Students
A Devotion to Knowledge
Posted October 31, 2015 by Amy Wilson
This post is for anyone who may be worried about their undergraduate programs being (or seeming) totally unrelated to a master’s program. I came into the SLIS program feeling a little bit of this anxiety, which lived next door to my fears about having been away from any school for a year. I have adjusted without too much difficulty, and I think this last year has been invaluable in terms of gaining some real perspective. In May 2014, I graduated from Saint Michael’s College (VT) with a double BA in English and Religious Studies. After those four years of liberal arts, I appreciate a healthy dose of critical self-reflection. I have recently been trying to imagine a rough intellectual trajectory to rationalize how I came to my present studies in LIS – in fact, this question is part of why I started this blog. The English piece of my B.A. degree makes sense (books, right?), but how do I bridge my past studies in religion to my present work in LIS? My answer arrived in…
Shifting Focus
Posted October 24, 2015 by Amy Wilson
As a SLIS student at Simmons, there is a big deadline for two important items. One is finishing the TOR (Technology Orientation Requirement) and the other is to complete your first advising session. I finished the TOR before the semester started and this past week I completed the second task with my adviser, Jim Matarazzo. What a wealth of knowledge that man is! Connecting with him was a bit of a circuitous route of self-discovery (through another advisor, the registrar’s office, our Assistant Dean Em Claire Knowles, and finally Jim) and by the end of all these conversations, I had changed my concentration and found my voice. Choosing classes meant that I had to make a decision about where I wanted to take them – online or on-campus? This semester both of my classes have been on-campus, and it is definitely a lot of work to run back and forth; however, I still think it’s worth it for me. I absolutely see that online learning could be useful for someone who has social anxiety, or lives…
“The Process of Submitting Call for Papers Proposals”, As Told By Picture Book Characters
Posted October 23, 2015 by Katie Caskey
Step 1: You find the Call for Papers. It even aligns perfectly with your particular area of research and interest! You excitedly save the link to your bookmarks tab. This is something to seriously consider. Then the daydreaming begins. What if your proposal was accepted? You could be a published author in an academic journal! You have arrived! https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ab/ff/4c/abff4c459eb3d169f4c0551b3086d071.jpg Step 2: You realize you actually have to write this proposal! Can anyone say “writer’s block”? While the prompt was most likely engaging and thought-provoking when you chose it, those original inspirations have quickly vanished into a cloud of confusion and self-doubt. How will I ever get this done when I have all of my other class work to do? Should I even be submitting something when I don’t have a degree yet? Am I an academic fraud? Don’t feel bad…we’ve all had these thoughts. The important thing is moving through this phase without completely halting all productivity. Even if all you can muster out of your overwhelmed and overworked brain is one sentence or idea…
The Million Dollar Question
Posted October 21, 2015 by Jill Silverberg
Every now and then I journey home to Long Island, NY to spend time with my family, friends, and cat, Ella. This was the first time I was home since the start of the semester, so everyone wanted to know how my year had been going so far. Besides asking about the usual stuff (school, work, and my friends), I noted that there were two questions that everyone wanted ask me. And trust me when I say that that utilization of italics is not an overreaction. The first question, I guess, should have been anticipated: Are you ready for another Boston winter? While I do admit that last year’s winter was bad, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world, at least not for me. Since I don’t have a car and can walk to everything I need, the only complaint I had was the fact that I missed one or two classes. Besides, I LIKE SNOW. So what if we have a lot of snow this year? I seriously do not mind. As for the second…
Talk to your advisor!
