So, a while back I talked about going back to school and then why I’m a history major, but that’s not the whole story. Nope.
It started with a career search. And ended with a decision to register in school to go for a Bachelor degree in History.
I was working as an Admin Assistant for a government contractor and wasn’t unhappy with my job, but I wasn’t satisfied either. An admin assistant wasn’t quite the field I wanted to be in, even if I did a pretty good job. I was a bit restless, if I’m honest. So I decided to figure out what it was I really wanted do.
Finding a job as a production assistant wasn’t working out so I needed shift gears. To help me figure out what I wanted to do, I picked up a book (naturally) What Color Is Your Parachute? 2009 edition. I worked my way through some of the tests and narrowed down a few options. This inspired me to take a few personality tests which helped me narrow down my interests as well as my strengths and weaknesses.
I can’t remember exactly when the lightbulb came on but I realized it boiled down to information. I enjoy looking things up, figuring things out, and getting everything to flow into the bigger picture (production assistants, writers, etc). And when I realized that I groaned because how the heck does that translate into a career or even into making a living for myself?
But it helped. It was a start, right? Well, all this lead me to the Association of Independent Information Professionals. This website really spoke to my inner geek. I mean, Information Professional? Never heard of it before, but it really appealed to me. There was a whole association of them!
And on their website it mentioned that most Information Professionals worked in a library. This piqued my interest because … library? What? So I decided to research careers in a library and stumbled across “a degree in Library and Information Science.” I was shocked. I mean, they have a degree dedicated to Information Science? What?! I could have a degree in Information Science? Shut. Up!
I quickly googled “Library and Information Science degree” and found a whole bunch of websites talking about it, including a local university that was known for that program. Bad news? It was a Master’s program. I didn’t even have an Associates degree. And to make it worst, it had been ten ears since I been to school.
It was just a tad bit discouraging. Well, fast forward two years and I still couldn’t shake it. I was still doing a decent job as an admin assistant making a fairly good living and I just couldn’t shake the idea of being an Information Professional.
I took a leap of faith and made the decision to go back to school. Oh, I also decided if my end game is to be an Information Professional I may as well get used to working in the field so I applied at our local library and put in my resignation when they offered me a job at half of what I was getting paid.
And I’ve never looked back.
It’s been an interesting two years and I imagine it’ll only better.