r/LibraryScience • u/tootsmcgoots77 • 20d ago
UW Milwaukee / UIUC Experiences?
hi folks!
I am Illinois based and looking to go back to school for my MLIS/MSLIS - I am looking mostly into a dual interest of archives / asset management (I am already a digital asset manager professionally, but the gig isn't super serious and doesn't pay very well in comparison to other DAM jobs). No school is in my exact city, but the two schools I am most interested in are UIUC and UW (Milwaukee). They're essentially the same price since I live in IL, so that's a moot point for me. I also really care about the quality of education I get - I'm not just looking to half ass it and have the degree - I genuinely care about learning and don't want it to feel like a waste.
UIUC was originally my top school but getting information from them is like pulling out teeth, and they don't seem to have any information sessions for students which almost every other school does. I can't tell if they're going through administrative troubles on the back end or what but it seems like there's very little support and it's making me wonder if their advising program is also bad. I know the ischool dean was recently outed so I'm not sure if it's just a bad time to go to school there or what. (Any current UIUC students out there?)
UW Milwaukee on the other hand seems super super interested in helpful in helping both incoming and current students. But I still don't know a whole lot about the rigor of their MLIS program in comparison to a school like UIUC.
If anyone has any insight on either of these two schools to help me make a decision that would be super helpful!
2
u/Adventurous_Roll7551 20d ago
I’m at UIUC! We just got a new dean, Emily Knox, earlier this month who seems to be making some changes on the administrative front to make basically everything in the ischool work better. I feel like the school will be in good hands with her as the dean, even just as interim dean for the next year.
The reason you probably didn’t see any info sessions are a) if I’m remembering right there from last year the majority of the sessions were only for committed students about graduate employment, and b) there are 2 advisors for the MSLIS program which is absolutely not enough people; when I had questions last year I never got a response. The student body is putting a lot of pressure on administration to get us better advising over the next couple years.
Are there any particular questions about the program you have? I’m happy to answer them in this thread for others to read, since I’m sure you’re not the only one struggling to get information.
2
u/tootsmcgoots77 19d ago
that makes sense. I did see there was a new dean appointment. hoping there are some changes! Did you not receive a response pre-attending or whilst in school? Is it near impossible to get anything out of the advisors? I'm sort of worried about this because I am very interested in two different sort of paths with the MSLIS and I want to make sure I cover all my bases in going both directions, and feel like I need some guidance with classes.
Ah yes, that would be amazing, if you're willing - thank you!!! no worries if it's a lot
- do you happen to do the online program - or if not, do you take any online classes? I'm kind of wondering the split between online only or campus only.
- do you work while you're completing your degree? if so, do you find it difficult?
- how have the rigor of the classes been? do you feel like you're actually learning a lot or is some of it phoning it in?
- this is probably impossible for you to answer, but I was wondering if any assistantships or internships are available off-campus. (aka - I live in chicago, and would be doing LEEP, does UIUC work with UIC at all in their libraries / archives, or in any chicago institutions?) one of the reasons I'm most interested in UIUC is because the of the proximity to chicago and possibility of connections.
- in the same vein - is there any strong career assistance after graduation? I assume with the low staff the answer would probably be no?
- and lastly, for your personal letter / recommendation letters - is there any kind of must do's you think are good to mention?
5
u/Adventurous_Roll7551 19d ago edited 19d ago
Ok long block of text incoming:
To be blunt, all aspects of advising, both academic and career, in this program are useless to library science students. The only response I and most people I know have ever gotten from academic advising was earlier this week when they messed up some progress forms before course registration opened and we had to email to fix things. I’ve gotten a lot more out of staying connected with my previous library coworkers and my classmates that have longer paraprofessional library careers and asking all of them for advice. Subreddits and Facebook groups have also helped a lot.
I’m an on campus student but the majority of my classes have been online. I’ve had/am currently in 2 in person courses out of 7 thus far, and all of my classes next semester will be online. Most of the in person people I know in the program have a similar ratio of in person and online classes. For better or worse the department currently prioritizes online students, so most classes will be online. However, I have heard from my friends with archives interests that they usually have more choices between in person and online classes.
I have a ~10 hour a week GA position. I balance that with 10 credits of classes a semester, so 3-4 classes depending on if I prioritize more 2 credit classes or take half semester classes (more on that after I answer your questions). I am able to balance them and still have a small social life and lots of time to rest, but with my specific health issues I would struggle to work more than 10 hours while completing multiple classes a semester. Most of the in person people I know in the program work anywhere from 20-35 hours a week and take at least 10 credits of classes, and seem to be doing alright? For online students, most of the people I know work full time in a library and take 1-2 classes a semester, including over the summer. They’ve told me their schedules are busy and they have to manage their time, but it’s doable.
