Courtesy of Mr. Stephen Colbert
- What is that?
- What do you do with that?
- You need a degree to do that?
- Oh.
- Congratulations!
- My friend has one of those…
- It’s not too late to change your major.
- You know, libraries won’t exist in [insert period of time here].
- I haven’t been to a library in [insert period of time here].
- I like to read.
- Do you like to read?
- Who is your favorite author?
- You know, people don’t read anymore.
- Do you work in a public library?
- There are specialty libraries? (In response to the previous question)
I actually get more flack for pursuing library science than I did for pursuing journalism and history. No “but the media is DYING” conversations, just “I’d love to read your writing.” And with history, everyone just assumes you’re going to become a college professor so it’s, “You’d be a great teacher!” Um, thanks? I’d love to hear any more frequent response from those of you with library degrees or any degrees that lead to obnoxious responses. One of my closest relatives has a degree in philosophy so don’t be afraid to hold back. I’ve heard almost everything at this point.
Well, most of the time, when people learn about my field (Ecology), the responses are either positive or indifferent. But every so often, in the right (?) company, I get a response along the lines of “Oh, so you’re one of those hippie tree-huggers, then?,” said with a sneer. Which, actually, isn’t far off the mark.
While “scientist” may be a somewhat prestigious job in the public consciousness. Pursuing a degree in science…maybe not so much.
I am working on my Ph.D. in physics, and when I tell people this, I tend to get one of two responses.
1) A deer-in-the-headlights look, with the possibility of “Oh wow” in an incredulous tone.
2) “Oh I hated physics in high school.” Thanks, bub.
This is, I believe, exacerbated by being a woman in physics.
Maude, these are familiar. I get my own subset of ignorant questions specific to my discipline, showing a fundamental lack of understanding of what my field is. The answer to most of these is something like “No, you haven’t seen me on the tee-vee.”
I do have a question for you, foureleven. Was library science always the goal, since it’s not offered (to my knowledge) as an undergrad program, or did you come upon it later? And either way, what is your dream job, once you’re all credentialed?
The questions about specialty libraries isn’t all that stupid if you haven’t been to college. Even if you have, not every undergrad has a reason or enough curiosity to seek out specialty collections. A friend of our daughter’s is planning on becoming a music librarian, not for a music library but for orchestras. So cool!
Here in Pittsburgh, we love our libraries. I’ve never been in a branch that wasn’t hopping. Maybe that’s not true in other cities, but ours get lots of use. The library system may be the only worthwhile thing Andrew Carnegie ever did with his life.
My field is social psychology. Key word: social. I still get tons of people saying things like:
- Ooh what types of conditions do you think I have?
(Mental illness is not my field, but even if it was, I wouldn’t just throw around casual diagnoses.)
- I read about Freud once.
(Again, mental illness is not my field, but even if it was, Freud was a misogynist crackpot who made shit up instead of doing real science.)
- I had this dream the other night…
(ARGH!)
I’m a recent MLIS grad, currently working in an academic library, PhD (ABD) in English.
I get a lot of “You need a MASTER’S degree for this?” reactions from non-librarians. I usually respond with a list of jobs one can do with an MLIS (academic library faculty, management in a public library, research librarian for law firms or corporations, cataloguing and management for major entities in the information sector, etc.). People seem to think you’re just shelving books in alphabetical order, and a simple list of actual MLIS-level jobs goes a long way toward correcting that.
Good luck with your MLIS! One thing I will offer: it’s a stiff job market out there. I’ve been told it takes MLIS grads an average of 7 months to find work, which makes me dead average. It was a harrowing 7 months, though. So happy hunting to you!
I’m a medical librarian with a MLIS. I work in a mid-sized, community, non-teaching hospital. From people who don’t work in the hospital I get “Hospitals have libraries?” From people who work IN the hospital I get “We have a library here?” It happens so often that my second slide for resource training is entitled “Yes! We do have a medical library!” and has the library circled on the hospital map.
