Real World
Half-Time
Posted October 25, 2021 by Abbey Metzler
In October, I know how I am supposed to be spending my weekends. I’m not talking about the fabled New England leaf peeping or the apple and pumpkin picking we wait all year for. I mean that mid semester rush of projects and presentations and paper deadlines that loom large over the first half of the class and rush to arrive before any of us know it. The midterm season in graduate school is less defined than its undergraduate counterpart. While I used to have midpoint tests to look forward to, now my calendar is filled with a handful of assignments worth increasingly more percentages of my total class grades. It’s less a midterm schedule and more a mounting panic at how quickly the semester runs by. I spent the first few weeks at Simmons feeling like I wasn’t doing enough. And now, I wonder if it is worth bringing my laptop to work with me so I can look for entries for my next paper’s bibliography on my commute home. With my mental and…
Planning Your Move: Spreadsheets, Time Machines, and Lime Skittles
Posted September 12, 2021 by Johnna Purchase
With only three weeks until term begins and the annual “great lease renewal” of Boston September 1st, if you have yet to plan how you are moving yourself and belongings to your new apartment, the time has come. I moved to the city cross-country from Texas in early August and so, with 1,839 miles and nearly thirty hours in a Kia Niro hybrid worth of experience, here are a few suggestions I have about how to prepare for your move if you, like me, need to cover a long distance: Utilize Google Sheets. There are many variables when planning a move so instead of relying on your potentially-running-on-overdrive-thanks-to-all-the-change brain to remember everything, start keeping track in Google Sheets. You can use formulas to tally costs, project budgets, make checklists, and organize it on separate tabs. It’s also a great opportunity to brush up on your Excel/GSuite skills. If you need more help, check out the resources provided from Simmons in the Technology Competencies Guidelines which was emailed out to students in mid-June. Choose your mode…
More Statistics!
Posted November 13, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
I was introduced to the fascinating and overwhelming world of statistics in my Collections Development class last year. I used data from the US Census and the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for an assignment that and got to see a wealth of data about all aspects of libraries. I loved doing that work, so I was thrilled to have another statistics-based assignment for my YA class. This time, I have a new source: the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MDOE). The MDOE has a ton of statistics about public and charter schools in Massachusetts, including a breakdown of student enrollment by race, gender, and ethnicity; the amount of money spent per student and where that money comes from; standardized test results; and average class size. There is also attendance and discipline information, as well as information about advanced coursework opportunities. Each school also has an “accountability profile” which rates it in relation to other schools in the state. This information is very useful, but also very overwhelming. Luckily, the assignment has clear directions of what information is needed. It involves…
Staying Positive
Posted May 15, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
So we are a few weeks in to the break between the Spring 2020 Semester and the Summer 2020 Semester, and it’s obviously a bit different this time around with COVID-19. Last year around this time I was on a trip with my family, and this year we’re in the middle of a pandemic and Massachusetts is still under a stay-at-home advisory. One thing I’ve thought a lot about during the past few weeks is stress caused by the outbreak, and the importance of staying positive. Here are some of my tips for staying positive and coping with stress during this difficult time: Remember that this is only temporary and you are not alone! Maintain a sense of routine! As much as I love staying in my pajamas, I have a more positive attitude when I get up, get dressed, and go about my everyday routine. Take a break from COVID-19 news, media, and other pandemic-related content. I disabled news notifications on my phone a while ago, and I’ve been trying to limit myself from…
Summer Job – Something New
Posted May 1, 2020 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
Today I filled out my paperwork for a new job, which is so exciting! I will be a personal shopper at Stop & Shop, working in the Peapod home delivery department. Although the semester is coming to the end, I’m excited to have a new beginning. I am not taking summer classes, so a job will give me something to do this summer. Except for a few forms to be signed for practicum, I am all done with the semester! I got my last grade back for my online technology class a couple days ago, and I had my final meeting with my supervisors for practicum yesterday. It feels so weird thinking about how the semester is over now, after working so hard. Thinking about those students at the elementary school in Waltham, I am so sad that I missed out on a whole month in school with the kids. I am happy that I still saw the Kindergarten students I got to teach my 4-lesson unit with on Google Meets, but it isn’t the…