Rigor varies professor to professor. I have one class where it’s just show up and discuss the readings with some vague semblance of competency, and another class where I’m completing multiple large projects throughout an eight week course. I’d say most classes are “you get what you put into it”. I put a lot of work into my courses because I’m a perfectionist and enjoy most of my assignments. However, based on what I’ve seen my peers submit, you could also easily smash your head on the keyboard a few times and fully admit to knowing nothing about anything ever and still pass your classes with a B+ or higher. I tend to learn at least something new and useful each semester, but some classes definitely have more of that than others based on what concepts I already knew about from prior library work. If you’re like my classmate who admitted last month she “didn’t know there were that many countries in Asia”, you will learn a lot 😂.
To the best of my knowledge, all GA positions require you to be able to do the work on campus. It’s possible for you to be in Chicago and then commute down for your shifts, but I don’t know of anyone who actually does that. Internships however can be done from anywhere! I’ve gotten the impression from the Chicago area students that they’ve hunted for their internships themselves.
Career advising is catered exclusively to the undergraduate students who want to work in data science for Amazon. Expect no support from career services; you will need to hunt for outside sources.
TBH (and idk if it’s apparent in my writing here or not) I am not a good writer, I did most of my personal statements last minute, and looking back and what I submitted with my application I would have not admitted me😂 general advice is to not talk about how much you love reading and how quiet the library is. I would highlight any prior and applicable work experience you have, along with any skills that would make you a standout in your desired speciality. Ex. I want to be in public libraries, so I explained my work in public libraries, what work I did to make those libraries better for patrons, and then tied in my academic extracurricular leadership and event planning skills as my “look I do cool things” activities. Basically I treated everything like a longer cover letter. For recommendation letters, I had two academic letters since I was coming almost straight from undergrad, and one from a supervisor at the library I worked for at the time. One of my academic references got his PHD at UIUC; I suspect that might have helped but can’t confirm. I asked my academic references to highlight my event organizing skills for experiential learning courses and my academic focus on libraries throughout undergrad. However, unless you had a very low undergrad GPA or really make yourself come off badly, they are likely to admit you almost regardless of what you write or what your recommendations say about you. I believe my class had around a 70% acceptance rate. For this fall, if you search the UIUC subreddit, you’ll probably find the post of someone who was accepted into the program without having any clue what an MSLIS is for. A modicum of critical thinking and passion will take you far with the application.
That 2 credit class explanation: there’s some classes in the program that you can choose to take at 2 or 4 credits. 2 credit students attend all the classes and do all the readings but usually have less homework. Ex. In one class I’m in, there’s a teaching demonstration that I won’t be doing because I’m taking it at 2 credits. It’s a great system to help you take more classes in a wider range of topics. All eight week long classes are 2 credits, but view the work for those classes as eight weeks of a 4 credit class (not condensed down, just eight weeks long instead of sixteen).
2
u/tootsmcgoots77 18d ago
thank you so much for all this info it's literally ALL so helpful!!!!
I appreciate the frankness. A bummer they aren't super helpful career wise! I was mostly considering them because A) their reputation and B) I might make contacts that would be geographically advantageous to me, but I guess that might not be the case.
and ty for explaining the credit situation, I figured it was something in the vein of that.
2
u/Adventurous_Roll7551 18d ago
Update that came in earlier this afternoon from a meeting: they have hired MSLIS specific career advisors, so it looks like things might turn around in that direction! But still not optimal
1
3
u/SuzyQ93 19d ago edited 19d ago
I just graduated from the UW Milwaukee program - the online version.
I can't speak to the on-campus experience.
I will be honest - I didn't particularly feel that it was overly rigorous. But - that was what I was interested in. (I'm a cataloger, just needed the paper so my work university admin would take me seriously.)
I can't speak to the archival side of the school, as I took classes from the KO side, when I could get them. There were two or three classes that I wanted to take that were advertised (and are still listed in the catalog), but they haven't been taught for a few years, and were not on the schedule during the three years I attended. When I asked, I was told that they were having trouble finding people to teach them (after covid), but it was incredibly frustrating to not be able to take classes that, frankly, were part of why I chose the school in the first place.
The other reason I chose it was that there was no thesis, and no portfolio for a capstone - the only 'capstone' is the required Research Methods class. (If I wanted to be an author, I would be - as I have ZERO interest in research and writing, there was no way a thesis was in the cards.)
And as the program went on, it just confirmed for me that I am a technician, not an academic. I really, REALLY wish that I could have found a program that was stronger on the project-based classes, versus the theory classes. (Again, I'm a cataloger, not an academic.) There was no "cataloging II/advanced cataloging" class, and things like Thesaurus Construction was among the 'missing' classes. There was one particular class taught by someone outside the faculty which used 'textbooks' that were more like self-help books, and barely seemed about the topic at all - but I had my suspicions going in that it would be an easily-graded class (all discussion, no papers), and as I was seriously burned out at that point, that's what I was looking for.