My poor mother worked as a librarian while trying to land a teaching job, and one person actually uttered the words “well that’s a pointless and thankless job”. Nevermind the flack she gets being a teacher.
Me having a Business Admin diploma gets a fair share or “oh, dime a dozen” or “well, the world never runs out of secretaries…or are they calling you guys administrative assistants these days?” or “….so you went to college to man a desk….”
Fun times.
The response might be the opposite that is expected for this post but as someone who majored in business and is currently working as a consultant for a large accounting firm, I often feel like I have to apologize for my profession. I mostly hang out with artsy types who are pursuing careers in creative fields (which i would love to do someday!)
Best reaction from an MFA at a gallery opening in early 2009: “So you’re like responsible for everything wrong with the country right now?”
PhDork – Such a good question! No, it wasn’t always my goal. I wanted to be a writer, freelance or otherwise, when I graduated from undergrad. I spent four years as a freelance writer and started volunteering at a library, digitizing archives and collections, which is what I do now and what I hope to continue doing once I graduate. I’ve noticed that a number of students in my program are former writers or journalism majors. There is a lot of writing involved with this career path so it kind of seems like a natural progressions. The rest are history majors, which is no surprise given that libraries and museums contain a lot of historic items.
Kari – Thanks for the advice! I’ve heard that too although I’ve found librarians to be very helpful about providing job insight and advice and just overall support. I didn’t have the same experience when I wanted to be a writer.
Marie Anelle – It really saddens me that teachers get flack at all. My best friend from high school is a kindergarten teacher and she only hangs out with other teachers (and me) for this reason.
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foureleven, I think your degree sounds really cool.
I just graduated with a BA in English with a concentration in creative writing. People say:
- Which fast food chain will you work for?
- Well, that was four wasted years.
- Creative writing? That’s like getting a degree in arts and crafts.
- Guess the only thing you can do is teach.
I actually wanted to teach, at one point, but now I want to be an LPC. So, I’m in grad school to become a counselor, hopefully with LGBTQ teens/young adults or with domestic violence survivors.
I have a dream, though, of writing a couple of novels (one in progress about a male-to-female trans woman who falls in love with a geeky guy from the online computer game she plays) and maybe a children’s book series featuring/normalizing people often found at the margins (particularly people with disabilities and LGBTQ people).
I just graduated with an MLIS and I find that most people are generally supportive (in that vague way when any college grad says what they majored in “oh that’s nice”) although it may be because all I’ve ever talked about since the 8th grade is being a librarian.
The “worst” responses have actually come from my fiance’s family, who are 90% either medical professionals or lawyers and tend to view library science somewhere down there with secretaries or “other ‘pointless’ jobs that you sadly needed a degree for” or something. Most of the time they look like they don’t understand why I’m still trying to find a job within the profession (unemployed for 5 months and counting) and keep encouraging me to “find something in the mean time” (which is a whole kettle of fish I politely don’t get into).
The “you need a degree for that?!” was fairly common when I was explaining my life goals in high school and parts of college though.
Although the lawyers gave me bonus points for working in an academic law library for a couple years.
I’m in the first year of getting my PhD in history. Aside from questions about what I’ll do with the degree besides teach or where I’ll teach (which is another issue entirely), the top 3 responses are:
-I hated history in high school.
-History is boring!
-Oh.
When I tell people I study military and gender history, I get either a baffled “Oh” or an intrigued/excited “Oooh!”
As a stay at home mom, I get the usual stupid statements.
What do you do all day?
Must be nice to lay around all day.
The assumption that I luuuuurve being around kids.
I must be available for all sorts of volunteer stuff, since I don’t really do anything else.
I must be some sort of “traditional”, christian, church going wife who submits to my husband.
Wow just typing that made me really pissed.
Etc.
