Week 16 - New classes on the horizon

This week, I offer a few descriptions of classes you should see on a future semester schedule, possibly as early as this January.

Week 15 - What to do with an LIS degree

This week, Gale Kilbury from the UIS Career Development Center, joins us again to discuss marketing your degree. Since LIS majors have all sorts of backgrounds and career paths, it's impossible to cover this topic in a single podcast so this is merely an introduction to the concept. She does provide some good ideas to get you thinking but realize that she, and the entire CDC office, are available to help you with your career plans. (Remember those fees you pay? Here's a way to take advantage of the services they provide.)

If you do nothing else, visit their website and go through the A-Z Index. You might be surprised at all of the services and resources you have at your disposal.

http://www.uis.edu/careerservices/

Week 14 How to read a DARS report

It's occured to me how often I've spoken poorly of our DARS report, but this is more out of my own frustration with the report than with the efforts poured into creating the report. Even though it can be confusing and cause students to think they are (or aren't) going to graduate, it is an important document because it actually determines whether or not you'll graduate. It must accurately and completely record all of the requirements of your degree so I suppose it's important that you know how to read it. This week, hints on what to pay close attention to and what you can ignore so that the DARS report might be a useful tool.

Week 13 Podcasting on the fly

I'm sorry, it's been such a busy week that I haven't had time to plan a podcast (or record one for that matter.) I did take a few moments to comment on what you need to be aware of when it's time to graduate and to mention the graduation brunch we have each year for online students.

Week 12 - Preparing for LIS 451 and the new discussion board

Starting this week, we’ve created a discussion board for you to use to discuss . . . well, whatever you’d like. I’ll start a thread each week to, hopefully, get the conversation going but you are all authorized to start your own threads as well on whatever topic you’d like.

A few thoughts - If you click on the discussion board link, which is also on the main LIS webpage, you will be directed to a log in screen. The log in has its pros and cons. On the pro-side, it means that only people associated with the U of I will have the ability to post and to read comments on the board, so no spam or advertisements. On the con-side (depending upon your perspective) it means your posts are not anonymous, so realize that while you can say whatever you like, you’re email address will be associated with your words.

The board is not monitored so your comments will be immediately posted. I don’t intended to censor your posts but I do reserve the right to remove anything that is blatantly inappropriate.

You will log in using the same Net ID and password but, since this is a U of I system, rather than a UIS system you will need to include @uis.edu with your NetID – so, use your email address rather than your NetID.

This week's links:

The Discussion Board: http://www.uiuc.edu/goto/LIS

The New LIS Degree Plan Form

The New Degree Plan Revision Form

Week 11 - Academic Honors

In this week’s podcast, I suggested that grades aren’t all that important but, of course, this isn’t really true. I didn’t mean to suggest that you shouldn’t try to get A’s in every class, just that getting A’s in every class isn’t the true goal of education. Learning is the true goal and learning doesn’t always result in perfect grades.

One of the easiest ways to learn is to challenge yourself and to fall short of your goal - of course, this means not getting a perfect grade or all of the possible points on an assignment. When this happens, don’t focus on the grade, focus on the feedback. It may surprise you to know that a faculty member might spend an hour reviewing and crafting feedback on your assignment. Their goal is to help you see where you fell short so that next time you can do better.

Sometimes students take feedback personally or feel that their instructor doesn’t like them because they made critical comments on a paper. Remember that being critical doesn’t equate with being negative. Pay attention to feedback and consider what you can learn from it. If your response to critical feedback is to spend time trying to get your instructor to justify why your excellence wasn’t rewarded with an A, then you’re missing out on a large part of your education. Even worse, by not honestly considering the feedback you’ve been given, you’re practically guaranteeing that you’ll have similar feedback on a future assignment.

So, go out there and do your best to get an A in every class, but don’t be so sure that a B is a bad grade – it isn’t. When you leave UIS, no more than a handful of people will ever care what grades you earned or whether you graduated with honors. On the other hand, a lot of people will notice how much you’ve learned and how you adapt to feedback in the real world.

How to design an LIS degree plan - part two

9 simple mistakes you can avoid when you plan your LIS degree plan.

1. Make sure you list at least 60 junior/senior level hours.

2. If you entered this process with fewer than 60 completed hours, youmust include 60 junior/senior level hours AND enough additionalhours to equal 120. The additional hours may be at any level and donot require a petition if they are freshman/sophomore level.

3. Make sure you list the same classes in your Learning Strategiespaper and on your Degree Plan form. They both reflect the same planso they should be in complete agreement.

4. If you are planning to include freshman/sophomore level hours aspart of your 60 hours of junior/senior level credit, you mustinclude a petition form for each class with your degree plan.

5.Make sure you correctly include 10 hours of program required courses.

6. Make sure you correctly include 13 hours of ECCE course (or 12 hours of university requirements if you entered prior to fall 2007.)

7. Make sure your plan includes any General Education courses you needto graduate. General Education courses must meet defined standardsso work with the Program Coordinator if you are not certain how tomeet a GenEd requirement.

8. Make sure you include about 2 classes for each Boyer category. Ifyou have less than 2 classes for a Boyer category, you should havediscussed this matter with your instructor BEFORE handing in yourdegree plan.

9. Boyer categories are open to interpretation, but they are notinfinitely open to interpretation. Please be sincere in your Boyerassignments. CSC 320 Intro to HTML and Web Design is never going tobe accepted as a Nature course no matter how much you try torationalize it.

LINKS

UIS General Education and ECCE lists
http://www.uis.edu/generaleducation/curriculum/courselist.html

Transfer Guides for Illinois schools – includes General Education courses offered at other Illinois schools.
http://www.uis.edu/admissions/transfer/

LIS program electives
http://www.uis.edu/liberalstudies/curriculum/courselist.html

Online Course History .pdf
http://www.uis.edu/liberalstudies/students/documents/lisOnlineCoursesFL07.pdf