 Well, welcome everyone to this presentation. Me, my thesis, and I, by a graduate of the FLIS program, Robin Dexter, who is a National Archives Archivist at Anchorage, Alaska's National Archives. And I'm so glad that she could be with us this evening. And this is Robin. I think you've seen her picture and read a little bit about her background on our FLIS colloquia page. So I'm not going to spend much time there, except to say that she's a very interesting person who's got a great story to share with you. And I'm going to let her do that so that I don't take up her time. So I'm going to turn the mic right over to Robin now so that she can get started. Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Ries. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. Okay. So one of the things when you're working, especially in a distance format, is you still have to find a way to connect with your audience. And so I always like to ask who it is that I'm talking to. Is everybody familiar with the raising hands over here on the left-hand side, depending on your name? And then there's also little emoticons, things like that. Great. Okay. So can I see a show of hands for all of my, the first-year people in the audience. This is your first year, maybe even your first semester. Okay. All right. Good. Just scrolling down, looking at people. Excellent. Okay. How about people who are even just thinking about doing a thesis? Not really sure. Just kind of checking it out. I love that little scroll bar. That just makes life so much fun. Okay. Is there anybody who is pretty well-set that they're going to be doing their thesis? I'm just here to find out some information. Okay. Excellent. Good. Okay. How many people are here because they have to see me at work tomorrow? I see at least one of you. So there she is. All right. Wonderful. So I always like to, like I said, start out and just kind of get to know who I'm talking to, which is always good. And oh, there's, we've changed. There it is. Now moved up there. So one of the things you learn in the military is what we call death by PowerPoint. And so I always make it a point to tell people exactly what we're going to do and when we're going to end. People like to know that too. So I'm going to run through my bio. It's very short. Talk about my thesis experience, some of the requirements that you need to be aware of, and then also where to find all of the information that we talked about. And then some time for questions. And theoretically, we'll have it all wrapped up in about an hour. So next one. Shall we? Wrong button. There we go. So I'm Robin Dexter, like we've heard. I am a 2013 SGSU graduate and an archivist with the National Archives. I'm 37. I have two daughters and two Siberian Huskies. They, I've taken them for the walk. They should be good, but I do have to tell you, my neighbor's dog is having a come apart. So hopefully they will stay settled down. I did try to hide from them, but I'm not sure which set keeps me busier, my dogs or my children, or more frantic. So after I got out of the Army, you know, I needed something to do, basically. I had gone back to school with the intent to teach high school history. So I was a history major with a dual minor in education and military history. And after doing my first student teaching at a middle school, I very quickly realized that I was not cut out to be a children's teacher. Well, actually what I realized is that I didn't want to go to jail. So I dropped the education minor and focused solely on history and military science. I was still living on an Army base, and I wandered into one of the museums on post and asked if they needed a volunteer. And at that point, I kind of fell into the archives and never really left. You know, it was an amazing place to start in this business, and I was so very fortunate to have had that experience and that amount of support that I got. I graduated in December 2008 and started graduate school the following September. I worked full-time at the museum through graduate school. I was mostly a single parent as my girl's dad was still active duty and was mostly deployed. As I was wrapping up my coursework, I knew that I had wanted to do a thesis, and I was through with my proposal from 285. No, I'm sorry, that was my third proposal. I was through with my proposal. It had been accepted. The research was half done, and then a job opportunity with National Archives opened up. It was posted. I saw it. I bypassed it because it was for Alaska. I'm a southerner. I don't do below 40 degrees. I forgot all about it. And then it popped up again. Maybe two months later, something like that, two months later, it popped up on the SAA board list. And so at this point, there had been some personal changes in my museum, and frankly, I was in the market for another job. So I figured I'd throw my name in the hat. You know, what's the worst that's gonna happen? And then I got called for an interview. At the same time, my girl's father was on his third tour in Iraq, and we were on orders to Germany, and from an Army perspective, we're pulling out of Germany. So it's kind of like the last chance to go for his job. And I did my interview, figuring if nothing else, I had a better understanding of the government hiring process because it is intricate. Carol can tell you too. And then I got the job offer. And it was a really difficult decision that even today impacts every day of my life. Ultimately, the decision was made that I would go ahead and accept the job. And we'd get Eric up to Fort Richardson, which is in Alaska somehow. But one of the byproducts of the decision of going up there was that I was gonna have to change my topic, but we're gonna get to that because there's lots more