 All right. Hello everyone and good evening. My name is Jill Klees and I am the iSchool Career Center Liaison. And I do thank you all very much for joining me tonight. I'm really looking forward to talking to you about the value of internship. So please do ask me questions throughout the workshop. Go ahead and type them in the chat box at any time. I'll keep checking it and make sure that I can get back to you. I like to keep my workshops informal and interactive. So please do ask your questions and, you know, even kind of whatever your, it is you're thinking about internships or other types of experience. This is just a great venue to be able to pose your questions to me. So feel free to pop them in there. The session is being recorded and it can be found afterwards on the career, under the career development site, but there's a section called career webcasts and past recordings. And that's where you can find the links to all of the career development workshops. And just for you, your own information, I am available via email and phone to work with you on your career related questions. I can help critique your resumes. We can set up mock interviewing sessions or I can work with you kind of on whatever you need that has a focus on your career and job search. So always keep that in mind. And I do recommend that you check out the resources on the career development site first or really become familiar with those. And if you can't find what you're looking for, then by all means feel free to contact me. So hi, Oat Sinead, I see she's on, my co-moderator there. So that's good news. All right, so moving on here. So let's just talk about the elephant in the room and get it out of the way. The it, that elephant in the room, that it, is that it is really not enough for all of you to complete your MLIS, to graduate and get your degree and then think that you're now qualified to get an LIS related job. While all of those things are super-duper important, so I'm not saying they're not, they are a huge accomplishment. But honestly, an employer is not going to be impressed with just the fact that you have of the degree and that you finish the program. What an employer will be impressed with though is the fact that you have completed your MLIS degree and you have related experience. And that is why we're all here tonight. So why do you need experience? You really need to be able to demonstrate what you know. So by the time you finish your program and you've graduated and you're out there doing your post-MLIS job search, you really need to be able to demonstrate what you know. So getting some experience why you're still a student, it allows you to try out or what I like to call reality test and apply what you've been learning in the classroom. It's a great way to take the theoretical classroom knowledge and then apply it so that you can get practical hands-on experience because that's what you need and that's what you're going to use to talk about in interviews and talk about with employers. And then finally, you want to be able to add value to your degree. So as I said, just having the degree, just finishing it, is not enough. You want to add value to it. You want to be able to demonstrate to someone what you learned in your program. So we want to be able to back that up with skills and experience. And one of the best ways to do that is to get an internship while you're still a student. So if we talked about kind of what is an internship, it's kind of a broad statement. It can be a broad statement. It can be paid or it can be unpaid. But typically it's structured. It's going to be supervised and it's going to have well-defined learning outcomes. Usually it has a start date and an end date and that puts out some of that structure in there as well. And it provides professional work experience for you outside of the classroom. So an internship, and make note of this because there's a lot of confusion on this point, an internship is for current students. And it's really important for you to recognize that. I've worked with many recent grads from the MLIS program who thought that they could get their experience after they graduated. And that was the plan in their mind. They were going to take all their classes, focus on the classwork, and then once they graduated, they thought that they'd be able to go back and apply for internships. And unfortunately that really is not true. You might find a couple examples where that does work, but that's, you've got to seek those out. For the most part, internships are designed for current students. So that's something as a student now you want to have on your mind and figure out where you're going to fit that into your plan. So if you look at internship job descriptions, for example, they usually say they want a currently enrolled student. So where are people, where are all of you in your MLIS program? So let's see how many people are new to the program. Just do a raise your hand out of curiosity here. So we've got just two people brand new, three people are brand new to the program. We've got about five years, we've got a half way, we've got one year in. Are there people who are close to graduating? In your field work, anybody like this is it and you're going to be graduating? I'm in the MARA program, four courses left. So Denise, for example, have you done an internship? Elizabeth's got pretty soon. Shanae's next semester. I know Shanae's been doing experience though and you're working. You got one year in there. No. Denise, is it? Is it on your radar to do an internship? You've got a December grad. Yeah, Shanae, you're doing this. That's good. Lizette, you've done too. That's awesome. Okay, good. I'm glad you're planning on it because it's super important. Hopefully, graduating in the spring and you're in December. Okay. So I want you to be able to, yeah, it's so good. So like Shanae, for example, who's our collaborate assistant who's on tonight? She works a full-time job, but she's doing, she's a collaborate assistant here and she was a peer mentor. Those things count as well. So I'm going to talk about the different types of experience that you can get because they don't always have to be considered or called an internship. But I want to get the point across that it is super important for you all to do something that's related to get relevant experience and