Saturday, August 20, 2011

Life in Library School—with a Baby!

We're kicking off a new guest blogger series featuring stories and advice about the library school experience. Today, recent Drexel grad Olivia Castello shares her perspective on becoming a parent while in school.

I started my MLIS at Drexel’s iSchool in March of 2009 and graduated in June 2011. During this time I took 1-2 classes a quarter, worked at 3 different internships, volunteered as a digital librarian... and had a baby!
Simon was born in August 2010, about mid-way through my time at Drexel. I learned a lot from the experience of being pregnant and caring for an infant while pursuing a graduate degree at the iSchool.

Contrary to what you might assume, grad school can be the perfect time to have a baby... especially if it is your first child. It was for me, at least. The feasibility of it all depends entirely on your particular situation. I am lucky to have a wonderful husband who, from the outset, committed to covering our expenses for the roughly 2 years while I pursued my degree. I was also enrolled at the iSchool as an online student even though I live in Philadelphia. I found this arrangement to be ideal since I was able to schedule the classes I needed online but was also able to make it down to campus for the occasional on-campus class, group work session and iSchool event. Because of all these factors, I had the freedom to stay at home with the baby while still actively pursuing my degree.

Friday, August 5, 2011

Our New officers!

Congrats to Leila Lucas our new Vice President and Jeff Lambert our new President!  Our new website address is as follows:  http://www.ischool.drexel.edu/studentorgs/ala/index.html