slides about that. So I went to Alaska, and I was there from April, 2011 to September, 2013, but we're gonna talk about a little bit about that transfer too. Oh, I moved my mouse. We gotta change that slide. So as I said, I had always planned to write a thesis, but I got closer. I saw the constraints, the time involved, and all of that. And the e-portfolio was looking better and better, let me tell you. As I said, I was working full-time. My girls were homeschooled. Their dad was deployed. And I just really wanted to be done with this portion of my life. You see this handsome guy right here on the right? That's Zanarkint, who is still two-day, the love of my life. 90 pounds of Zomai God Love Me Rotweiler. He was not aware that he was not a lost dog. Zan also still had his tail because he was a rescue dog. That's important in a minute. So this is spring semester 2010. Cloud computing had really just started coming into the public stream of consciousness, and I can feel a little slow to hop on the bandwagon as Dr. Fritz can tell you. My stuff was saved to thumb drives, discs. It's kind of scattered around. So Zan went running through the kitchen and as I was making dinner, and his tail caught my charger cord, yanked my computer to my tile floor. My screen was shattered, so was the casing. One of the discs that I had saved most of my stuff to was in the D drive. And we'd moved twice since starting school and things were kind of scattered all over the place. So a healthy portion, what I was gonna need for that e-portfolio was gone. Yeah, I guess it was back to the thesis idea. And this is where the real lessons are gonna start. I had already taken 284, written my proposal, which I thought was wonderful. And in my naivety, I thought that because I wanted to do this project, that everyone was gonna wanna do this project. Everyone was gonna wanna do it. And I just needed a chair to monitor the progress on the work. Yeah, I was wrong. I submitted it to a few professors who basically told me they didn't have the expertise whatsoever in the preservation of scrapbooks and kind of good luck on that. So I learned there was a great divide in what one wants to do their graduate work in and what finding a chair can actually support. Finally, I came to find Dr. Deborah Hansen and let me tell you, everybody needs someone like Dr. Hansen in their life. But we're gonna talk more about that in just a moment. Because at that same time, that's when I got the call that I was going to Alaska. So very quickly, for some of those of you who need a conceptualization of what that actually means, I'm from Virginia down here. And as you can see, we are talking about a move of 4,300 miles. There's an entire country between what we're talking about here. So, and I'm really sorry about the ad thing. I couldn't actually get the screenshot to disappear this, but still keep the numbers. So I'm really sorry about that. But I do wanna talk about more about the process of finding a chair. And because it's first, and I think it's probably really the most critical step because if you can't find the chair, you're not writing a thesis, finding a chair. You, as you're going through the faculty pages, you're looking at this and you're thinking that you have all of these names right here. You see, I even left a little slider bar because it shows you how many teachers we have in the program. And so you think you have all these choices. You don't. This note over here, this basically says that only people in one of these categories can actually share these three categories. You really have more like 15 people. You have that amount of choices and they have every student that approaches them. They have to have an understanding of what they're taking on. Cause really, like I said, you're tying your lives together for a year at least. Oh, Carol came back in. Moreover, you really have to find somebody who just gets you. Somebody that you can work with, who wants to work with you, who's excited about your topic, who understands where you're going and that you really want to work with. And frankly, if you're not living in a fear of disappointing them because you respect them that much, you're doing it wrong. Dr. Henson did actually reject my initial proposal and for the same reason that the others did. But she saw something in me and in my writing and coached me through writing a second proposal, which was on the history of my museum that I was working on. So now we're on proposal number two. We have my original and now we have the history of the museum. She did expect that and we got to work on the drafting. And again, everyone should have a Dr. Henson or they're doing it wrong. She was the best chair that I could have possibly hoped for. But how does one actually go about picking said magic chair? So if you click on any one of these names, it's going to take you to the professor's bio pages. And this is really the first place you want to start. Here we see Dr. Henson's bio as well as Dr. Louge. And some of what I'm about to say may come across as I'm being a little critical of Dr. Lou and that's absolutely not my intention. He was wonderful. I took his 285 class. He's a wonderful man, very good at his avenue in our industry. The problem is that it's not the avenue that I'm on. And which is why I'm using him as an example. As you're looking at what you want to do and what you want to write about, you need to approach professors that are in your same schema. The screen is a little small on my tablet that I'm using, but Dr. Henson is more in the social aspect of our history, of our industry. Women's history, processing, access, things like that. And that's kind of where I'm at. Dr. Lou is in the more technological realm of it and that's