have that on your resume. And if you could do more than one thing, if you could do a couple things, that's even better. So I'd say your goal is to do at least one internship. If you could do more, I highly recommend it. But diversifying your experience and building your resume while you're a student is really key to your success in your post-MLIS job search. I work with a lot of students and then I work with a lot of students who are getting ready to graduate and then I work with alums and the alums who come back to needing work typically, the ones that are the hardest are those who did not make good use of being a student and get the diverse experience that they need to help them in their job search afterwards. Because you've got to think about it like this, once you graduate and you're out there in the big pool of everybody and you're applying for the same types of jobs that everybody else is applying for who just came out of library school, you're basically competing with them. So what's going to set you apart? And that's kind of a whole other workshop in itself. But the point that I'm getting at is in terms of what's going to set you apart is if you just went through and you took all your courses and now you have your degree, but somebody else went through and took all the courses and has their degree, but did two different internships, has projects on their experience, I mean, on their resume and you volunteered somewhere, that person has much more experience. They were able to apply what they were learning. They have different skills that they've developed and they can talk about that in the interview. So it's super important for you to use this time as being a student to gain the experience that you need. Does anybody have any questions so far? Because do feel free just to type them in. Looks like a couple of people are typing some questions and so I'm going to keep my eyes out for those as I start to move forward here. All right. So here's some of the other things that I was talking about in some ways that you could start to get experience. So it doesn't always have to be called a formal internship. And I will come back to that and talk about it a little bit more. Danielle has a question. Can you use your current employer as an intern? Typically not. There's really not a whole lot of value in that. One, I guess my question to you would be, Danielle, who's your current employer? Is the person or is it related to the library field or the LIS field in some way? But what's going to be better for you is to diversify your experience and to get some experience in another area. So even if your current employer right now is related in some way to the LIS field, I would encourage you to try to get some other experience and we'll talk about some of the options here. But the more that you can put on your resume to show the different things that you've done to diversify the experience and develop the different skill sets and be able to talk to those skill sets, I think the stronger you are as an applicant when you're applying for other jobs. So Denise's question is, do I need to do an internship if I'm currently working in records and management now? You don't necessarily need to, Denise. I mean, if that's where you want to end up and you feel like that's it, great. If you think that you might want to try out some other areas because being a student, I feel like it's your job to reality test out some other options. So right now you might have in your head, yeah, I'm sold on records management. But if you want to try something else out, maybe there's something in the back of your mind that you always thought, I wonder what it would be like to, I'll just make something up. You know, what would it be like to work in a public library and work with youth and develop programs for our youth in the community? Because maybe that would be something interesting. I always thought that kind of sounded fun, right? So maybe you can do an internship or you can volunteer in some capacity that you get to kind of test that out and see if that actually is even something that you like. So that's always an option. Danielle works at a community college library. So if you feel like Danielle that that is, that's where you want to be, great. If you're considering again thinking that maybe you want to do something else that I would look at getting some additional experience, diversifying. Elizabeth, even if it's an internship for just one credit, wondering how I can fit it in with school work and working full-time, yes. So I would recommend a virtual internship and we're going to talk about that shortly. I think the great thing about our iSchool is that there are a lot of different opportunities for you to get experience, particularly for someone who is working full-time and who has a life. There's always opportunities. So we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go along here. Yes, the she-nates at the virtual ends, absolutely. I didn't scroll down far enough there. So other types of experience that you can consider. So it doesn't always have to be just that internship. So if you were to volunteer, you can check in with your local library or other community-based organizations and see if it would kind of volunteer activities they have. And there might be some that would help you develop a certain skill set. And for example, there was, I've had a couple of students who, and I can't remember exactly the places where they volunteered, but because they were going to school and they had a job and they were doing a virtual internship, they actually volunteered once or twice per month, but they did it for a whole year. So even though they only did it once or twice a month, it was still something that they could put on their resume, and it was still allowing them to develop a different skill set and network with people and develop different skills and different experience. So volunteering is absolutely a viable option. You could also think about contract or we could be like a short-term project. So an example of that is I actually had a student who found a project on Sparta jobs. And we're going to talk a little bit more about Sparta jobs, but that's the campus job and internship database, not the formal internships, the informal internships, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in just a moment