December was obviously a busy month with the end of classes after wich I had 5 family members come to visit me for the holiday break. But all of that is over now and it is time to reflect on the courses I just finished.
One course I took last fall was 618 - Policy. This course is one of the required courses for all the students in the ischool, including information management and telecommunications students. Because of this 'mixed' group, this particular class it a lot more general than the other courses I have taken so far. There were a few things that I felt like I learned however, my overall perception of the class is not positive.
I felt like this class was way to general for a graduate level course. The course content barely touched on topics applicable to a library degree and those things that I was able to apply was because of the opportunities I was given to pick paper topics that related to the library field.
Another issue was that I believe I was the only library student in this particular section of the course, which may have had a significant impact on my experience. The discussion boards often felt like I was in a completely different world than other students because of our different backgrounds and areas of study. I may have had a different experience if there were others who could discuss the topics in relationship to the library world that I was coming from.
This is not to say that I didn't appreciate the reflections and responses of the other students, but rather that my perspectives often got lost or misinterpreted by my classmates who did not have the same background as me.
In the end, although I feel I learned quite a bit through the current event papers and lobbying organization paper I wrote, I was overall disappointed by the content. I had initially been excited to take the policy class because I know libraries face a lot of policy issues, such as writing collection development policies and fighting for intellectual freedom. However, these topics were covered in a surface manner that made them difficult to apply to the Library Science Degree.
One course I took last fall was 618 - Policy. This course is one of the required courses for all the students in the ischool, including information management and telecommunications students. Because of this 'mixed' group, this particular class it a lot more general than the other courses I have taken so far. There were a few things that I felt like I learned however, my overall perception of the class is not positive.
I felt like this class was way to general for a graduate level course. The course content barely touched on topics applicable to a library degree and those things that I was able to apply was because of the opportunities I was given to pick paper topics that related to the library field.
Another issue was that I believe I was the only library student in this particular section of the course, which may have had a significant impact on my experience. The discussion boards often felt like I was in a completely different world than other students because of our different backgrounds and areas of study. I may have had a different experience if there were others who could discuss the topics in relationship to the library world that I was coming from.
This is not to say that I didn't appreciate the reflections and responses of the other students, but rather that my perspectives often got lost or misinterpreted by my classmates who did not have the same background as me.
In the end, although I feel I learned quite a bit through the current event papers and lobbying organization paper I wrote, I was overall disappointed by the content. I had initially been excited to take the policy class because I know libraries face a lot of policy issues, such as writing collection development policies and fighting for intellectual freedom. However, these topics were covered in a surface manner that made them difficult to apply to the Library Science Degree.
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