not what I do. So this is a mistake that I made that I really want you to learn from. When it's time for you to start looking at 285, look and see who's teaching it and check their bios to see what aspect they're coming from and kind of where their professional development is coming from. I wrote my proposal on Dr. Lou's class, but because he's more tech oriented than preservation of scrapbooks, my proposal actually didn't get the best grade. I got a B on it because he didn't understand where I was coming from and I had a hard time wrapping my head around where he was coming from. And also the format that is normal in his sector of our industry was completely useless for Dr. Henson. I actually wound up auditing her 285 class to learn how to do things that were appropriate for that side of the business. Now, once I did that though, I went through the proposal, but it set me back on the stuff of the semester. Had I not made that mistake, I would have actually graduated in December and not in fall. And if I were writing my thesis on the, let me think of something, the information seeking habits of second world countries, Dr. Lou would have been a better choice than Dr. Henson, but at the time I wanted to write about preservation. And frankly, I couldn't get it off the ground and when I couldn't, it became the history of my museum. So you can see kind of how Dr.... Dan will get to that in just a second. You'll see how Dr. Henson was a better choice for me. Danica said, so to be clear, are you suggesting we pick a teacher for 285 aligning with what we want to do our thesis on? There are only so many teachers for 285. I wouldn't say align specifically because you may not have that option and I don't want you to think that your call are blocked out, but hard science versus what we consider a softer science at least weigh that. Like I said, if you want to do it on the information seeking habits of second world developing countries, somebody with a harder science who's going to be more in tune with the hardware aspects and things like that is going to be better than somebody who does historical development of, I'm thinking of something, historical development of gay and lesbian archives. Does that make sense to everybody? Okay, good. That sounds like I see some comments. Good, okay. Let's see here. Where was I? Okay, so this proposal that I keep talking about, what exactly is that? It's the paper, it's kind of like a sales pitch. This is the paper that tells what you want to write about how you're planning on doing it, what you hope to achieve, and often it's actually the basis of your first chapter. It shows how you think, how you process and really how you write. But like I said, it's literally your sales pitch. The proposal is usually your final paper for 285 and that's why it's really important to pay attention to whose class you take. Like I said, Dr. Louis, a hard science guy. Preservation is not a steal. But that's exactly what I wrote and it was a mistake that I made, which is why I got to be. So don't do what I did. Like I said, they may be limited. You're going to have to consider that. And as long as you know that going in, if this is the only 285 class that you can get into or completely derail yourself, at least know and understand and take from my learning experience. Waiting, the waiting until you get to 285 to start thinking about all of this is actually too late. You're going to want to start thinking about this about halfway through your coursework and figuring out what you're interested in and what you can feasibly do. Start reading the bios. Even if you don't wind up with that teacher as your chair, you want somebody in your area. Now I could have taken Dr. Hansen's class and written something for Dr. Frank's because our avenues are close enough. But Dr. Luz and Dr. Hansen's are too completely divergent. The school has some really great material on even making the decision of what you want to do. This video is an hour of your life and I understand that and I get that, but they really, Alina and her team that put this together did a really, really good job. These are everything you want to know about how to put your thesis together and the steps, there's more than one body, there's more than just you and your chair involved. There's the Office of Graduate Gape graduate and well anyway, we'll go through all that. Yeah, Office of Graduate Studies and Research and then there's the Gape office as well. So sit down and watch the video and really understand what it is that you're trying to take on this video is here for a reason. And then also there is a PDF, the other thing that I would highly encourage you to do and let me get the URL for this real quick. And this, oops, we need a sensitive mouse pad. There we go. So my personal laptop passed away the other day and so I'm playing with these on a relatively unfamiliar and that is gonna show you all of the things that you need to know for your final formatting, the things down to the margin and the pagination and how to actually construct the body of work that you're going to submit. Knowing what is expected of you as a final product in the very early stages, I think is a really important lesson that I wish I had taken the time, I scanned it, I read it, I didn't truly absorb it and that was wrong with me. I should have actually done that because had I thought about that as I was writing my chapters and Dr. Hanson was signing off that, yes, this is finalized, I should have formatted them all at that time and I didn't do it. So don't do that. Let's see, where was, yes, the video, the PDF. Most importantly are going to be these right here. Tanika, mine is 125 pages, deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. When