Uncertain Times
Posted April 3, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
It’s now April and things are still….not great. When I wrote my last post in mid-March, while many people were working from home, I was still going in to work. However, by the end of that week, I was working from home, and since that post, all non-essential businesses have closed their physical spaces until May 4. Simmons had made the decision to transition to online learning when I wrote my last post, and that has been going on since March 23. That decision didn’t actually affect me too much as I was already in an online class. New changes are happening every day and I’ve basically not left my home since my last day “at work.” COVID-19 has really thrown this semester, and future planning, for a bit of a loop. I’m taking LIS 453: Collection Development this semester, and as I mentioned, it was already an online class, so I didn’t really have too much of a transition, but the virus has definitely messed with my sense of structure, time management, and overall…
Everything Changed
Posted March 20, 2020 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
I almost cried on Monday the 9th when I found out that the St. Patrick’s Day Parade was cancelled. My week did not get better from there. Of course, I watch the news and saw that a Corona virus was proving to be deadly in cruise ships, China, and Italy. I had student teaching last week. Tuesday was a normal day in the library, checking out books and doing read alouds with the K-2 grades. Wednesday was also pretty normal. There were no updates from the school and I went about my day as usual. Thursday came along and everything changed. I wore latex gloves when handling books, which definitely felt weird. I spent my day disinfecting books, laptops, tables, and everything in the library. Kids could not sit on the cushions for the reading nook. For a few minutes in the morning, the librarian was afraid the principal would tell her it was too dangerous to check out books. At the end of the school day on Thursday, one of the other teachers told…
The World Has Changed
Posted March 18, 2020 by Sarah Callanan
I’m writing this blog post on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 (Happy St. Patrick’s Day!) and the world has certainly changed since my last post. Things could completely change between me writing this and this getting posted–who knows?! COVID-19 has been declared a pandemic, and it is still going strong. Schools have closed, restaurants and bars have closed to the public and are doing take out and delivery only, and many universities, including Simmons , have transitioned to online learning for the rest of the semester. Many people are now working remotely, and social distancing is now the new norm. If you are social distancing, under quarantine, working remotely, transitioning to online classes, or just simply need to take a break and relax for a few minutes, here are some of the things that I’ve been reading and watching lately as an escape. Some are new favorites, some are old standbys, but they bring a smile to my face, and I hope maybe one of them will help you! READ: See what’s available in an eBook…
Changes Ahead
Posted March 17, 2020 by Amie Grosshans
To say the last week has been crazy would be an understatement. Coronavirus has already changed a lot of our lives, and I’m sure by the time this is published, things will have changed even more. It’s definitely scary. The good thing is that Simmons has had an amazing response to the coronavirus, sending regular emails detailing exactly what is going on and what will happen. Simmons is doing a great job of looking after its students and making sure they are properly taken care of, and I am grateful to each and every one of the people who have helped ease us through this transition. Thank you for all your work! I’m an online student and my classes have resumed as usual following our spring break. I’m actually happy to have schoolwork because it gives me something to do other than worry about what’s going on with coronavirus, although I admit my focus is not at its best right now. Unfortunately, the on-campus students are bearing the brunt of the changes, with their in-person…
Networking 101
Posted March 2, 2020 by Adaliz Cruz
I used to hate networking. I’m very much an introvert and even though I’ve worked on it and have gotten to know my introversion better I still sometimes struggle too. However, networking has allowed me to not be as intimidated as I once was by what I felt were “fancy people in the field”. Furthermore, it has landed me grants, scholarships, job interviews, and most importantly colleagues from around the world. I go to a lot of conferences and I do quite a lot of online networking too mostly through email lists, Facebook support groups, and just reaching out to people I would like to be in contact with. Sometimes I even cold email people! As a result I know my fair share of people in the field. OnceI forgot about someone I had connected with and they walked up to me excited to “finally meet the music librarian from Simmons”. I’m sure my face was worth a million! Because of this, I constantly get asked on how I do it and how I’ve put…