions asked to the authors were engaging. I ended up buying two young adult graphic novels after this event. Next, I went to the young adult horror event in Teen Central, which is the teen…
Internship in the Outer Banks: Learning from Leaders
Posted July 18, 2022 by Johnna Purchase
This past week ended with a two-day visit from the Special Collections Section Head for the State Archives of North Carolina, Judy Allen Dodson. Earlier in the week she had led a virtual monthly staff meeting, and I was impressed by how encouraging and supportive she and the rest of the archivists were. They genuinely wanted to learn more about the projects their colleagues across the state were working on and nerded-out together over new acquisitions like a collection of Civil War era photographs and sheet music from a nineteenth century Black composer. Used to the endless complaining and storm-cloud-gathering of department meetings from when I was a high school teacher, the enthusiasm for work and the curiosity about their colleagues took me by surprise. Later that week when Judy came to visit, all of her joy for her work doubled in-person. She took the time to really listen to each staff member, asked detailed questions to understand ways she could better support each member in their specific roles, and added in doses of humor….
Simmons Students Present at Boston College Conference
Posted May 2, 2022 by Johnna Purchase
Over the weekend, the Boston College History Department hosted their first annual graduate student conference entitled “Grad Student Voices.” The student leadership team possessed a simple yet bold vision – a conference for graduate students by graduate students. Especially as a student just finishing her first year of her M.A. in History, I found it refreshing to attend an history conference that uplifted graduate voices rather than relegating their voices – and the students themselves – to the corner. Since the dual degree Archives and History program here at Simmons pairs the M.A. in History as a complement to the M.S. in Archives Management, at times I have struggled to engage with my peers as fellow historians. The dominant attitude is that we are archivists first. And while I take my role as an archivist seriously because of the authority it invests in me in determining what records make it into the archives that future historians will rely on, sometimes I just want to dive deep into the theoretical frameworks and dizzying array of possible…
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…
Assignments and Resumes
Posted April 5, 2022 by Bryanne McArdle
Now is the time in the semester where everything is busy and lots of assignments are due. These past few weeks since coming back from spring break I have had at least one major assignment due each week. It has been a little stressful and certainly busy. But even so, the amount of pride and excitement I get when I finish these assignments is great. I always feel so much more accomplished than I did going into them and often, I am much more confident of my own skills on whatever the topic may have been, from metadata to programming to book reviews. It is a wonderful sense to become more confident and surer in my abilities. This is also the case with me polishing up my career materials as I creep closer to graduation. One of the ways I did this was by attending the Resume Revamp hosted by SLA this week. I was a great event hosted by the Special Library Association Student Chapter at Simmons where they connected students who submitted resumes…
Mentee-ing 101
Posted April 13, 2020 by Adaliz Cruz
Today I’m going to hype up my mentors. I can honestly say that without them, I wouldn’t have even considered librarianship, let alone finish my degree (in a few weeks). I have many mentors from different parts and times of my life; some are “official” mentors, some are people I look up to, and some are even self-appointed. I even started a newsletter because there were too many to keep up with! At one of my conferences, I found myself surrounded by a crowd of people introducing themselves to each other as “I’m her mentor”, “I’m also her mentor”, “Wait, I’m a mentor too”. I’m not going to lie, it was stressful! I can’t emphasize enough what the value of having a mentor is. This is a person that you look up to and who has your back and your best interest. They help guide you in your professional career and provide moral support when things don’t go the way you planned. They talk you up to their peers and give you a reassuring push…