as well. But what she did is she found this short-term project on Sparta jobs, and it was for an individual who, just a private person who had inherited a collection of historical documents. And he, it was from a historical document of a famous author. And he was looking for one of our students to hire so that they could organize and digitize the collection. And she was able to do that. You know, she set her own hours and he paid her very well and he bought the technology that she needed, and she worked on this project. It was for several months to do that. But she could put that on her resume too. So that was a great idea. Sinead says, I had a student who thought public library child services was for them, but after being in public library on a Saturday for two months, they realized they didn't want that full-time. So that helped them early on not choose that road map to classes. That's a great thing to include. Thanks, Sinead, because that's absolutely true. I think oftentimes you could come to library school and you have one goal in mind of what you think you want to do, which is great, but oftentimes when you make that decision, you don't have enough information to know about all of the other things that you could possibly do with a master's in library and information science. So that's why I encourage you to try things out and see what sticks, because you really might surprise yourself. There's always part-time work as well. You could do something like be an on-call librarian. You could interview to be in a part-time librarian pool. You could be a library clerk. You could be like Sinead is. You could be a student, assistant, student technical assistant or research assistant. And I'll see those positions that are posted. They get sent out through the iSchool Alerts. And those are great things. In fact, we, myself, we hire students that help us within the career development work that we're doing for all of you. We have students that help us write blog posts and do different types of work for us. And those are usually very, very flexible, and they are all done virtually, because where you, myself, I'm not on campus. So keep your eyes and ears open for other possibilities. Professional associations, get involved. So raise your hand. How many of you belong to a professional association? Raise your hand. And this shouldn't be like everybody, because it's free. Seriously? Only four of you? Okay. So I recommend, honestly, all of you should be signed up for professional association. Get the free membership. If the free membership is up and then you'd have to pay, it is still well worth it, because you get the student rate. And the student rate is super cheap compared to a professional rate. And the benefits from belonging to a professional association are huge, because they have workshops, they have conferences, they have their website, they have people you can connect with, you can find out about jobs. I mean, there's a lot of benefits to it. So to get experience from belonging to a professional association, that's where you can volunteer. You can volunteer to work at the conferences, the different events that they're putting on. And that's just another great way to get experience and to connect with other people. Student organizations. So like Elizabeth's saying here, join, assist. And she's saying contact her, contact her, which is a great thing to do. Student organizations are another thing that could be on your resume. If you're in one of the leadership roles, then you could certainly have that on there. Ah, Elizabeth's the membership director. Excellent. Way to go. Yeah. Thanks, Shanaid. If you're comfortable, put your email right in there. Elizabeth, so that's a great thing to do that I think students don't think of as that being viable experience, and it is. So I can't remember the person's name, but before the person said who I'm working full-time, how do I get experience? All of these different suggestions, these are excellent things that you can do and fit them into your life because they aren't something necessarily that you have to do every week. And so it can be flexible that way. Community service. This can be, this is wide open. So depending on where you live, you know, look around your community for ways to get involved that you might be able to help. So kind of look for a win-win. Again, it occurs for people that have worked in their community. A lot of times it was around, again, that organizing kind of historical data, collection and development, doing research, doing those types of things. But the opportunities are there. A lot of times, you know, you're not going to get paid for it, but the experience is well worth it. And people need your expertise. So you might even say, hey, are you looking for someone who can, you know, organize that or digitize that or something? And they might go, yeah, we would love that. And you'd be like, hey, you know, I'm a student. I'm getting my Masters in Library Information Science. I just learned how to do that or I'm in the process of learning how to do that. And I'd be happy to take that on, you know, and work on that. And boom, there you've got experience. So the last point on here is including projects from your coursework. And again, a lot of students don't think of including projects as relevant experience. And it very much is. In fact, it's a great thing to do when you don't have a lot of relevant experience. You want to use your projects on your resume. And you can think of your projects as little mini jobs. And it's a way again to demonstrate what you're learning and the skills that you're developing. And then shortly, I'll show you some examples. Oh, actually, I think I've got it right next here. Yeah, let me show you. This is how you could put projects on your resume. So you could give the project a title and you'd give it accomplishment statements, just like it was a job. So check out these statements and how they're written. Notice they're using a lot of industry verbiage that relates to the type of job that you'd be seeking. And it really is a way to demonstrate what you've been learning in your classes, what you've been working on. And this counts as relevant experience. So if all else fails and you haven't put in any other experience, please use your projects. In fact, I think not using your projects on your resume