Life Update – Grad School, Scholarships & More

It’s been awhile since I’ve given a life update on what’s been going on with me, and where the hell I’ve been!

Grad School/ Scholarship

I received a scholarship from the American Library Association called the ALA Spectrum Scholarship for 2022-2023. This scholarship contributes to the recruitment, retention and advancement of Black, Indigenous, and Other People of Color (BIPOC) people who are in graduate school for library and information science.

When I had applied to this scholarship last year, I honestly didn’t think I’d get in! I thought I’d just give it a shot so I could start applying to grad schools this year. But you know the saying, “When we make plans, God laughs”? Story of my life! I found out I’d won the scholarship while on vacation this past July, and they needed me to start school that September. That only left me with one school to apply to for the fall semester: Rutgers University in NJ, my home state.

When I’d gotten home from vacation, I immediately started applying to Rutgers, gathering my transcripts from my Bachelor’s and Associates degrees, personal statement, and 3 recommendation letters from 3 people I was close to in the New Jersey Library Association. It was a bit of a rush because I wasn’t expecting to apply to schools so soon. And I was anxious about getting in because it was the only school I applied to! First time college students, I would not advise to do this, but it worked for me!

When I finally knew I had been accepted to Rutgers, their news staff intern Vivian Rousseau reached out to me to do an interview about my scholarship win. You can read about it here.

Here’s a snippet:

The American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services has awarded 2022 Spectrum Scholarships to 60 graduate students at universities across the country. The ALA Spectrum Scholarship Program, according to the ALA website, “is ALA’s national diversity and recruitment effort designed to address the specific issue of under-representation of critically needed ethnic librarians within the profession while serving as a model for ways to bring attention to larger diversity issues in the future.”

My interview with Vivian Rousseau from Rutgers News

Fall Semester Classes

As a full-time graduate student, I have to take up to 9 credits, which means 3 classes. Technically, I’m taking 4 classes: Introduction to Library and Information Professions, Introduction to Information Technology (Intro to IT), Human Information Behavior (HIB), and Management Principles in Information Organizations.

Bachelor’s vs. Master’s degrees

Intro to Library and Info Professions is a non-credit class, so to cover my loss in credits, I had to sign up for another 3-credit class, Management Principles. It kind of sucks that I had to do that, because I still feel a bit overwhelmed in my workload. I think I underestimated the amount of work I’d be doing in school.

Between reading a ton of articles for both HIB and Management, and learning a whole new skill in Intro to IT, it’s challenging to create a life outside of school. When I was doing school online for my undergrad degree in 2017, I kind of breezed through it because I focused on Communications and Journalism, mostly writing and media. And I’m a total brain when it comes to writing because I have a lot of experience in it. With my Master’s, however, it’s a different ballgame because my mindset is different. I can’t put big papers and IT projects off last minute because of how much time they take to finish.

Also, during undergrad, I didn’t have much of a life! All I did was work my part-time retail job during the day, and do school at evenings/night. I was 24 years old by the time I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree. Now that I’m 29, my mindset has evolved from “just school and work” to “school, work, seeing my friends again, making new ones, taking care of myself, doing yoga, meditation”. I want to actually enjoy my life with school, and not be tied down by it.

Remote Learning

I’m going to school remotely, which is both a blessing and a curse, at times. I love that I can take my classes in the comfort of my own home. My classes consist of:

• assignments (writing papers)

• exercises (like building webpages in Intro to IT)

• quizzes (again, mostly for Intro to IT, but we haven’t gotten to those yet)

• discussions (we have to either read or watch video lectures and both make discussion posts and answer classmates’ responses)

I remember doing my last two years of undergrad online, but again, I breezed through it because it was in a subject matter I was most familiar with. While I am growing more familiar with library science to become a librarian, I’m still a beginner in this field. So the classes themselves take more time to learn online. I think with Intro to IT, I feel better seeing the work being done in real-time, by example. I can’t just sit and learn it by myself at home. I need that expert help in real-time. With my other 3 classes, learning remotely is okay because it’s mostly reading and writing papers. It’s just different this time, and I’m having fun learning.

‘Reality Check’ Updates

Since my poetry book, Reality Check, came out this past April, progress has been steady. I’m not on anyone’s Bestseller List, but I’m just glad that my book is still gaining traction through word-of-mouth. My paperback versions sell more than the ebook versions. And more people have asked me to sign their copies. I would love to do a book signing event sometime next year for the first anniversary, so maybe something will happen. This month on October 14 will make it six months since its release! I still can’t believe I’m a published author!

Comment below: give me your life update. How’s your life been going?

My debut poetry novel collection Reality Check is available now! Buy on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Patreon Shout-Outs

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