you are even trying to debate on when you want to graduate and how you're going to do this, look at the deadlines, absorb them and understand them. These deadlines are not flexible. They don't care if you're in the hospital, I promise you, I was there. It's really important to understand the cutoff deadlines in what, when you're planning, whether to do it to the thesis, because it may set you back a semester, a year is completely normal to be able to do that. It's completely normal to be able to write a thesis, but we're going to get to that in just a second. Let's see, oh, right, I was talking about the content of what actually a proposal, where are my, oh, I need to go back here. And yes, deadlines that are non-negotiable. So I found a definition from a school in Arizona that's actually a little bit clearer than ours here. The proposal for a thesis or dissertation is essentially an outline of the research, kind of like an architectural blueprint building for a house. So you have your problem or your hypothesis. And so that is really, what is it you're trying to write about? What is it you want to know? What are you trying to learn? And then they want to know the importance of this research. So my first proposal, like I talked about, was important to me. I wanted to know about the preservation of scrapbooks, but there's not a research value in that. So your proposal is laying out, why is this even important to people? Why should we take the time to do this? Another question for your thesis is how much significant prior research has been done? And that was actually several of the professors feedback that I got is there's just not enough work to support a master's thesis on preservation of scrapbooks. That is a better doctoral dissertation. Let me talk a little bit about that in a second too. Your possible research approach or methodology, how you're going to put this darn paper together, and then potential outcomes of your research and why those are important as well. So in case people's brains are hurting because I just crammed a lot of information at you, we're going to talk about the things that I wish somebody had told me. So I'm gonna tell you, this can take a long time. It takes about a year, more if you move to Alaska. And you know what, frankly, that's okay. There is not, in graduate school, there is not a prize for cramming your way through it, not having good grades and not having the hands-on skills that you're gonna need to get out of graduate school. Next, your original made topic may not get approved. And until it does get approved, until your topic is approved, do not wed yourself to it. It makes for a frustrating experience. And I know because I did that, I was so invested in the scrapbooks because I was at the museum and the scrapbooks were stirring me in the face every day. And so I really wanted to do it. And so having to let go of that was kind of an emotional experience. And frankly, you know, I still want to write about those during scrapbooks, but like I said, it's a better doctoral dissertation. You may wind up with a chair that leads you rather than directs you. Like I said, you may not even really get to choose, really choose your topic. And that's why it's important to find somebody that you really click with. Because that topic is going to have to grow on you. My kids are actually still forbidden from saying the words Exxon Valdez, but we'll talk about that in a minute. You're abstract. Yeah, cramming is the worst. Exactly Lysette, cramming is the worst. And there's not a prize for it, frankly. Your abstract is going to change because your abstract when you first lay it out is this is what I think I know about this topic. And this is where I hope to be. But remember a thesis is you taking these bodies of work, extrapolating all of the information, wrapping your head around it and coming to some new conclusion or some new body of work that's important to the industry. And as you learn about your topic and you're writing that abstract, you're going to find out that what you think you know you don't actually know and it's wrong. And or it's bigger than what you ever thought. So when your paper is done, revisit that abstract and make sure that it really reflects your findings. I had to redo my abstract, I think probably four times. You will eat bad food and you will be kind of a jerk. Apologize to your family and love them and help them understand the kind of stress that you're under, but you're going to eat bad food and you're going to occasionally be a jerk. Do nice things for people because they have to put up with you too. But it happens to us all. This is the one thing. Lord, I wish people had told me this, brain fog. There are still days that my reading comprehension fails. I did it to poor Carol this morning. Carol, I work with Carol Wilson. She's down there in the list. Yeah, she said something and my comprehension just failed. So for a while, my brain actually hurt. Like torn Achilles hurt. And other days were wet sponge full. You know, you can only get so much water in the sponge before the water just starts pouring out. That's what it was like. I've been done since March with my paper and I'm just now coming out of it. We all joke that some of the stupidest people that we know are also the most highly educated. This is why. They didn't know that brain fog was coming and they didn't take steps. So it's going to happen, unfortunately. But if you know about it and you're prepared for it, you can kind of get around it a little bit. I have run across students who actually don't know what a thesis is. Some think it's your magnum opus of original work. No, that's your dissertation. Others think it's this big, huge book report. And I know. Like I