What are we getting ourselves into?

[mr.potato]

Just as I was about to submit my letter of intent, I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of dread and uneasiness. I'm sure most of you heard that the job market in our field is pretty bad and forbes rated a MLIS as the worst master's degree. A quick search on job sites doesn't yield very promising results either. 

 

Most of the blogs and forums I come across further warm against the degree and I'm wondering if I am about to make a very big mistake. Anyone else feeling this anxiety as well or am I being overly pessimistic? 

 

 

 

[legroschat]

I would only go into this profession (any profession at all) if you are extremely passionate about the social role of libraries/brarians and have a significant amount of work and volunteer experience in at least related environments with which to back up this passion.
I applied to library school because it seemed like a natural progression of my MA in English, but in a field with at least better job prospects than becoming an academic. I am now seriously considering dropping out, because I didn't spend enough time thinking about why I wanted to be there; my focus instead was that I needed to be somewhere and this was as good an option as I seemed to have at the time. I do agree that the job market seems to suck for the more traditional, public library jobs, although I think it's better in Canada than it is in the U.S. If you are considering going to a library school to study the archival concentration, I wouldn't go to a library school. They've axed a lot of those courses for next year, and myself and a lot of my friends are now taking library-centric courses as filler so we can get the stupid degree. There are schools which specialize in archival science, so if you are truly that stringent about wanting to become an archivist, I would apply to those.
I would also strongly reflect on how you good you are with and how interested in technology you are, as those courses comprise 50% of what's offered for my second year. I don't like computers beyond the basic MS Word, Access, power point functions. I didn't realize going in how much this would disadvantage me, and I've found a lot of the coursework hard to complete because of this. I had to take a Javascript class last semester, and probably spent about 50 hours crying my eyes out and wouldn't have passed if the final project hadn't been collaborative.
I also think people in their 20s default onto going back to school when maybe sticking it out and waiting for the right job based on a skill-set you already have may be the better option. I've spent 25k on tuition and living expenses over the past year learning, essentially, I have no interest in being an information professional...and not much else. Just my two cents.

[blackwizard420]

I strongly, strongly advise anyone thinking of getting an MLS to work in a library first. There are tons of jobs in libraries that don't require an MLS- technical services, assistant jobs, acquisitions, metadata coding stuff, etc. From there, get an MLS while you work- your job might help pay, plus there are scholarships for library staff- and you'll be able to get a job as a librarian much more easily if you've been working the whole time. And if you don't like working in acquisitions or cataloging... maybe reconsider becoming a librarian, because unless you get a really specific, advanced job, you'll be doing stuff like that at least part of the time.

 

Basically, I work in a library, and we get so many job applications- and volunteer applications- from unemployed people with multiple masters degrees and MLS degrees- don't be one of them.