is often a missed opportunity. So this can be another excellent way to demonstrate your relevant skills. Questions so far, questions about any of these other types of experience that you can get, questions about using projects on your resume, just go ahead and type them in and I'll kind of keep checking the chat box. But here are different types of internships at our iSchool. So here's what I refer to. I don't know if you'll hear anybody else refer to it this way, but I refer to them as formal and informal types of internships. Here's how I personally define it. The formal internships will get you experience and course credit. So these formal internships, they are structured and they have to have specific supervision because the supervisors are following a particular format. They have signed a form with our school that says, I will offer students, you know, this, this, this, and this. So all of these formal types of internships, you can find on the iSchool's internship database and I will show you in a moment where you can find that if you haven't already seen that. But these types of internships, these formal ones, they can be physical, so in person, they can be virtual, or you also have the opportunity to design your own and all that information will be on the, in the internship handbook and I'll show you in just a moment where those are. But those formal internships, you have to complete these courses before you can apply for those. So people who are brand new to the program, they have to wait a little bit of time because they have to complete 200, 202, 203, and 204. And then you actually register for 294, which is the internship class. So that means you have to pay for it, but you get course credit and you get your experience. Okay? Those are formal. Here's how I define informal. So informal relationships, informal internships, you get experience and you can find those through Sparta Jobs, which is again the campus job database. I will show you how to find that, or you can find them on your own. The only prerequisite you would need for the informal internships is you have to be qualified for them because you're applying for them just like a regular job. So if you are new to the program and you haven't completed these four classes yet, you are still eligible to apply for the internships or the projects or part-time jobs or volunteer positions that you may find on Sparta Jobs. So don't feel like if you're new to the program, you have to wait before you can get your feet wet and start doing some work, right? So you've got two options. So again, how I define it that formal and that informal. So virtual internships, we chatted a little bit about that. That's a fantastic opportunity. It really is because again, if you're doing classes, you know, full-time, you're going to work full-time, you have a family, you're like how the heck am I ever supposed to get some additional experience? So fortunately, you have the option of doing a virtual internship, not all schools do. So I think that's pretty awesome. And our program, because it's online, really essentially prepares you, uniquely prepares you to be very qualified to do a virtual internship. I think it kind of gives you an edge, frankly, over other MLIs students because they're not all online and you guys have, innately, are developing that skill. It's just the nature of the program that you're in. And frankly, I'll tell you a lot of students take that for granted and they don't even think about that as a skill. But you guys have already developed this online distance learning skill that you have just because of the program that you're in. So the virtual internships is an opportunity to give you that flexibility to kind of fit the internship into your very, very busy lives because usually the work can be completed in the evenings or on the weekends. It's not something that you have to actually necessarily do during the day. How many else, you know, one person, but how many other people are doing a full-time job? Van, just raise your hands, we get a sense. You have Danielle, Amanda, Tina, I know she and Nate is. So just an Elizabeth, Denise, Alfonzo, also about half of you or so. Okay. Had you all, has anybody considered a virtual internship before tonight? Was that something that was on your radar? You can raise your hand or type in yes or no that Danielle has. Anybody else? So I think it's a fantastic option. Cool. Yeah, I think you guys should definitely look into it and check it out. Okay, let's see. Let's see if there's anything I forgot. Sometimes I start rambling. Okay. So here, let's see, where am I? Okay. So here's how you can find the internship information. So up here in the, oops, cancel that. Did you guys see that pop up on the screen or did that just pop up on my screen? Just out of curiosity. You did see it. Oh, just online. Okay. Denise said yes, so maybe she meant the slide. I have this stretch break that pops up every hour and it reminds me to stand up and do some stretches and it tells me stretches to do, which is actually quite cool. I've just been trying it out. Yeah, I like it. I highly recommend it. I'm testing it out and then I want to send it to our HR people and go, hey, can you get us all this on campus? Because it's really kind of cool. I watched LZ, I'm still lazy. Let's see, so Danielle, I tried before. I said I need professor's permission. So that's a role in a virtual. Danielle, is that for a virtual internship? Yeah. Let me think. I'm trying to remember when I was through all the staff. It might, but that's not a big deal, I don't think. Because you still have to, for the virtual internship, you still have to complete the courses, the 202s, 200, 203, 204. And then I think you have the professor's permission to enroll because you have to enroll in that course. So I don't think that's a problem though. Yeah. Thanks, Shanae. I think it's those prerequisites. So I don't think it's a, was there a problem with that though, Danielle, because I don't think there should be a problem with it. You just get their approval. So here's how you can find the internship's information. So up here in the little search box next to about, you could actually there just type in internship database and do a search and some options will come up and then you can find it that way. Or you go right here to the current students