I feel your pain! I’m getting an MSIS (master’s of science in information studies) to become an archivist. If I tell people I’m getting the MSIS, they ask, “What’s information studies?” That is honestly a very good question, the answer to which I am still trying to figure out! I try to tell them it’s a really versatile and broad field that applies to a lot of different things, and then sometimes I’ll say, “It’s what used to be called library science, but now it involves the tech field as well and things like Facebook and Google.” And then people usually get it a little bit.
If I tell someone I’m studying archives, they usually ask, “What are archives? What does an archivist do?” I tell them that we preserve, organize, manage, and facilitate access to documents or unpublished materials of various kinds for libraries, museums, or other organizations. Then some of them say, “Oh. So what are you going to do with that?”
Um, I don’t know, BECOME AN ARCHIVIST?
*facepalm*
Oh, and Jamie B., I get that deer in headlights look and say “Oh wow” whenever anyone (man or woman) tells me they are getting a Ph.D. in the sciences, because that means that that person is really really smart and works really hard. It’s impressive!
them: “so what did you get your BA in?”
me: “medieval studies.”
them: *smirk* “and where do you think you’re going with THAT kind of degree?”
me: “medical school.”
them: “…”
Ahh, what’s you’re specialty?
I’m in my first year as a PhD student in English Lit. This has given me a very interesting variety of responses.
When they hear the first, they’re like, “Ohhh so you wanna be a teacher huh?” or some version of “Wow I could never do that I hate reading!”
Then if they hear my area of interest (Shakespeare) they’re like, “Wow you must be really smart” (because Shakespeare is, like, the one author everyone has heard of, and everyone agrees is IMPORTANT). Then if I get more specific, that I’m doing Feminist Shakespeare Studies, it’s a lot of “That’s a thing?” or, if the person knows me at all, “Wow it’s like that was invented just for you to do.”
When I was at my former school getting my MA and told anybody that, they’d assume I wanted to be a teacher or was trying to avoid Real Life (as if grad school is somehow pretend?) for as long as possible. Now I’m at a famous, private, prestigious school that everyone in New England knows and so they assume I’m wicked smart and will write books and do [vague smart thing].
I know for sure that the fact that I’m doing Shakespeare keeps most people from acting like I’m a lunatic or social misfit or underachiever when I tell them I’m in grad school. People who don’t know much about English Lit seem to have this belief that Shakespeare is the most difficult author or subject to study, that only really really smart people could ever read and understand Shakespeare. And then the people who are big non-professional fans of Shakespeare are, well, big fans of Shakespeare, who wouldn’t give me any flak about it. And even other grad students (in my program, even) sometimes get a little shifty and are all, “Oh…I’m doing 20th century Irish poetry. I…I should read more Shakespeare. I haven’t read enough. I haven’t…I just don’t know that much about…I really need to read more Shakespeare,” probably because so many later authors depend so much on Shakespeare and because everyone knows that the job market requires anyone interested in teaching English Lit to be able to teach English Lit 101, which would of course include Shakespeare. It’s really hilarious to me, because I’ve been reading Shakespeare for so long that it’s–well, not easy, but there’s a familiarity that makes it kind of easy. And then I’m like, “Fucking novels! What the fuck novels! So long! Some sentences go on for pages and pages! This is so freaking confusing!” whenever I try to read some Faulkner or Woolf (both of whom I love, but it isn’t like reading Shakespeare for me, reading The Sound and the Fury).