said, what was my wonderful quote I came up with earlier today in the car? Your thesis is your conceptualization of collective materials that you extrapolate a body of knowledge from. You basically put a bunch of things in a solid bowl and you pick out the good parts. So essentially what you think you know is wrong and your thesis sends you on, or not complete, sends you on a mission to find out. And that frustrating learning part where you have to accept that you don't actually know or that you were wrong, that's normal. And that's a really big part of why you're doing this. You're doing this to learn. However, those preconceived notions can be really hard to let go of, really, really hard. And that's part of why having that good relationship with your chair is so incredibly important because in the editing process, when your chair is giving you feedback and you're like, no, that's not what, you know, I meant what I said, that your chair is trying to help you recognize the larger body. You're gonna gain some weight too. You will, or you're gonna lose it one or two depending on your body type. Your gym time, it's gonna go down. You're gonna eat, drive through. You may engage in alcoholic beverages. The man at my corner store knew my name. Occasionally he'd put the last bottle behind for me because he liked me that much. It's the nature of the beast. However, recognize that that brain function and that brain fog that I talked about relies on nutrition and exercise. And guys, walking up the stairs to the kitchen for more mountain gym pop tarts, that's not the same as going outside for a walk. Just saying. Also understand that you may not find a chair. And just because you want to write a thesis doesn't mean that a professor has to accept you. And that was a hard thing for me to come to. If you can't find a topic suitable for yourself and a chair, then your thesis may not be the option for you. However, if you do find one, recognize the trust and the faith that they are putting in you. And have that same trust and faith in yourself. Because frankly, if this were easy, everybody would do it. You guys are following along in a class, and I'm following Dr. Frankson and Dr. Hansen. Not everybody gets through graduate school. You guys are an exceptional percentage of people that actually made it. And you should be so incredibly proud of yourself. And if you get through the thesis process or the e-portfolio process, and when you graduate, you are in a small body and you really need to be joined with yourself and really focus on that trust and that faith. Okay, that's enough hands-on holding and machinists. The next slide is the most important thing I may say to you all night long. Yeah, this is true. Remember when your mother said that if you make that face, it's gonna freeze like that? I walked around with this expression for six months. I'll just let you enjoy that for a second. I always like looking at it. Okay, so last few notes. Seriously, take a word class. I thought that I was really, really good with word. Do it anyway, even if it's like a one hour online kind of class, do it anyway. There are things that you don't know about word that will make your life vastly easier. Also, just buy the darn thing. Yeah, I tried to come up with a few adjectives here as you see cheap, frugal. Yeah, yeah, I'm just cheap is what it is. I did most of my paper in open office because I'm cheap. And for eight months, I could not figure out why Dr. Hanson was telling me move this, move that, indent this, space this, adjust that because what she was telling me to do was exactly what was on my screen. Turns out that my open office and her word were frenemies. They just, going back and forth of the versions and the software, it just, it wasn't working. Just buy the student version. I think it's $85. Yeah, ultimately, as you do your final formatting, remember the PDF that I was talking about a little bit ago and it has these very stringent requirements. When you do your final formatting, you're gonna need that anyway. And I'll show you why here in just a second. Just buy it early and save yourself the hard day can have. Next, write your citations as you go. You're not gonna remember to do it over here and over there and maybe this, but maybe not. And you're not gonna come back to it and you're not gonna get to a stage 364, just do it. And use word citation store because you're gonna take things out and put things in and you're gonna forget if you had that citation or not. It's better just if you write them and then come back to them. Also get a program called Zotoro. If you are not familiar with it, it is a, also somebody didn't tell me this until I was done with the last chapter. You don't have to write your chapters in order. And that kind of seems illogical and unstructured, but sometimes it's a really great way to reevaluate your information. And it doesn't seem like in your brain that the information was flow correctly, but it really kind of does. And if you have a chapter that you're really struggling with, there's nothing wrong with putting it down, going back to your research proposal and figuring out what's next and moving on for a little while. I wish somebody told me that. So at this point, you may be wondering exactly what it was I actually managed to accomplish with all of these losty words of wisdom I've had going. Remember when I said I moved to Alaska? Dr. Hanson decided that since I was moving away from my research topic, the museum, that my topic was not going to be the best topic anymore. And she wanted a topic related to Alaska. So I had to ditch all of my previous work, come up with a new proposal, a new plan, start a new job, my girls started redeployed again, all at one time. Got in for