Day 116: So far so good

Pretty well all of us in McGill's MLIS program seem to share a kind of quirky personality trait: extreme unfounded anxiety. The vast majority of us blow every assignment out of proportion and panic about finishing it, panic about whether we've done it right, obsess, obsess, obsess.

Lesson 116: It's a good idea to have a quick and easy way set up to check your course standing.

I have an app called iStudiez Pro that will not only remind me of when my assignments are due and keep track of whether they're group or solo; it also keeps track of the weight of each assignment and allows me to input my grade for each one and see an up to date assessment of what my grade likely is in that class.

This is a Very Good Thing around the end of semester. With all the final projects due, it would be easy enough to panic and succumb to anxiety, so having something easily available that tells you "no matter what you do right now, you couldn't fail this course if you tried" is invaluable.

Based on the mark I got on my take-home portion of the metadata exam, I think I can hit at least an A- by getting 50% or better on the final paper.

Based on all the As I've gotten in web systems design, I just need to finish the group assignment and I'm golden.

That means that the only wildcards are Archives and History of Books and Printing. I've done fine on everything so far in Archives, but I still have two major assignments (term paper and take-home exam) to do. History of Books and Printing is a great course, but is only evaluated on one project, and I don't present mine till the last class of the term.

But all this to say, it's best to give my logical mind as much ammo against my panicky headless chicken mind as possible. So when part of my brain goes "OH GOD SO MUCH TO DO I'M GOING TO FAIL AT EVERYTHING AND BE A FAILURE" my logical mind can lay on the smack down and tell it to shut it's trap; there's nothing to worry about.

Day 85: The Heart-Wrenching Destruction of Books

This morning was the midterm for Research Principles and Analysis. As it was "Open-Everything" (like "Open-Book" but all course material was allowed) it wasn't too daunting, though that does tend to herald more convoluted and difficult questions.

I had bought myself some Tim Hortons on the way to write the test, and as a result I had a nice "medium" half coffee/half hot chocolate to drink through the midterm. As it's Lent, Tim Hortons has their "Roll Up The Rim To Win" contest on, so the cup I was drinking from could offer me many things from free food and drink, to a new car.

Always paranoid about having neglected some simple thing and as a result failing the entire endeavor, I told myself that if I had failed utterly on the midterm, I should at least win the camping equipment from my Roll Up the Rim. You know, to make up for it.

I won a donut.

I take this as a good sign for my level of success. I already know that I answered one multiple choice question wrong, but so far, that seems to be my only big mistake.

And any midterm in which you can write an entire response about Pastafarianism, Pirates and Global Warming is a good one in my books.

As for today's lesson...

Lesson 83: In 2004, the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Germany was destroyed by a devastating fire (caused by faulty wiring) shortly before the entire collection had been scheduled to be moved. This fire destroyed around 12,500 volumes which are completely irreplaceable.

It's nice to think that in an age of mass-digitization this kind of massive information loss can't happen. But cases like this make it all to real. The photos of the library before and after the fire were particularly heart-breaking; the entire place was completely gutted and lost the entire top floor.

The destruction of the original Library of Alexandria made me cry when I first learned about it, and upsets me just to think about.

I don't deal well with the destruction of knowledge and information...

Day 67: Only Work Today, But I Forgot!

I forgot to mention! I had told you all about my exams, but didn't think to share if my impressions were borne out by my final grades.

Which they did, more or less.

I think I did a few percentage points worse on my information and society exam than I had expected, but all in all, I got exactly the grades I had expected (not the ones I'd hoped, but the ones I expected).

Which means I passed my first term of my Masters program! And well! What a relief!

I checked it with Jon there giving me hugs and literally cried I was so happy.

I guess I'd been more worried about it than I gave myself credit for...

Day 35: Of Madness and Midterms

Today was the dreaded database midterm. Dreaded for good reason. Particularly with the database disaster of Monday and Tuesday leaving me with exponentially less time to study than I would have liked, I don't feel that I did particularly well on the midterm.

I feel like I passed, or at least I hope I did, but I don't think I got the higher marks that I feel I am accustomed to. Which has the overachiever in me fuming a little, but the oft-repeated lesson of library school is smothering those flames as best it can. Today's lesson has been repeated by many people; students, professionals, today more than any other.

Lesson 35: Grades don't matter.

As long as you pass, and don't flunk out of the program, no employer is going to care whether you got a D- on a midterm, a C on a cataloguing quiz or even if you got nothing but As across the board.

When we finish school, our diploma says the words "Master of Library and Information Studies". It doesn't then finish with "... who got nothing but Bs the entire time, what an unremarkable and average student". Because outside of academic institutions, grades really don't matter.

I've even started hearing a new variation on this lesson, saying that specialization doesn't really matter. Yes, choosing archival studies over knowledge management will leave you better equipped to become an archivist, but if when you leave school you realize that what you really want to do is be a knowledge manager in a corporation, what is it that your diploma says?

Ultimately, this program will have us prepared to be any kind of information professional we desire to be. We'll also leave with a few specific tools of the trade from our chosen streams, but in the end, all skills are transferrable.

It all comes down to marketing.