tab, which is the top navigation from any of the pages of the iSchool. And then over here on the left, you're going to be under current students, you're going to go career pathways, and then course planning, and then buried under that, you will find internships. But I just wanted to make sure that that's where you got it. Whose approval do I need? I may have to look into that. Let me write that, I'm going to write that down really fast right now. Hold on everybody so that I can get the answer and get back to Danielle. Okay. Okay, I'll see what I can find out and get back to you on that one. All right, so here's how you can start to find the information on internships because I wanted to show you this because I find it kind of buried. And it's not always intuitive where to find the stuff, so I wanted to make sure that you do. So current students, career pathways, course planning, and then you find internships, and then you will come to this page right here. So you can click on the iSchool internship site database, you can check that out. Or you can, here's the virtual internship website, and yes, these are for the formal internships only, Teri. So I'm showing you those now, and then I will show you how to use Sparta jobs and find the informal ones. So here's your internship database, virtual internship website, so notice they're in two different places. Also notice on here you have the 294 student handbook. So if you're an MLIS student and you want to see all of the information you need about an internship, in fact, Danielle, that's where I'm going to go and look and see if I can find the answer to your question. If you're a MARA student, then you go to the MARA 294 student handbook, and you can find all that information there too. So everything is under this internships page. In the left-hand navigation in the purple box here, it shows you where all those things are as well. So internship info questions, they're pretty good. Knowing how to find what you're looking for, because I think that's half the battle. Okay. Here's the informal, Sparta jobs. So question, how many of you are familiar with the monthly newsletter that I send out? Show of hands, called the career news, career E news and opportunities. Seriously, five of you, really, you're breaking my heart. So every month, usually the mid towards the end, I send out a monthly newsletter. It's got a job search tip, takes you over to the career blog. It's got information about upcoming workshops. It has a section called hot jobs. And the hot jobs are library and information science related jobs that I pull from Sparta jobs, the database. Put on the newsletter to show you that they're there. Hmm, Elizabeth. How, if you, let's see. Yeah. Well, how would I, I'll have to talk to you, Shanae, about pushing that out. Let me write that down. Yeah, I'm thinking, but it's, it's, it is an opt-in option because it's for email, but I think all students are opting in because you need to, if you get any of the iSchool alerts, then you have opted in and then you would get it. Does that make sense? So, Elizabeth, like if you get any kind of iSchool alert, then you should be getting it. Yeah, and you get it in 203. Hmm. Yeah, you have to check. Okay. So, I do have the hot jobs. The hot jobs come from Sparta jobs. Okay, here's the other question. How many of you are registered with Sparta jobs? Two. Okay. Come on, people. Let's get with the program. So, here's the program. All right, under the career development tab, under job search. Yes, exactly. Right, Kim? And that is why you are here because it's, there is so much darn information for all of you and it's really, I know it's difficult to find it. I can't even find sometimes the things that I'm looking for and I know it's there. So, I'm glad that you are all participating because it's important. That's how you pick up all these nuggets of information. Okay. So, under the career development tab, left-hand navigation, you're going to go to job search and agencies and then you'll see there's a spot that says, Sparta jobs and SJSU Spartan Staffing Information but Sparta jobs is what you want. It's going to look like this page. And so, I've got the arrows here showing you what you need to do and how you log in. It's password protected because you're a current student. You have access to it. If you try to log in and you have any issues logging in, send me an e-mail, I will send that over to the main career center on campus and they will get you hooked up. So, it's free for all students. Once you graduate and you're an alum, it could still be a great resource that it would cost $25 a year for one year as an alumni to have access to Sparta jobs. But I have to say I am always just amazed at the jobs that are posted in there. So, it is well worth checking it out. And you want to think about it this way. Employers are specifically seeking you. They are coming to Sparta jobs because they are seeking SJSU students, they are an MLIS student, it's depending on what your major is, right? So, when you go in search, if you look down here in the Sparta jobs search tips, it says you log in, you click on the Sparta jobs tab, click on advanced search or actually I think right now I feel like it's called detailed search. And then under majors and concentrations, there is a pull down menu and you want to select the library and information science, that's exactly what I do, how I find the jobs. I click on the yes button so that I ignore jobs that have all majors because a lot of times employers when they post a job, they will click all majors because they want more people to see their job. So, even though I click yes and you'll click yes, you're still going to get a bunch of junk in there, which means you're still going to get a bunch of random jobs that don't relate to you. But please don't be turned off by that, just keep going. Just scroll through it and find the ones that are related to your major and there are a bunch of them and they are in many different states. There are most of them yes in California but there are positions posted all over and when I do the newsletter, I specifically try and pull out the jobs that are in many different states so that everybody can see what's out there and I try to sort of, you know, everybody's all over the place or I try to hit them in different places. I don't do this number five. I