punishment, I'm not sure what I was thinking. But ultimately, so I did. This was the third proposal that I had done though, so I went that darn thing out, got it done, she was happy with it and got started on it. And ultimately, I took on the topic of archival roles and responsibility in disaster records using Exxon Valdez or EVOS as my case study. This isn't my whole abstract because that's kind of long, but it really gives you the gist of what it was that I was writing. What I really, I came from public history, I came from a museum into government records and those are very, very different creatures, let me tell you. And so I wanted to know basically how to to interact it and to do that, I had to figure it out. So how did I go about doing that? Time check, okay. These are my chapter headings. And one thing that I learned is that having interesting chapter titles makes the writing of the chapters, it really just encourages people to actually enjoy what you had to say instead of try to struggle through it. Just a note. So some of them are things like, what is this record schedule you speak of? And a quote, one of my favorite quotes actually, history does not unfold, it piles up. Yours, mine and ours. And the after-action report owed to the military. So I looked at two government archives, National Archives and the Alaska State Archives and then two public entities, the Alaska Resource Library and Information Service, or ARLIS, and the Valdez Museum because all four bodies have evos material. I looked at history, how the bodies developed, legislation, regulation, research or habits, processing, what else, scopes of collection, retention schedules, specific document processing and actually even finally some evos material itself. Really what I was examining was what government and public history archivists do and how we do it. I think I was trying to reconcile the two in my head and I concluded that the roles or what we do are actually the same. It's our responsibilities, i.e. how we go about doing it that are so very, very different. And I think that was the part that I was trying to reconcile. Which I did, by the way. Remember the irregularities between open office and word? This is one of them. This is actually my title page which managed to turn itself upside down. If this had only gone to Dr. Hansen, wouldn't have been a big deal. But this was my final submission. This is what actually went to the thesis board. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I turned in paper that was upside down. Just this page, though. Just by word. Don't be cheap, like I was. So, and actually she wrote me a very nice note for reasons beyond my comprehension. This page is upside down. I almost died of embarrassment, let me tell you. And when I submitted this, I blind copied myself and Dr. Hansen and neither one of ours were upside down. So I don't know what happened, but it did. Happiest moment time of my life at this year, this is the acceptance email. This email basically said I was done with graduate school. This was a bigger deal to me getting this email than hearing my name at graduation because I was actually still in Alaska for graduation. I still like looking at it. It's okay. You will, too. So now what? You're probably wondering where all of this has gotten me. I'm, like I said, I'm a NARA archivist. There are, the last time I looked at our TDA, there were about 175 of us across the U.S. Now there's about 3,800 NARA employees, but only about 175 of us are archivists. When I went to Anchorage, I went to see archivist and wound up taking on the acting director's role. So I got the office handed to me. And my education at STSU absolutely helped to prepare me for that. I'm not gonna lie. There are classes I took that I absolutely don't remember taking. We all had our classes from those undergrad days. And you guys know what I mean. I don't remember taking them because they weren't pertinent to what I was doing at the time or even now. But the classes that I do remember taking absolutely prepared me for what I am doing. David De Lorenzo's records management class, I owe that man my job. Not gonna lie. He taking his class probably is what got me my job. Michelle Simmons at public education class taught me how to structure a lesson plan. It's actually what I used to come up with for what we're doing tonight. Erin Lorimer's description class. Poor lady, I still feel bad. I took a class when I was at the museum and in the military we structure things in the Army Archives program. We structure things very differently. So everything I turned into her was something we'd used at the museum and she just had the hardest time creating my stuff. I felt really bad. But I did learn a lot from her regarding placement and the structure, the value of finding aid. Carol, the finding aid that we use was I learned in her class. The template, like I said, the template that we use in both my Anchorage office and my San Bruno are based on what I learned in hers. Dr. Fring's social media class as well. You know that the archival world is really concentrated on sharing and access right now. And I still, back today, I even used things from her class to bridge a lot of generational gaps and overcame some personal biases as well, to be honest. Those biases are rooted in the fact that I have a cranky old cousin and her class helped me learn to share that sarcasm with the world. They appreciate it. No, seriously, I use a lot every day to bring the Anchorage office into a new access plan. I wanna say maybe it was lesson three, Dr. Fring's that we did. I based it off of that. And I doubt I would have been able to do all of that without the exact combination of classes that I took. After two years of running that