[mimsyborogoves]

John, that's not negative at all; that's sound advice! I definitely kind of learned my lesson with my undergraduate degree after I couldn't find more than my piddly retail job -- experience matters a lot. I did stuff in college to boost my resume but the internship I had sucked and I really didn't get enough out of it to make me marketable to the job world. I kinda feel like this is my second chance to shine.

[PatLib]

Originally Posted by mimsyborogoves

I'm going into Library and Information Science in order to be a school media specialist (fancy name for school librarian, lol). I wanted to be in education but not a teacher -- I figured this was my way to do that and use my English degree at the same time.

Haha, congrats! I just graduated from library school myself in May 2012. I work as university librarian though.

[PatLib]

Originally Posted by mimsyborogoves

John, that's not negative at all; that's sound advice! I definitely kind of learned my lesson with my undergraduate degree after I couldn't find more than my piddly retail job -- experience matters a lot. I did stuff in college to boost my resume but the internship I had sucked and I really didn't get enough out of it to make me marketable to the job world. I kinda feel like this is my second chance to shine.

If you're doing school media I really wouldn't worry about the internships and networking. Most school media librarianship programs basically take care of all of that.

I was so jealous of the school librarian program student because they got their internships assigned to them. The one piece of advice I would give you is start calling the local schools and try to set up a library assistant job that is about ten hours a week. And make sure that your job and internship are in different districts. A lot of my classmates got jobs in the district were they were working part-time or interning. It just increasing your chances.

[Bloopers]

Originally Posted by JohnP

Congratulations!

At the risk of sounding negative there are many unemployed or severely under employed people out there - even with masters degrees.

I would strongly advise you to do two things.

1) Get relevant experience while you're in school. Even if you have to volunteer, you need experience. Masters with no experience just means fancy letters behind your name and student debt.

2) Network with alumni. You want to know as many people as possible who will care about you and your well being that are in position to help you. So join the alumni association and try to meet with as many people as possible. Meet with them, talk about their experience since graduation, and find out what they've done to be successful. People love to talk about themselves so let them. As they get to know you're a good person they can help you when you are ready to move into a career job.

This is really good advice. I see a lot of kids in my major (health service administration) only taking classes and not doing much else. While focusing in school is important, networking I think is just as important.

I would suggest finding a mentor. I found one and she's helping me heaps.
It's probably the best free service there is and usually people are very willing to do it.

That said, congrats!!! It's always nice getting an acceptance letter

[Suz151]

Congratulations!!!

[FrouFrou]

That is awesome and CONGRATULATION'S!!!

Good advice JOHNP! Sad that now days so many kids go to college for years to get a career and they are not guaranteed a job! My son has gone through but is finally doing well and will get his Master's next week, been a LONG road! And my daughter will get her Bachelor's next year!