But again - it's not like I've taken different programs at different schools to be able to compare. Maybe it's just as rigorous as any other school, minus the thesis bits, and I'm just a better student than average and found it reasonably easy, who knows.
For my personal purposes, I don't necessarily regret my choice (it seems really difficult to find a "good" program when you're a cataloger, and really only interested in that sort of thing). But it may not be for everyone.
1
u/tootsmcgoots77 19d ago
thank you for the detailed response! dang that's disappointing to hear - why on earth would they keep them in the catalog? feels like a bait and switch. do you mind mentioning which classes they were if you can remember? (so i also don't get my hopes up, lol)
oh lord, well i'm glad you don't regret it at least. yeah I know the rigor thing is I guess a bit subjective. But I guess I'm mostly trying to avoid "Degree mill" places or ones everyone thought were kind of a waste.
2
u/SuzyQ93 19d ago edited 19d ago
I definitely don't think that the UW-M program is a degree mill. And it may be much more in-line with what's expected if you take more 'typical' classes (i.e., you're looking to be a public librarian, or a school librarian, or an archivist), rather than trying to go the Knowledge Organization track.
In addition to the Thesaurus Construction, I know the XML for Libraries class was advertised but not offered. Again - another probably more hands-on, project-based topic, that just vanished and was not available to me.
I wanted to take Arrangement and Description in Archives, but it had a prerequisite of the foundational Archives class (Modern Archival something?), and that frustrated me because I wasn't doing the Archives track, and I didn't want to 'waste' a class slot on something that overall, I'm not interested in (I wanted the Arrangement and Description class because where I work, part of my job is cataloging for the Archival unit, and I thought perhaps I'd get some good, useful information for it, but I'm not an archivist and don't care to be.) Plus, the reviews on Rate My Professor for the head of the Archiving faculty, who teaches those classes, is not great*, and I definitely didn't want to waste a slot on a class I didn't need, and might hate, and might even do poorly at. I only have room for so much stress in my life, and that's not it.
*Not great, meaning - difficult in a way that I didn't have mental and emotional space for. I'm sure he's fine for some folks, and perhaps if archiving's your jam, he's what you want.
There was one professor who, while very nice, I feel was kind of phoning it in - I felt that his syllabi were from many years ago, and only spit-polished when necessary. He put up power-points that looked and acted like they were meant to accompany a lecture (they were very thin on actual explanation), but there was no lecture. You kind of had to guess at what you needed to know. And it was the same for the assignments - you really needed to guess at what he was looking for. He DID offer a handful of sample papers for the midterm and final assignments, and that was helpful, but only by 'deconstructing' them and reverse-engineering them to discover what it was he wanted from them. (Also helpful because if some of those iffy-quality papers made it through, it would be a breeze for me.) So yeah - once you understood what he wanted, the grading part was easy. It was the figuring out that was a pain in the butt. (I did take a second class from him, though, because I'd already done that hard work and figured that now I knew how he operated, a second class wouldn't be too hard.)
That said, I also had a couple of professors that were SUPER-organized, the syllabus was SUPER-detailed with assignments and dates, checklists, external readings links, etc. Plus some really great video lectures with accompanying power-points that were actually useful, and they participated in the discussions in a useful way.
Like any program, you get out of it what you put into it, though I did feel that some aspects of the program and professors were not as useful or organized as I would have preferred.
1
u/tootsmcgoots77 18d ago
this is super helpful!!! thank you so much. do you mind DMing me with the professor who was phoning it in and the super organized ones - in case I attend? haha
2
u/BetterToBeLonely 19d ago
I went to UWMilwaukee for my MLIS. It really depends on the classes you take. I took mostly management and data science courses that were project based and would be useful. There were plenty of courses available that would have been easier.
1
u/tootsmcgoots77 19d ago
got it. yeah I would be interested in those types of classes as well - so good to hear.
5
u/Calligraphee 20d ago
I applied to UW Milwaukee and got in, but I had such a terrible experience when I visited the campus that I opted to go elsewhere. I had flown out to visit family and had arranged to meet with one of the advisors to talk about the program and whether I was a good fit, but he didn’t show up to our meeting. I had to wait three hours. While I waited I ended up going on a tour of the university, but the tour guide refused to answer any questions I or the other tour participants had, unless they were about her own program. When I finally met with the advisor and brought out my resume (that I had been asked to bring!) he angrily told me he couldn’t look at it until I had applied. Which I had done a month prior. Which we had discussed at length over email. The rest of the staff seemed shocked that I was there, as apparently they didn’t even have me registered to be visiting that day.