office, I was transferred to the San Bruno office down here in California to run an inventory overhaul project. Yeah, Carol, so you now know more about me than you ever wanted to know. The thing about the federal government is that if you wanna promote up the ladder, learn new skills, gain a variety of experiences, you have got to be willing to travel. Otherwise, promotion comes very slowly and challenges only come when a new person arrives. If you prefer longevity and stability, you certainly can find a home in the federal government. But like I said, it comes very slowly. I know people who have been in the same job for 15 years and don't understand why they haven't been promoted. It's because they won't move. Whether it's right, wrong, or indifferent, it is the way it is. People have their comfort challenge, but my thesis and my coursework helps guide me through all of that in two ways. One, I actually get to understand what we as archivists do and why we do it. And even though I was employed as an archivist before starting graduate school, my classes helped solidify a foundation that was already built. The ones that I mentioned earlier gave me a firm footing to stand on and is what set me apart in my interview. 150 people interviewed, well, were selected. We're on the list, 25 interviewed, I got the job. Also never underestimate the power of vocabulary in an interview. David taught me that. Let's say, okay, moving on. You know, I'm not gonna hold your hand and tell you that NARA is the perfect and amazing and just, oh my God, everything I ever wished for, place. It's a federal agency, just like everybody. And I know y'all saw the news in October. Besides Carol knows me in real life and she would know that I was blowing smoke in your ear. Like I said, it is a government agency and it comes with every other sector out there, private, public, government, or civilian. It comes with benefits, it's drawbacks, six AM East Coast meetings, but it also has that Holy Magooly, I just found the document. Amazing people that I can safely tell you. Yeah, I would, and I can tell you honestly, I would go to war with some of them. And people I would love to kick off the island. But my thesis experience as convoluted. Yeah, convoluted as it was. And my coursework really gave me that hands-on education, experiential background to know when I am absolutely right, when I'm flat wrong and just need to shut up. The best of experiences. And most importantly, how to pass on what I've learned to those of you coming up behind me. I did put together a short list. And these are things that I showed you already, but that you are also there if you wanna be able to copy them down real quick. But like I said, you saw them on the other page too. It is absolutely not a comprehensive list of thesis resources. These are places to help you figure out if you even wanna do this, even if you wanna come down this road with me. These are the pages, the three pages that I went back to again and again and again and again, especially the deadline page. Yes, excellent, we're right on where I wanted to be. I love it when that happens. Okay, wrap up. Questions. I'm in the middle of my thesis process now. And I find one, thank you so much for as a cost-conscious person myself. I also rely on open office. And in addition, my chair is visually impaired. And sometimes he can't always, he has a reader. And sometimes it doesn't always work with open office. So I am gonna just give in and buy a board. You scared me straight, thank you. But I was also having a life and having your school being miles away is something I completely understand. I live in New York. How do you stay motivated? And how did you plan your schedule so that you could stay on focus and not let life push it to the side? Part of it honestly comes from, the military my whole life. And you just kind of grew up with this mentality of this has to get done so you can move on. Part of it was a scheduling. I had my Google calendar and I literally blocked out time. This was my time. I was at work from 7.45 to 4.15. And from 4.45 to 5. I was driving home and from 5.30 to 6.30 the girls and I were at the gym. And it was literally that structured. I could pull that calendar and tell you what I was doing August 9th, 2012 at two o'clock in the afternoon. Well, it doesn't work at seven o'clock in the afternoon. It was literally that structured. And the alerts went to my phone and told me, it's time to get off the couch and go work on your paper. And that really was probably the best tool that I could come up with. And sometimes I did press ignore. And I did press delete. But it was a reminder that this still has to get done. And you can watch the rest of Downton Abbey. Well, it wasn't on then. You can watch the rest of Days of Our Lives. But you still have to get up and go write your paper when this is done. Yeah, you need blocks of time. And not just an hour or two. Sometimes you're going to be up until 2 o'clock in the morning and that's OK, as long as you know what you've got coming the next day. Tara, I did not. I wound up moving to, when I moved to Anchorage, we moved into a really good school district. What worked for me as I came home, I did all the girl's schoolwork with them as well. And I didn't start on mine until after dinner and bath time. So I generally would start on my working around 8.30 at night. Tara, it is important that how old are your kids? It can be done. OK, you've got one. Yeah, it can be done. Absolutely. I read this original research. Dina, let's see. I was looking at preservation of scrapbooks. There is a woman named Jennifer. And I will remember her last name here. Just Google Jennifer in Scrapbook Preservation and you'll find her. There's just not