Library Science Grad School Preparations
I'm actually going to try to go to grad school. I spent this past week basically just thinking about whether or not I will, and I will.
This means a whole world of stress re: the GRE and applications, and also, money-stress. I SUCK at dealing with application stress. And the GRE completely freaks me out, mostly because on a practice test I got shocklingly low scores- like 50th percentile, while on the SAT's, without even prepping I got 93/98 percentile. Yeah, the GRE's a LOT harder. I feel stupid for the first time in eons, and I wonder if the shittiness of my classes made me stupider. I kinda feel like they did.
Anyway, I suck at dealing with all of this stress but I need to learn to cope with it in these next couple of months, because I need to, because yeah, I do want to take a step closer to a job I can stand that emphasizes 1. nerdiness/bookishness/tech skills 2. socialness/caring/customer service and 3. purposefulness. I don't want to be a starving artist and I don't want to suck corporate dick in any non-fun way. Also, I truly love the idea of being a cog in a machine that brings information/knowledge to people.
The thing is I hear the job market is super-competitive for librarians, but it's not as competitive as writing/movies/art, my other career thoughts, and the end point is it's genuinely a useful part of society, so god damn it, even if it means a few years of underemployment after grad school, I am not going to give up if the school doesn't lead to an immediate job. I am going for it.
It is terrifying. I hate dancing the standardized test dance so much now. It so doesn't fit my "artist"/"writer" mindset. But it's a stupid game I have to play in order to wind up spending most of my time doing something genuinely useful to people/information.
This means a whole world of stress re: the GRE and applications, and also, money-stress. I SUCK at dealing with application stress. And the GRE completely freaks me out, mostly because on a practice test I got shocklingly low scores- like 50th percentile, while on the SAT's, without even prepping I got 93/98 percentile. Yeah, the GRE's a LOT harder. I feel stupid for the first time in eons, and I wonder if the shittiness of my classes made me stupider. I kinda feel like they did.
Anyway, I suck at dealing with all of this stress but I need to learn to cope with it in these next couple of months, because I need to, because yeah, I do want to take a step closer to a job I can stand that emphasizes 1. nerdiness/bookishness/tech skills 2. socialness/caring/customer service and 3. purposefulness. I don't want to be a starving artist and I don't want to suck corporate dick in any non-fun way. Also, I truly love the idea of being a cog in a machine that brings information/knowledge to people.
The thing is I hear the job market is super-competitive for librarians, but it's not as competitive as writing/movies/art, my other career thoughts, and the end point is it's genuinely a useful part of society, so god damn it, even if it means a few years of underemployment after grad school, I am not going to give up if the school doesn't lead to an immediate job. I am going for it.
It is terrifying. I hate dancing the standardized test dance so much now. It so doesn't fit my "artist"/"writer" mindset. But it's a stupid game I have to play in order to wind up spending most of my time doing something genuinely useful to people/information.