Library school these days is a lot about how our professional job is to manage information overload.
Library school is information overload.
I was in 4 classes, 3 of which were requirements. The last one was about managing electronic resources in a library setting, which you must agree is an important skill to learn! I had to drop the class, though, once week two of school was already a week of caffeine overload. I tend to be a goody two-shoes when it comes to school, and hate to quit, so my mom told me to think of it like “postponing.” I also think that when I am a professional librarian or archivist, if there are a lot of copyright and licensing questions going around, I will most likely be able to turn to my peers. My peers have so far proven to be some of the most nicest, most welcoming, most informational people I’ve met in a program.
My peers are actually part of the reason I wanted to drop a class, so I could devote more time to student chapters in ALA, SAA, and possibly SLA (American Libraries Association, Society of American Archivists, and Special Libraries Association). Technically, the chapters involve “just” a lot of social gatherings, but a friend pointed out how important these groups can be in the future. As a … non-hired? professional, it’s easy to hear the “networking” buzzword and think it means getting a job through the people you know. It is also another form of collaboration between libraries and their respective professionals. And all in all, I trust in my future professional peers to help me through the difficulties of electronic resource management. I also have all of the materials from the class still! (though is it Fair Use to use the electronic ones if I am not part of the educational space …? Hm)
I now have a little more than two weeks of grad school under my belt, and a long list of musings to write about here. I have homework to finish and organize, so I’ll choose this: imposter syndrome.
My very close friend Sarah, who this year went onto graduate school for a PhD in English at Tufts, said she read about it a lot in her grad school forums. When I was struggling to keep up, chugging the tea and 5-hour energy drinks, and looking at my peers who all seemed to be working close to full time, were happy, well-adjusted, and in students clubs to boot, Sarah would mention imposter syndrome again.
What is it to me?
I think what I do is catch snippets of the successes of others and put it into a collage in my head of What Greatness Looks Like. Many people have had amazing, unique work experiences — including much more archiving experience with direct contact in processing collections. Some are working full-time jobs or two part-time jobs, and not all of those hardworking folks are taking two classes, but three. We get into class and I forget everyone’s specific story; instead, all of the hardships others bear meld together. Someone else brings up a point from the readings I hadn’t thought of, and I can’t help but think, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
I compare myself next to this large group of highly successful, extremely hard-working group, who all somehow read everything with every important part highlighted and well-noted, write fantastic papers, get enough sleep without needing caffeine, make fabulous dinners every night, exercise daily, spend quality time with friends and family, take on important tasks in the student groups, work at the very least 10 hours, and probably knit (that seems to be a big theme here). This is what I want for myself. This is the life I want: balanced, healthy, (seemingly) effortless.
I am not an imposter in this program because I made it here (and even won a scholarship!). I have experience the others do not, just as they have experience I do not, and the point of being together is to share these experiences. A program like this means we are all coming from very different points in our lives, some right out of college, some with kids at home, some commuting in from far away. This isn’t the same for all of us and I can’t keep clumping them together to make myself not feel “good enough” to be here.
Perhaps that’s the first thing to learn from graduate school: how to make it work for your lifestyle, so you no longer feel like an imposter.