a lot of supporting material to be able to do it. And like I said, I had a really hard time. I still want to write about it. It would make a wonderful doctoral thesis though. Your pitfall is going to come in your sources because there's not a lot of academic sources. And it is also going to come in your literature review. And that's where most of the people I submitted to had issues. There wasn't enough literature. Would I say, Lucette, would I say that my thesis informs my job now? Absolutely, 100%. I think I really wrote that topic as a way to reconcile what I was doing as a public historian moving into government records. They are very different fields. And I had to wrap my head around both of them. It absolutely impacts what I do still every day. Because I had to go through and understand things like record groups and retention schedules. And how the paperwork process of the Electronic Records Archive, which is now how we accession, is different than a scope of collections and accession agreement. I had to work those through my head. And looking back on it now, that's what my thesis was really about. It was less about the Exxon Valdez and more about what we do and how we go about doing it. Let's see. Danica, you currently work for the Federal Government Records Management. High five, you. You are one of the few. Slide into archives at some point. Captions, let's see. Yes. And I have lots of things to tell you that I don't want to take up the other's time with, but that the teachers that I suggested were David de Lorenzo, Michelle Simmons, Erin Laramore, and Dr. Franks. And I am currently at National Archives San Bruno. I'm really easy to find, honestly. If there's something that you want to talk about after we get offline or at about 10 o'clock tonight and you're sharing at your computer and go, God, I wish I'd asked you that. Just call me at work. Or email me. It's robin.dexter at narra.gov. Absolutely, Danica. Please do so. I highly encourage all of you. If you have something that I can help you with, shoot me an email. I am easy, easy to find. Can you type your email into the chat area for them, Robin? Absolutely. Any other thoughts, questions? Carol? Carol. Hey. Hey. So my main question, I guess, is that because you had to snap through where you lost your e-profile and then you ended up doing your thesis, in the long term in the job market, would the e-profile work better or the thesis? Or does that depend on what industry you end up in? After I lost everything that I could have used for my e-portfolio, I truly did not investigate it further. I'm not the best person to answer that question. What we can do is probably push that off to Dr. Franks, who's a vastly better person to answer it. And Danica, you're very, very welcome. Yeah, it's a totally practical question. It's a great question. Let's see. I probably need to take mine off so she can. That's OK. I think Carol turned hers off. All I was going to repeat is what Dr. Linda Main has told me many times that she believes that most of the students do e-portfolios and that they find value in it because they go back and understand what they have accomplished and they're better able to package themselves to sell themselves when they're looking for new positions or promotions at work. So they find value in that. The other end is she's hearing from prospective employers that they are looking for students who are able to do that and that there is value in them in the portfolio themselves because they're putting all that material together and they're being able to go into an interview and explain exactly what they know and how that's going to help them in different positions. So I think it depends. If you're really interested in a topic, if you have a passion for a particular topic, as Robin did, even though she changed it a few times, I would say the thesis. If you don't have that passion, remember, it's going to take you at least a year. A new portfolio is a half a year. So you're adding an extra year of time to your schooling and it might be better that you do the portfolio if you really are excited about something and willing to give it your all for that length of time. It could be longer. And if you move to Alaska, it adds time. Or your chair happens to retire. It's like mine. Wow. All right, so we have one minute left. If anybody, I'm a big fan of, exactly, I don't want to hold up other people from things they have to do. Tara, what can I answer for you? I was just wondering, it's kind of related to what we were talking about, about getting a position. But I'm wondering in terms of, if you're wanting to go on and get a doctoral or enter a doctoral program in library science or in another area, perhaps, which is going to make you be more competitive for entering that graduate program, a thesis or a e-portfolio? Yeah, Dr. Franks, I see your comment there. Thesis is, I think thesis is going to make it more competitive. Or make you more competitive, I would think. That's my question. I would agree. I would agree. You have to be able to show you can write. And the structure of being able to put together a master's thesis and the structure of putting together your dissertation for you with that specific question is going to be more experience. I think she's right. Let's see, someone else, Victoria, was that? I thought I saw another hand, too. What I'm going to do right now, because I know few people have to leave, is I'm going to publicly thank Robin. And I'm going to turn off the recording. And then if you have another question, I'm sure she'll stay around a minute or so and answer after I do that. So Robin, thank you very much. We really appreciate you sharing your time with us this evening. It was a terrific presentation.