I’m almost done with my masters program here at SJSU SLIS. It’s been long three years, that should have only been two had classes not been cancelled and changed around. I’m a little miffed about that, but really nothing I can do about it at this point.
All I can do is think about my future and where I am going to be. While I would love to stay in the Bay Area, there is no guarantee of a job for me around these parts. I have a strong resume, good experience, excellent skills, a curious nature, and am willing to do anything for anyone. All of these traits should find me a good job somewhere down the line.
I’m writing this post mainly because it’s been a week since my last post, but also because of a series of posts I just came upon thanks to Twitter.
Michael Stephens encourages students to “seek a challenge”. I started this program expecting to finish quickly and just get started with my career. However, as the classes progressed, I became enamored with the idea of presenting, of innovating, of coming up with new ideas to share with the world. I love a good challenge now. I try to encourage innovation not only with my own ideas, but with others – I like to say that I demand innovation of others.
Stephens references Daniel Chudnov’s blog post, which is the text from an email Chudnov wrote to a library school student. It’s full of great advice, the most important of which is BE CURIOUS. Take the time to try to learn new things on your own. Much of what you learn that will advance your career you learn OUTSIDE of school. This motivates me more to finish learning Processing, Java, Rails, Korean…
Finally, Stephens also references an article written by Roy Tennant. A couple stands in this article include the command “learn as you breathe” – make every experience a learning experience. “don’t be afraid of forgetting” – I’m an idea/knowledge packrat, but really I shouldn’t bother with that cause I can always look it up if I forget! “don’t blindly embrace the new” – sometimes I am so enamored by new things, I don’t actually know why I care about it. Example: Quora. Purpose please???
And with that, I end this post. I think these little bits of advice really apply to anyone, not just Library School students.