Anyway, this whole thing where administrators/funders/idiots/budgeters who have lots of problems with, for example, people doing 20th century women’s asian american writing–people who want to cut those programs, or who talk out their asses about “The Canon,” or who think non-rhyming poetry is just emo nonsense–those people respect the Shakespeare. So when I tell people what I do, they’re generally pretty respectful. And hearing, “So you want to teach?” or “And what are you going to do with that?” doesn’t bother me, because most people who ask me these things–family members, friends of family–haven’t been to college and are like, “WTF do you do hanging out in the library all day? Writing papers what? How is that a job?” But not with ire or disrespect. Perhaps this is because my grandmother has told them all that I’m getting paid to take classes, so they generally act like I’m doing something that smart people do that they don’t really understand, like if they found out I worked with atomic power for the government–they’d just assume they couldn’t understand it, but that it’s important because someone’s paying me to do this thing. And since they couldn’t imagine getting paid to go to “class,” by which they think “high school history,” they just assume it’s some other level of shit that they’re not really all that interested in understanding.
It’s actually very lucky, because if I tell someone I do Feminist Shakespeare Studies, they’ll just focus on whatever they want to hear–so people who are feminist-friendly are all, “Feminism yeah!” and people who are disinterested or ignorant of feminism (like my grandmother’s friends) can focus on the Shakespeare part.
Anyway, my mother keeps insisting that I won’t be a professor, but will work at a library doing Shakespeare things. Which, I won’t. Not the least because I don’t have a degree in library science, and getting trained to work with four-hundred year old books isn’t something you can pick up on the weekends or something. And I’ve done some research at the Folger Library in DC, which was amazing and helpful and a wonderful opportunity. Which also made me realize how unsuited I am for the life of an archivist, or a career focused on hardcore history. I’d love to have the patience, hand-eye co-ordination, or lack of dyslexia that would make reading 16th and 17th century books less than impossible (as they are for me–sigh), but instead I spend most time around old books trying not to touch anything lest I accidentally rip a page out of a folio or something. It was always unbelievably anxiety inducing to be around old texts, because I am notoriously clumsy and damaging and destructive.
Anyway, I used to work at a library and have nothing but respect for librarians. Also because I’m a grad student constantly doing research, I’ve learned to love the librarians at my schools.
Jamie B. – Exactly. There’s usually lots of blinking when I say I’m getting a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences. I’m not saying it’s easy, but damn, it doesn’t make me an alien life form (and I can talk about “normal” things, promise)!
I am good at what I do, but there are lots of fields (like physics) where they’d laugh me out of the building. 
The response I tend to get when I tell people my field (when it’s not Oh…) is “So you’re going to be a pharmacist?” NO. And, depending on my mood, I’ll use an analogy and tell them “I’m the drug designer, not the drug dealer.”
What really worries me is when people ask me for random medical advice (especially when they aren’t talking about the disease I actually study). “I’m *not that kind of doctor*!!”
I’m a librarian at a public library. Nine years on the job so far….
Usually people have pretty positive reactions,especially people with good memories of using their public or school libraries as kids, or who still patronize their local public library as adults. But there are some people who believe I have an easy, stress free job where I sit at a desk and read all day. Fuck no. It’s more like being a combination social worker, line cook, and waitress, but with books and public internet access. And with a need to read minds, tease out what exactly the reader is asking for, unplug the occasional toilet, and try to smile like a good customer service drone throughout it all. (I like my job. It’s worthwhile and often interesting. But it can be draining.)
I get the occasional person who thinks I’m some kind of saint for working in a public library. I remind them that I do get paid for it!
There’s also the frequent “you need a master’s degree for that job?” And people often want to talk about the death of the printed page with me
Good luck, Foureleven! I hope the rest of school and your career goes well. It is an awesome profession in its many guises, and I wish you good luck wherever it takes you. Personally, my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner – it was a great fit for me, but I never even considered it until a couple of friends and a much admired cousin of mine pursued library science degrees.
As an aside – like Rossignol, I also get the deer in the headlights look when someone tells me they’re pursuing a science degree of whatever level. I have a bit of the science geek in me, in a badly educated, pop science kind of way. So meeting someone with the smarts and the self discipline to study any of the hard sciences is impressive. And, at the risk of being the feminist Pollyanna, when I meet girls with an interest in science, or adult women pursuing science degrees, I get a bit of a thrill, like y’all are subverting a bullshit stereotype, and I want to cheer you on. Hope that doesn’t sound condescending, but it’s the truth. Nothing wrong with traditionally female professions, especially since I’m in one, but it’s just cool to see women in the sciences, in engineering, in the tech field, etc.
