Today I'm posting a patch that to me represents my other home in this world - Louisiana State University, and specifically the School of Library and Information Science at LSU. I spent two years studying in my master's program at LSU, and I call it home because in the program I met everyone in this world who means everything to me. I met my very best friends and mentor in SLIS.
I moved to Baton Rouge after working for a year in Jackson, Mississippi after I graduated with my BA in History from the University of Southern Mississippi. At that time, I was only moving two hours from home, and I could have never imagined ever moving 1,500 miles from home. It was a difficult move for me because I knew no one in Baton Rouge and I was stepping into territory that I knew nothing about. To be honest, I sort of fell into SLIS as a career choice - I had no idea what information professionals really did. It just seemed like it could be a good fit, and indeed it was.
While in SLIS, I decided to focus my coursework in archives, and specifically access, outreach, and instruction in archival settings. And as you all know, I'm not actually even working in an archive in my new job at 'GBH, but I feel that everything I learned in SLIS influences the decisions I make in my job everyday. It's definitely relevant to everything we learn in SLIS, and the work I am doing is so awesome and I am so happy to be doing it.
Outside of my coursework in SLIS, I will always have fond memories of spending time with my dog Romsey at the dog park in Baton Rouge, enjoying Cajun cuisine and going to festivals across Louisiana with my friends, tailgating at LSU football games, and working for the Archival Training Collaborative. And as I try to think back about everything I loved about living in Baton Rouge, there isn't anything or anyone not somehow related to the SLIS life, or "SLife" for those who know the "SLanguage," that comes to mind.
My friend and current president of the LSU chapter of the Society of American Archivists gave me a vase on graduation day that I have sitting on my windowsill. The words that she painted on it could never be more true about my life at LSU: "Home is not where you live but where they understand you."
Geaux Tigers!
Posted by: Jered | 09/08/2012 at 10:52 AM