Steps Forward – My Continuous Path of Education & Growth

Hey there,

I’m considering applying to a Master’s program.
By considering, what I mean  to say is that I’ve already begun the next steps: cultivating my transcripts from my previous schools, reaching out to potential references, applying to scholarships, and as all the forms start to trickle in, I’ll start to play the waiting game.

I’m looking into a Masters in Library and Information Studies (MLIS). Don’t believe Forbes when they say that this Masters program might be a poor investment because Forbes merely considers salary and thinks the only job you get with a MLIS is as a librarian (this is beyond false). Let’s keep in mind that they also think a Masters in Chemistry is a bad idea! Forbes didn’t even consider that one of the most sought-after career paths for a person with a MLIS is that of data science, in which the median salary is around $120,000.

But if money was the drive for my Masters then I wouldn’t even bother, seeing as the cost is quite great and advancing in the career I am currently in will be a natural progression and an increase in salary in and of itself. Salary is not the drive for this ambitious desire.

I don’t believe humans are meant to be stagnant. I’m sure this opinion of mine is clear in many of my blog posts. While teaching is a passion, while I love the current setting I am in and it provides excitement and intrigue daily, I don’t think teaching in an elementary classroom will be my career for the rest of my life.

There are many paths that I think that this Masters could bring me down, and many career opportunities that appeal to me.

First and foremost, as a bibliophile, someone who has always been immersed in the world of literature and writing since a young age, being able to study how humans intake, consult, curate, and analyze information in a more thorough manner completely fascinates me. By better understanding that, I will better understand the power of literature as a whole.

As someone who has also always had a fascination with tech, with web design, and with creating her own websites (I started memorizing HTML at the age of 11), the path of web analytics management would be an option for me. But more appealing still, as one who has found solace in large old libraries and tranquility and wonder in museums, there is also the path of curation, archiving, or becoming a documentation specialist. Then, just as appealing, the pathway of becoming a creative project manager also excites me; perhaps working for a large book company and managing the projects surrounding store design, literature layout, or website databases, or working for a company like NetGalley or Goodreads and overseeing the data collection of users, and managing the distribution of materials and information. There is also the opportunity to take this into the education field, overseeing libraries in universities, or becoming a documentation specialist in the head office of a school board, or maybe I can be involved in student research in some form. Or perhaps this degree and the corresponding knowledge learned through the program will allow me the opportunity to plan and manage my own bookshop, or maybe oversee the planning of big book conferences around the world! Not to mention, all these paths open up opportunities for writing; article writing, journalism, and other various texts.

The best part is that my degree in education (BEd) interconnects with this field very heavily, and the focus on the intake of information and youth is a great one. There are truly endless paths that appeal to me (for more paths, click here and here). How we get information has evolved, and I want to be a part of the study of that. Primarily. if I can work with literature in a more intimate setting or form, I would be pleased.

Just writing all of the above made me more excited about this degree. And I always loved being in school (hence why I became a teacher), so the thought of expanding my knowledge in something that greatly interests me is very thrilling. But I truly forgot about the tedious task of University applications, and how  time consuming (and expensive!) they are. So, please excuse me as I trudge through that and hope for an acceptance letter, at the end of it all…

xo
C