As of today, I am again a student. As I mentioned in March, I will be spending this semester upgrading my original library qualification to Masters’ level. I hope to blog some of my back to school adventures and what I’m learning, but as I am studying, working, and completing a couple of conference papers and a journal article, I do expect that I will be blogging a bit less over the next couple of months.
I will be taking courses in archives, Internet policy, and electronic document management. To be truthful, they weren’t all my first choice, but I am looking forward to each of them, especially archives which I wouldn’t have ordinarily chosen. I am interested to learn about an area which crosses into the cultural and artifacts realm, and which is pretty much decidedly non-2.0.
Fiona,
I’m curious, you are upgrading from a GD to the coursework Masters aren’t you? Is that a semester of full time study? Are you able to do it like that b/c your GD was from Curtin or is anybody able do you think?
I’m asking as I did the GD at RMIT and am now thinking (along similar lines as yours) that it would be worth going back to finish the Masters. I’m just curious as to how easy it would be/how long it would take.
Thanks,
Michelle Thomason.
Yes! All the unis offer the extra semester with some seminars and a project. As long as you get the RPL you require, you can study at any of the unis.
I chose to return to Curtin as it allowed me to complete the extra semester all by coursework, not project (I did a research degree a few years ago and felt coursework would be more useful to me at this stage).
I did consider eg CSU and QUT, but CSU is only available over a whole year part time, and QUT requires you to study Information Literacy, which was the topic of my thesis so I wasn’t too keen to take it again!
As I’m studying by distance, I plan to study at night after work, and on weekends. One unit does require significant hands on at a placement, which is something I haven’t quite worked out yet. I don’t expect it to be easy, but I expect it to be easier than when I first did my grad dip, when I’d never really worked more than a week in a library.
Thanks for all that info! Definitely something for me to seriously consider, interesting that you have to do a placement.
Good luck with it all!
Great news Fiona, enjoy the study, it will be interesting to read what you think of doing your Masters by Research. I seemed to presume most were by coursework, but I think doing it by research will mean you can do something really worthwhile and possibly publish your end result !
How long is your final piece of work? And what do you plan to do it on? (sorry for my ignorance if you have mentioned this)
Jill
Hi Fiona!
I have a feeling that you are doing the same subject that I am!!! Heck! I’m doing Archives at Curtin Uni by distance - Conservation is the other subject that I am doing. I am doing a Masters by coursework. I didn’t want to do it by research as I haven’t the time to devote to it .. plus, I did a thesis for my undergrad (RMIT) and didn’t want to do another (my thesis was a comparison of two preservation programs - Monash and Melbourne Uni libraries). So - we are both doing a placement …
Catherine (in Melbourne - which is what I write after uni posts)
PS I think WordPress is great!
Hi Catherine, sorry I didn’t approve your comment for ages!
Aha - I think we are doing the same subject
I’m finding it fascinating, but challenging so far. Archives are quite far out of my comfort zone as a librarian. Until I did this course I wasn’t really aware of how different the professions are!