Almost There
Posted April 30, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
I can’t believe the last week of the semester is here already! Where did the time go? My only remaining assignment is my group project because I managed to finish my tech project early! I submitted it on Friday, and then I jumped up and down and did a happy dance with my dog ?. I am so glad I got it off my plate because I got to actually relax a bit over the weekend. I had some readings and a small extra credit assignment to do, but nothing majorly time consuming. My part of the group project is done and I’m just waiting for us to put everything together. It’s due on Friday and probably won’t be submitted before then because of all the coordination that needs to happen. But I don’t care when it’s submitted, as long as it’s on time. I also need to double check that I’ve fulfilled all my participation requirements for both classes. I’m pretty sure I have, but it never hurts to double check. So what’s next? …
SLIS Career and Networking Fair – Come for the Networking, Stay for the Swag & Brownies
Posted April 29, 2019 by Maria Reilova
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…
I Can’t Believe How Many Books I’ve Read!
Posted April 26, 2019 by Peggy Hogan-Rao
Reflecting on the end of the semester, I keep thinking ‘I can’t believe how many books I have read!’ I created my goodreads.com account in December or November, after hearing about a local high school librarian who used it to track books she read. I thought it would be good to set a goal in January, around the time of the new year. This was before I enrolled in LIS 481: Library Collections and Materials for Children. I thought to myself ‘I’ll create a goal of 50 books. It’ll be super hard to read 50 books by the end of 2019.’ Well, our final reading journal assignment in LIS 481 was due a few days ago. I checked my Goodreads account, and I have read 31 books so far. Wowza, that’s a lot! Want to know the secret? In Library Collections and Materials for Children (a required course for anyone in the School Library Teacher Concentration or Children’s Literature Dual Degree) we are required to read 27 books throughout the semester. Children’s literature qualifies as…
Graduation! (Almost)
Posted April 25, 2019 by Megan Ondricek
This Saturday is the last day of class up at SLIS West and traditionally the day we do our last-day lunch, class photo, and tote-bag ceremony honoring all the graduates. The last-day lunch and class photo is held on the steps of the picturesque Mount Holyoke library (weather permitting) in between classes, and then the final ceremony is held after the last class, about 4:30. It’s a low-key, intimate, and friendly affair to which friends and family are invited and where most everyone knows each other. Graduates have their name read, shake Eric Poulin’s hand, and receive the coveted and well-earned official Simmons tote-bag. There are no processionals, no caps and gowns, no certificates, no megaphones, and no fanfare. Some may think this sounds like an anti-climactic culmination of so many hours and weeks of hard work and financial sacrifices. But I think it’s perfect and so much in line with the character of our little program out at SLIS West that anything else would be ingenuine. SLIS West students are certainly welcome to travel…
Crunch Time!
Posted April 23, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
It’s almost the end of the semester and I can’t believe it. Where did the time go? I am really looking forward to having a break, but I still have a lot of work to do before I can relax. I have two big projects due the last week of classes: a group project for my info organization class, and an individual project for my tech class. My goal is to complete the tech project early, partly because I want to use the last week to focus on finishing up my group project, and partly because I just plain want to get it done! Our assignment is to create a personal website for prospective employers. It’s a really great project because it requires us to use and showcase all the skills we’ve learned in class this semester. I have learned so much this semester, and I am definitely using everything I’ve learned, and more. Right now, I have the formatting all set up, and I just need to play around with the wording…
Accepted Student Luncheon (as a Current Student)
Posted April 23, 2019 by Maria Reilova
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…
Baptism by Twitter Fire
Posted April 22, 2019 by Katie Carlson
Somehow I never caught twitter fever. I’ve technically owned a twitter since 2013, but I’ve done very little in terms of operating it. Paging through the archive, I can tell I was stressed about starting college, because the summer of 2014 was by far my most active and angst-filled twitter period! Even so, I only tweeted 50 times. I bring this up because my Collection Development and Management course (LIS 453) had a social media assignment due this week! We had to tweet about promotions, publicity, displays, and other relevant & useful information related to libraries. Some posts had to feature original content in the form of photos, while the rest could be exceptional retweets with commentary. While I like taking photos and think I’m funny (sometimes), brevity has never been my strength. Starting this assignment, more often than not I was hitting (or going over) the 280 character limit. That meant making four or five drafts until the tweets were slimmed down and ready to post. According to this TechCrunch article, twitter’s limit used…
Group Work Thoughts
Posted April 18, 2019 by Megan Ondricek
My family and I have been spending the kids’ spring break down in southwestern Virginia at my parents’ house and absolutely loving it. Spring is farther along in Virginia than it is up in Connecticut and all the burgeoning green and flowering trees are simply gorgeous. This trip has been so good for my soul. Having grown up in small towns and fresh country air I honestly feel suffocated living along the crowded, overdeveloped I-95 corridor. If I couldn’t get out every now and then I think I’d burst. Anyway, we are one week closer to the end of the semester with just about two weeks left of class! Things aren’t exactly winding down yet, but I’m hoping that having the end in sight will give me the strength to get through this last final push. One thing is wrapping up though, and that’s my group project for the Metadata class. We’ll be turning it in this week and viewing the presentations of the other groups for class. I used to hate group projects in…
Spring Is Here!
Posted April 17, 2019 by Sarah Callanan
Spring is here! The birds are chirping, flowers are starting to bloom, and most importantly, it is not cold outside! There is still (still!) a pile of snow in my yard that refuses to melt, but I think it is on its way out. With the weather getting warmer, it makes me think about how close the end of the semester is. We’re in Week 12! Where has all the time gone? It feels like we just started! I think a part of the reason why this semester has flown by so fast is because I’ve been so busy. I usually try and take time to relax, and lift my head out of my books, but I haven’t been doing that lately as my schedule has been getting more intense. The busier I am, and the more stressed I am, the faster time seems to go (even though it really isn’t moving quicker). I really should work harder on scheduling time for relaxation–at the beginning of each semester I start out strong and schedule time…
Participation
Posted April 16, 2019 by Amie Grosshans
I’ll start with good news. I was able to register for all the classes I wanted! Yay! I also signed up for two summer courses: LIS 407, Info Sources & Services (my final required course), and LIS 439, Preservation Management. I might switch out 439 for LIS 404, Principles of Management, but it was full and I had to sign up for the waitlist. I don’t know if I’ll end up getting in, but I won’t go wrong with either course. I’m not too worried about it. Now, onto this week’s topic. One of my main questions heading into this semester was how the participation part of my classes would work, since both of them are online. The answer is: discussion forums. Each class has forums for instructor announcements and general help questions, but how many other forums there are, and how often to post to them, can vary. For my technology class, we have one main board in which we discuss current technology trends and articles. I don’t usually keep up with technology…