don't do this job category but then I just hit submit. So, that's basically how you would use it. So, going back to internships, a lot of the positions on here are full-time regular jobs but there are a number of them that say internship and when you find them on Sparta jobs, these are what I would consider those informal internships which means you do not have to have all the prerequisites of the classes. You do not need to take library 294 and get credit for it. It's going to be considered more like a job. It's an internship so they don't necessarily care where you are in the program, you just need to be qualified in order to do the internship. Lizette's question is do we have Sparta jobs access after graduation? You have access to it for about three months, close to three months until the system on the campus realizes that you've graduated and you're no longer a student and they sort of wipe the system clean. After that time, as I was saying before, you may still get access to it. You would just sign up as an alumni member through the Career Center and I can help you with that as well and it would be $25 for one year to have access to it and I really think that's not a bad deal at all. So that is Sparta jobs. That is finding what I call the informal internships but again there's lots of different jobs in there so just check it out too. You can see who's hiring and it gives you a nice environmental scan of kind of what's going on out there and now you also want to be looking for my monthly newsletters that has the hot jobs posted. Okay, I feel like I've been doing a lot of talking. Do you all have questions? Normally I feel like I think I have more questions but to that I feel like I'm just talking a lot. Anybody? Okay. So benefits of internships and we have talked a lot about these but I want to make sure that you really fully understand why this is so important for you to do an internship or get some sort of experience. Ooh, Sinead said it says they hire interns all the time. Are they related to someone having an MLIS Sinead? Like what company do you work for? I know you're in HR but what company do you work for? Cal Technologies. So are they looking for LIS? When you say you hire interns all the time or you're in general? All the time but across all different disciplines. They literally do internship programs and marketing and finance and computer engineering and now we're seeing all this information. I hope you guys hear her. Oh, I can see that she's talking but I don't hear her. Oh, you can hear her. Oh, yeah that was the last time I can hear her. It's long as you guys can hear her and you can hear me. We're good. Okay. All right. So benefits of internships. So being able to explore careers. So this is really important too. So of course we've talked a lot about getting the experience but having internships or other types of experience, it does give you the opportunity to explore career fields and determine if the work content or the environment is the right fit. And we touched on that early on when we first started. But it is a great way to reality test your ideas of the library and information science field and to diversify your experience and skill development. I do encourage you to do them in different places. I talked about that a little bit too. And I mentioned it but I'm going to say it again. Being a student really is your time to try things out and see what fits. I do feel like that's your job as a student. So the LIS field is super broad and it gives you a way just to kind of see what else is out there. Let me see. What do we have from Denise? What are your options if you choose not to do an internship? What do you mean what are your options? Tell me more about that. So she says they hire across all disciplines. So that's kind of cool. Another class. You mean just to take another class instead of an internship? Is that what you're asking? I would say the experience far outweighs taking another class. If any students want to weigh in on that, go for it. So Danielle, some of the pathways require an internship. Well, it's going to be completely up to you Elizabeth if it's close to home, right? I mean if it's commuting and time away and that kind of stuff. Is that what, oh, you meant close to home in Canada. I think I see what you're saying. It doesn't really matter. Just get the experience. Now the part where it could matter is sometimes internships can actually turn in, they can convert into a regular job. But you're still networking with people and people can be anywhere. So I don't think I'd use location necessarily as my guide. Sheenade says I didn't see an internship that matched what I'm interested in teaching instructional design but she used to do peer mentorship and collaborate experience which I think gives you that teaching experience for sure Sheenade and it does give you some of the instructional design. So again when you write up your accomplishment statements for the work that you've been doing on your resume you can allude to the fact that you're super comfortable with webinars, you know the technology, you're good at talking with people, you do engage people. So there's a lot of experience there. So you did a smart thing in getting experience that was close enough to what you wanted to do. Okay. So definitely a benefit is exploring careers. We've talked a lot about gaining experience. I don't need to talk more about that. Earning credit, we talked about that. If you do the formal internship you will get credit. Of course financial income is always excellent because sometimes internships are paid, not all of them. If you do the formal internships where you're getting credit those aren't paid. It's kind of a choice, credit or pay. But the informal ones like the ones through Sparta jobs, most of those could be paid. In fact they kind of should be paid. So you can be checking out that. Again some of them can convert to a real job. We had, oh I can't think of her name. But we had a couple of interns who actually did virtual internships which they found through the virtual internship database. And when they graduated those positions became regular jobs for them. One of them did it full time and the other one kept it as part time and she had another full time job and she did the virtual one as a part time job. So you never know. So it's always good to kind