{"id":87259,"date":"2015-01-30T05:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-01-30T11:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=87259"},"modified":"2015-01-30T10:04:11","modified_gmt":"2015-01-30T16:04:11","slug":"87259","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=87259","title":{"rendered":"How I Survived Library School"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Oscar Giurcovich<\/a>, Senior Editor<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How I Survived Library School<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"oscargiurcovich\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For my first blog post, I thought I\u2019d talk about something that has recently happened in my life: finishing library school. Before I continue, let\u2019s set the scene: I live in a state that does not have a MLIS-type program, so I had to do it all online as I was not in a situation where I could easily move. The campus was in Michigan, and in-person meetups were not in the cards. Also, I worked full-time in a non-LIS field during the 2.5 years it took me to get through the program. Thankfully, over time I somehow made all of this fall into place. Here are a few strategies that got me through it all, and I hope you can get something out of them as well.<\/p>\n

I Made LIS My Life\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

I got into the habit of logging in to check on my classes every day, including weekends. Even if it was for 5-7 minutes to read the latest discussion posts from classmates, this got me feeling like I was in the loop of things despite being 2,000 miles away from campus. There were a couple of time periods where I could not do this, and boy did I feel lost and alone.<\/p>\n

After earning a bachelor\u2019s degree the old-fashioned way, I had become accustomed to having opportunities to talk about classes or just vent. This required a bit of creativity in an online environment, but it is totally possible. When meeting for group projects, for example, either I or another group member would chat a bit about the class or the program in general. Most of the time, my classmates also had things they needed to talk about, and this extra 30-45 minutes of real-time chatting was worth it. There was a student-only listserv as well, and I made sure these emails reached my personal inbox.<\/p>\n

An ALA student membership also helped immensely. Looking back, I didn\u2019t do much pleasure reading while in school, but their magazines and other publications were still a nice change of pace from class-assigned journal articles and textbooks. Also, I was fortunate enough to have had Annual 2014 in my hometown and while it was an overwhelming time, it was a much-needed way to immerse myself in all things library. More on this in a future post.<\/p>\n

\u2026But I Also Made Time for Myself<\/b><\/p>\n

Other colleagues have posted about this elusive concept called\u2026what is it? Ah, work-life balance! Although I remember saying \u201cno\u201d to my friends and family quite frequently, I did generally allow myself one night a week do something fun out of the house. Considering where I currently call home, it would have been torture not to go out at all! During the more stressful times in my MLIS journey, Friday nights seemed like a light at the end of the tunnel, even if there was yet another tunnel up ahead right after it.<\/p>\n

I was sometimes able to schedule things so that I could have most of my schoolwork done in the early part of the week and get out of town for a few days. Even if I had to schlep my books to say, San Francisco, an hour or 2 of reading pales in comparison to a late morning, afternoon and evening of taking in the sights and nightlife. Getting away a couple of times a year helped break up both my school and work responsibilities, and I always came back refreshed and ready to tackle whatever needed to be done next.<\/p>\n

For the past few years, I have watched less and less TV, but I still follow a few shows. After a day of work and school, the choice between sleep and TV was an easy one, and I hit the sack. Instead, if I didn\u2019t need to do homework on my lunch break, I would watch last night\u2019s episode on my smartphone, for instance. While I could not partake in the water cooler chat about it in the morning, I was ready to jump in by the afternoon. Streaming programming can cost a bit each month, but this and other benefits made my everyday life all the more balanced.<\/p>\n

During my last semester, all of this was put to the ultimate test. Between work, school and a practicum, free time was at an absolute premium. I began to forget what it was like to have a day off since I interned on my 2 days off from work. Now that I\u2019m completely done with school, I see I did have to make a few sacrifices along the way; I was not involved in student organizations nearly as much as I would have liked, for example. However, by keeping up on what was going on in class, the LIS field and offsetting that with some fun, I feel prepared for what\u2019s next. Best of all, I have kept my sanity. Good luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Oscar Giurcovich, Senior Editor   How I Survived Library School For my first blog post, I thought I\u2019d talk about something that has recently happened in my life: finishing library school. Before I continue, let\u2019s set the scene: I live in a state that does not have a MLIS-type program, so I had to…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":87314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[146,69,3592,3625,3787,3610,3599,3632,3635,3631,303,6752,6371],"class_list":["post-87259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-advice","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-inalj-montana","tag-inalj-nebraska","tag-inalj-nevada","tag-inalj-new-hampshire","tag-inalj-new-jersey","tag-inalj-new-mexico","tag-inalj-wyoming","tag-mlis","tag-oscar-giurcovich","tag-senior-editor"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1WoMK-87259","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/oscargiurcovich.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=87259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/87314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=87259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=87259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=87259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}