Posted October 20, 2015 by Alison Mitchell
SLIS assigns each student an academic advisor at the beginning of the program. As part of 401, students have to meet with their advisors to talk about course plans and get certain paperwork signed. I remember meeting my advisor last fall, having a pleasant conversation, and moving on. At the time, I probably thought that was our first and last meeting, since I knew what classes I wanted to take and what I wanted to do after SLIS. I probably even thought, I’m a grown-up, how much advising do I need? Plenty, it turns out. I’m struggling a little bit, attitude-wise, this semester, and wasn’t feeling inspired by any of the classes offered in the spring. In a last ditch effort to save my attitude, I sent an email to my advisor. I outlined my lack of enthusiasm and quickly had an appointment with her for the following week. That appointment was yesterday, and all I can say is that I’m really glad we met. She had some ideas for courses that I hadn’t considered,…
A Fine Balance
Posted October 8, 2015 by Tara Pealer
If you’re a junior or senior in undergrad, it is likely that by now you have friends in grad school. Your grad school friends seem like they have their lives together. They know what they are doing, and what they want to do, and how to get there. (This is a lie.) And it may seem, to you, as it did to me, that there are two types of grad school students. Type A, we’ll call them, is the type who is always studying. You haven’t seen them in months. You haven’t even seen them on Facebook in a while. They are doing well, you know, because they have always done well, but their entire life is now centered on completing their studies. You admire their dedication and passion, and have no clue how they manage to keep it up. Type B, on the other hand, seems to always be doing “The Things You Wish You Were Doing.” They’re the ones with pictures of fancy food they made on Instagram. They went to that supercool…
Health Comes First
Posted October 7, 2015 by Jill Silverberg
Does anyone else remember the days when they would pretend to be sick to get out of classes? I certainly do. Back during my high school days, I would sometimes wish I would get sick just so I wouldn’t have to get up at 6:20am and endure about eight hours of mind-numbing and soul breaking school. During those days, I would have to be strategic; pretend to be sick too much and the parents would certainly catch on. I doubt I missed a total of ten days throughout my entire high school career and certainly at least three or four of those times I probably truly needed to miss school, but I’ll be honest, those days when I could stay home and relax were always worth the risk of getting caught faking it. Ironically, high school would be the last time I ever truly enjoyed getting sick. In my first semester as a freshman, I caught the Swine Flu, H1N1, and missed an entire week of school. Not only that, but my parents had to drive four…
Confession
Posted October 6, 2015 by Alison Mitchell
Here’s a confession. Sometimes I forget I’m in school. This morning, a friend asked me how school was going, and I launched into a story about a conversation I had with my older daughter’s teacher. My friend listened politely, then said “I mean your school.” Right. I’m in school. It’s kind of hard to believe I could forget about it, since my assignments and deadlines are always on my mind. But right now school seems a little more abstract than it has other semesters. Part of it is that I’m not physically on campus as much as I have been in the past. I’m taking one online course and one evening course, so I’m only there Thursday nights. Part of it is that my kids need a little more attention this fall, both physically (I drive the two of them to more gymnastics practices than I thought humanly possible) and emotionally (one is feeling the stress of a harder grade and more classroom work this year, and the other just likes to tell me every….
Was it the Right Move?
Posted September 22, 2015 by Alison Mitchell
I’m over 40. I have two kids and a husband. Our lives are busy and messy and crazy and good. And last year I made them busier and messier and crazier and better by starting my master’s at SLIS. Is it hard? Yes. Was it the right move? Definitely. Going to school and working (I work part-time in a public library) and parenting and keeping the house from falling apart is a challenge, I won’t lie. But I love being a librarian, and love that the SLIS program is preparing me for actual library work. It’s a practical degree — every class I’ve taken includes real life, relevant information that I can apply immediately at work. It’s a fun degree — classes and projects are interesting. The program is a lot of work — much more than I expected at the beginning, and every semester I have to remind myself that I’ll have a lot of reading! A lot of assignments! A lot of group projects! Even more group projects! A how-on-earth-could-I-have-another-group-project amount of group…
Guest Blogger: Katelyn Duncan
Posted September 20, 2015 by Katie Olivo
Katelyn Duncan is a former Spanish & Italian literature student who stumbled upon librarianship after realizing she wanted to balance her fondness for academia with her love for helping people. During her five semesters at Simmons, she took courses focusing on reference and academic libraries and worked in the SLIS Tech Lab as well as a small college library. In March 2015, she became the first Simmons student to go to South Korea as part of a dual degree program to get a second master’s in LIS from Yonsei University in Seoul. We’re delighted to have her share a few posts with us this semester so that we can all learn about her dual degree program at Yonsei University! ——————- When I first came to Simmons in summer 2013, I knew I wanted to take advantage of international opportunities if I could. I thought that would mean participating in SCIRRT (the LIS student group focusing on international librarianship) and attending one of the short summer study abroad sessions in Korea, France or Italy. What I never…