of check those out. I think another super important thing that you might not think about is networking contacts that you're making through this internship experience. And you may have heard, I hope you've heard, that the best way to find a job is through networking. And so to be able to increase and build your network is super important. It's vitally important to your job search post graduation. So I always talk about, you know, play your student card, right, and connect with many people as you can, ask professionals questions and learn from them. So that's a valuable piece right there, the networking contact. Of course, you're getting the resume experience. The people you connect with, you can add them to your LinkedIn profile. How many of you have LinkedIn profiles? One, four, five. So just about five of you have LinkedIn profiles. Again, that's something that I would definitely recommend. Oh, I think it jumped up to eight there. Definitely recommend that you put a LinkedIn profile together and start working on it. They have, I have past workshops on putting your profile together if you want to review those or if you have other questions about it, you can certainly send those to me. Ooh, that's interesting, Sinead. Sinead said they won't hire anyone without a LinkedIn profile. Because that hasn't had time to do it, so that's okay. Just keep it in the back of your mind and know that it's one of those things that you want to do. Because it is super, super important. And when you're networking, when you have other experience and you meet people, connect with them on LinkedIn. It starts to grow that network as well. And then references, that's a super benefit to doing internships or volunteering or whatever you are, but getting that experience because now you have broadened your scope of people who know how you work, right? They know what kind of employee you are, so now you have broadened your scope of who you can use to be references for you as you move forward. So there's many, many benefits to an internship or other experience. Questions, looks like Lizette is typing something out. Anybody have any questions so far? Lizette says would you ask an internship supervisor and professor for a reference, to be a reference? I would. I would definitely ask a professor if, you know, they know me well or perhaps I was their student assistant or I've, you know, done some projects with them, absolutely, and I would, 100%, I would ask an internship supervisor, you know, if I respected that person and we worked well together, you know, if I knew they were going to give me a positive reference, is the caveat there, but I would absolutely use them. You know, why not? That's great, especially if you've been self-employed for a long time and you're now, you need those references, those are, that's something you can definitely rely on. Okay. I think we've talked before. This sounds familiar, Lizette. Feeling like references are your weak point. Yeah. So this is another way to do it. It's all coming back to me now. Oh, thanks, Sinead. She's found professors fantastic for career help. And you may find some are better than others, you know, so just find the ones that you connect with and use them as mentors. That's a great thing to do. So take some advice from someone who's almost graduating that she knew about it earlier in the program to take advantage of all these things. So something else I want to show, from everything that I've been saying and all the comments that we've had in the chat box, if you still don't want to believe me about the benefits of an internship, do check out what other students have been doing. This would be super, super motivating. I love looking at these pages and I'm always blown away at what all of our students are doing. So check the community profiles pages and just read about what's possible. So here's how you find them. Again, from the main navigation at the top, under people, there's a tab for community profiles. And then here's all the different categories under community profiles and you'll see that there's one specifically for virtual internships. So if you want to read about what have some of our students done in their virtual internships, what are the companies that they were working for, right? This is a great way to test it out. And then you can certainly track down these students, send them an email and ask them some questions because students like helping students, of course, or even if they had graduated, they used to be you. So they're totally open to talking to you and answering your questions. So don't feel embarrassed or feel like you're going to bug them. Again, this is our time as a student. So reach out and connect with people. So do check the community profiles. You can get all kinds of really interesting information and find out, wow, I never thought of doing that or I never thought of being an intern here. I certainly never thought of this virtual internship. So these are fantastic pages. How many people have visited the community profiles pages before? One, two, three, it's like the same people, you guys. Okay. So I highly recommend that you check this out. Just spend some time cruising through it. It's just, it's so helps you see the bigger picture of all that is possible with what you're learning in library school. So check it, dream, get inspired, reach out, talk to people. Thanks, Lizette. Lizette says she's done two virtual, ooh, that's awesome, two virtual internships. So if you have questions, definitely reach out. Lizette, do you want to put your email address in the chat box in case they don't know your last name? That way they can find you. And yes, then you can definitely use those internship supervisors as your references. Absolutely, that's fantastic. Okay. So we have just a little bit of time. Keep the questions coming if you have them. Thanks, Lizette. And here are just 10 tips overall of internship success. So what I'm thinking of now, okay, so now you have an internship, right? Let's jump to the future. Let's say you've got your internship. Here are some tips that you want to keep in mind to be successful during your internship. So always think about having a can-do attitude or just that positive attitude, right? Because attitude really speaks loud and clear and it makes a lasting impression. So make sure that yours is one of your