Episode 35: Library & Information Studies MA Alum Student Spotlight

Library & Information Studies alum, Lauren, shares how career services at UW–Madison helped her navigate a career pivot and land a fulfilling role as an instructional designer. 

Transcript

ALISSA OLECK: Welcome to Your Future. Your Way, where we explore the many ways to reach your academic and professional goals. Whether you are a recent grad considering career advancement or even changing careers, this podcast is for you. There is more than one way to do higher education. This is Your Future. Your Way. 

ENROLLMENT COACH MARTA: Hi, I’m Marta McCoy, and I’m an enrollment coach for the Professional Degrees and Certificates in the Division of Continuing Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. We are back with another episode in our series on career services. PDC 

GENERAL HOST: Before we start, we want you to know that the views, information, or opinions expressed in this podcast do not reflect the views of the Division of Continuing Studies, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, or the Board of Regents. 

ENROLLMENT COACH MARTA: In our last episode, we sat down with graduate program manager Tanya Hendrix Cobb to explore the many career services available to students in the Library and Information Studies master’s program and how those services are designed to support students as they navigate their professional journeys. 

Today, we’re going to hear from a recent graduate of the program, Lauren, who used those very resources to help land a new job she had never heard of and now really enjoys. Before she dives into the specific career services she utilized during the program, let’s learn about her professional journey leading to the Library and Information Studies master’s program, also known as the MA LIS program. 

ALUMN LAUREN: Hi, my name is Lauren Scanlon, and the journey I took to get to where I am now is very unusual and very meandering and long. To sum it up, as, you know, concisely as I can. I have a MFA, which is the terminal degree in visual arts, studio art, drawing, painting, and printmaking. And I was an assistant professor at Penn State and left that tenure track job. It was a choice. I was not I was up for early tenure, and I moved to Los Angeles to have a family. I got married. I had my son and was then getting divorced and needed to go back to work. I kind of had given up my career. I was an independent artist in LA, and I needed to kind of start over and be able to take care of myself and my son. Looked at going back to school. 

I applied for four different librarian programs, thinking about doing archives in museums or cultural institutions. I had a lot of prints because my background was in printmaking and drawing and painting. And so the best offer I got was at UW-Madison. So my son and I, who was five at the time, moved here in August of 2018, and we didn’t know anyone. And I went back to school and did the two years the first two years of my master’s program at the iSchool school, and then I did an additional year where I was the online TA through the library. 

ENROLLMENT COACH MARTA: After this short break, Lauren will share details about the career services she utilized as a student in the MA LIS program, which led to a surprising career pivot. 

PDC GENERAL HOST: This episode of Your Future Your Way comes from UW-Madison professional programs, offering over 90 graduate level programs including online and evening and weekend options for working adults. For more details, visit us at go dot wisc dot edu slash pro. 

ALUM LAUREN: So the program provides a lot of different types of resources. The resource that helped me the most was there there’s a class that Tanya Hendricks Cobb runs. It’s a one credit class that I took in my last semester, and it was a class on getting a job. It was a career services course. And so through that, you walk through things like how to write a resume, how to write a cover letter, looking at examples of successful cover letters being written by people who came out of the same program who got jobs. She walks through all the different stages of applying for a job, interviewing for a job. She has a program you sign up with which you do a mock interview, and it records you, and then you watch yourself interviewing yourself and make comments on it. She breaks us into teams, and we review each other’s materials, application materials. She provides these packets of successful applications in the past that we analyze to look for what works and what doesn’t. It’s a really, really thorough and meaningful course. It’s one of the most important courses that I took while I was there. 

So as a especially because I was a solo mom and I was looking at a situation where I’d be working and taking care of my son at the same time, I had a lot of questions about what I’m going to be able to practically do. And I also had a lot of questions about how to look and how to frame my experience in a way that would get me a job that’s going to work for what I need as a single parent. And so I met with Tanya one on one in her office several times. Anytime I had a job interview, I would meet with her go over my questions, ask her what she thinks about this particular job. I asked her, you know, what salary range that she thought I would be able to qualify for. I mean, I had really specific questions, and she had very concrete answers which helped me find the jobs that I wanted, have the courage to apply for them, and then know what to say when I was putting together my applications. It was really great. 

I have never had anybody walk me through what it means to get a job so thoroughly and so thoughtfully and so specifically before. And it was by far the best class I took at the library school because it had an immediate impact on my life. Like, it changed what I saw as possible in terms of getting a job. And I mean, I had had careers before. I had my previous degree. I mean, I went back to grad school the first time as kind of an older student. So I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve gotten a lot of jobs. I’ve been in a lot of interviews. I have conducted a lot of interviews as a professional before I even came here. But never have I really encountered the level of support that Tanya gives the students who are coming out of the iSchool. I’m definitely very grateful for Tanya and for the work that she does through the iSchool and for the career services course and program that she offers and all of the different levels of support that she offers the students, and what she provided for us was very, very instrumental in helping me, you know, find a career. 

ENROLLMENT COACH MARTA: Now Lauren describes moving into a career she had never heard of instructional design. 

ALUM LAUREN: So when I was working at the iSchool library as the online TA, so I was supporting all the high school instructors with their teaching and learning. And my manager at the time introduced me to the field of instructional design. She described it as the intersection of learning theory, design, and instructional technology, all of which I was already doing. And from there, she set up an informational meeting with someone who was working as an instructional designer, and I met with that person, and then it was I thought it was an informational interview, but it ended up being a job interview. And so I was offered a student position as an instructional design assistant. After a couple of months of doing that, I realized that I could just do that job full time. And so I started looking at job ads, and there were a lot of options. And I applied for one, but my then supervisor in instructional design really didn’t want me to leave. So she ended up creating a position for me. In the School of Education in instructional design, and that’s where I am working now.

ENROLLMENT COACH MARTA: Lauren’s experience shows that utilizing the career services offered through the MA LIS program can have a powerful impact on a student’s career path. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your experiences with us, Lauren, and it’s so exciting to hear you are enjoying your position as an instructional designer. 

To learn more about the Library and Information Studies master’s and other iSchool programs, visit ischool dot wisc dot edu. Please note that career services differ across programs, so we encourage you to connect with your program of interest to explore the support available to students.

We hope you found this conversation helpful as you explore the many professional graduate programs offered by UW-Madison. Our enrollment coaches, like myself, are here to help you find the right program that fits your goals and timeline and to guide you through the application process so you can submit with confidence. Feel free to reach out any time at coach at pdc dot wisc dot edu. And thanks for listening. We hope this conversation gave you helpful insights and inspiration as you consider your next steps. Until next time, On Wisconsin! 

ALISSA OLECK: Join us next time to learn more about professional programs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Learn how to shape Your Future. Your Way.