greatest assets. Assets. So that means really taking on any task that's assigned to you, no matter how small, just do it with enthusiasm and take the initiative to acquire new skills. And if you get some constructive criticism, just accept it graciously and always maintain your sense of humor. And remember that if you act with a can-do attitude and a positive attitude and enthusiasm, and then you go back to ask that internships to provide you to be a reference, they're going to have some really great things to say about you. So tip number two, and I think this one's really important, but learn the unwritten rules. So think about, you know, getting to know your coworkers early on in the internship because they're the ones that are going to help you figure out the company culture. You can pay attention to kind of subtleties and internal politics, you know, sit back and kind of observe what's going on, because you're going to need to adapt, observe, learn, and process a large volume of information. So just watch people closely, see how things get done, ask lots of questions, and pay attention to how people interact with each other. That's how you can learn those unwritten rules. Take your assignment seriously. Again, no matter how small or how big, each one is an example of how you work, right? So take them all seriously, start to build a reputation for yourself of being dependable, being diligent, and accurate, and you might encounter some stuff that doesn't work out well in the work environment, but again, ask questions, seek some directions, do whatever you need to do to get the job done. Definitely meet your deadlines, and that's super important, too, if you're a virtual intern, even more importantly, you need to meet your deadlines or use some excellent communication skills, and definitely set realistic goals and expectations. So that's going to correlate between your learning goals, right, what are the outcomes of that internship, and then the daily kind of work goals that you have. Maybe you keep a list of some of the things that you've worked on, because it's super easy to just kind of forget some of the accomplishments that you've had, so you might want to keep a list. And then when you've finished, if you need to write something up kind of based on, you know, your performance, you can go back and review that, or when you're adding this internship experience to your resume, you can go back and review and see all the things that you've done and decide which of those accomplishments you now want to add to your resume. So those are some good tips, and I have a few more for you, communicating, just assume that everyone else knows more than you do. Even if they don't, just pretend like they do. But don't be afraid to present useful ideas that may save time or money or solve problems, because that always just sounds like, hey, that person's really paying attention. They're enthusiastic. They've got some new and fresh ideas. Just make sure you're not overly assertive. I think it's good to be assertive, but not push it too far, because you are, and in turn, you are there observing and learning. So just kind of play it cool, be flexible, accept a wide variety of tasks, don't get upset about some of the things that they might give you to do, always be a team player, find a mentor. I think that one's really important. And for me, finding a mentor goes back again to formal and informal. It doesn't always have to be someone who's a formal mentor, which means you win up and ask them, hey, will you be more mentor? But it can be informal. And informal is when I kind of just sit back and I watch certain people, and I see those people that I respect. There's something about them and the way they work that I respect. And so I watch them, and I learn from them. I may ask them some questions. I may take a walk with them. Go get some coffee, ask them questions about how they got started in their career, different things like that. But I can use people as mentors. They may not even know that I'm doing that, but they can be my informal mentor, and I learn a lot from them. And then most of all, make sure you have fun. You know, you really want to enjoy what you're doing and enjoy learning and develop yourself professionally and personally. So participate in work-related social functions if they have them, even if that's not as comfortable for you or the norm for you, but try to step outside of your comfort zone and go, even if you go just for a little while, just to show that you're there and you're participating and that you're an active member in your work community. So that is all the information that I have for you guys tonight. Are there additional questions that you have for me? Or any comments? Alfonso's typing something in. Looks like Lee Zett's typing something in. You guys are very welcome. Good. I hope, I'm glad it was, I hope, good. I'm glad it was practical. I'm glad it was informative. I really, my job was, I really wanted to inspire you to help you realize how important it is to do an internship or to get some sort of additional experience because it makes a huge difference with those students that I see on the end of the program as they are getting ready to graduate and move out and doing their job search or they have graduated and now they're coming back for help. And those that have the experience, it's so much easier for those people to go out and do a job search and get jobs versus the ones that don't. Those are the ones that are really, really very, very difficult and there's no real way to catch up. You know, if you don't get that experience when you're a student, it's very difficult to catch up. So, awesome. Feel free to email me if you have additional questions later on. And let me make sure that nobody else is typing anything in. Looks like Sinead's typing something. Debbie Fares is getting together a checklist for new students to work from. It was, has about career. Ah, yeah! Let me evaluate it. Okay. We may need to add that in there, right? That's great. Thank you, Sinead. Thank you for having that lens on. That's super important. I really appreciate that. All right. I thank all of you for joining me tonight. Sinead, thanks as always for your help. Absolutely appreciate it. Have a great evening, everyone. And again, feel free to email me if you have additional questions. Bye.