I tend to get excited about knowledge in general (science, sociology, philosophy, engineering, etc) and enjoy speaking with people who study and research different, be it intradisciplinary or a completely different field, things to me.
Whilst I hope I haven’t offended anyone or given some dumb comment*, I tend to get excited and ask questions about the person’s field/area of study and interest.
foureleven, I don’t know a lot about library science, but see the importance of libraries and library/information professionals.
Besides, I think of the libraries I frequent as BFFs, and I have always had the best help in the libraries.
I reckon, if face to face, I would ask you a lot of questions, all the things Dorky asked, plus, are there different fields of study in the library sciences? what kind of impact/s do you see the digitising of material will have on libraries (if any at all)? and a lot more, but i think I’ll reign in my nerdy excitedness…
* I have never said any of those comments that foureleven and other harpies have indicated.
I’m doing a master’s (and hopefully a PhD starting in autumn) in a continental European literature that we’ll leave vague for anonymity purposes. That means that I usually get questions like:
-So do you speak X language? (Which I don’t mind being asked, but I should certainly hope so at this point)
-What are you going to do with that? (Ideally, become a dusty old academic and failing that get an office job of some kind)
And quite often it doesn’t go much further than that. I have the impression that a lot of people know so little about my subject that they just don’t know where to take it from there.
Although I occasionally get complete asses wanting to tell me why everything I’m doing doesn’t matter, often the questions (like no. 1 above) that seem ridiculously basic are just motivated by the fact that people really don’t know what’s involved in my work – so I try to look at it as a chance to enlighten them.
Sara, after reading your comment and Dorky’s post, I’m wondering about the Freud thing. Do you think there might be a Euro/American divide on this? Because although I think most people here would say he had questionable ideas, I think he’s fairly revered nonetheless – but it sounds like in the US his reputation might be much more negative. If that is the case – I wonder why it could be?
Oh, and foureleven, have you heard anything about the library closures in the UK? Apparently up to 900 might shut down across the country, mostly in rural communities (the exact place they need them most). The fact that this can happen shows just how undervalued libraries are in this country.
There’s an article making the case against that here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/11/north-yorkshire-libraries-cuts-closures-big-society
“Librarians…are hiding something.”
I totally need that on a t-shirt. Really interesting conversation about work and identity here. I’m planning a couple of posts on that subject later on in the month, and this has given me food for thought!
Endora, I’ve never visited Europe, but I would posit as a potential alternative explanation a humanities/psychology divide. My undergraduate degree is in both English and Psychology, and it is pretty clear that literary theory gives Freud a lot more credibility than psycholody does. This divide seems appropriate, since Freud’s work lends itself more to hermeneutics than to scientific inquiry.
To a slightly lesser extent, there may be a divide between clinical psychology and other branches of psychology, with Freud having somewhat more credibility among certain groups of clinical psychologists who don’t mind his unscientific methods as much.
A third component of my personal antipathy toward Freud is, of course, feminism.
(I’ll repeat the disclaimer, of course, that my field – social psychology – has virtually nothing to do with Freud in the first place.)
I don’t get too much flack for my major (biology) possibly because people just assume I want to teach high school and I don’t bother to correct them. When I mention that I’m doing undergraduate research, however, I get all kinds of responses ranging from the typical blank-eyed stare to “what class is that for?” I described my work (isolating immune molecules from Coleopteran insects) to my family, and my mother immediately wanted to know if I’d found a pesticide for stinkbugs yet.
Anonymous Lurker: Thanks. That made my day!! I occasionally get that sort of look from an older (than me, which doesn’t take much) woman and it always makes me smile. I love my job, I love my field, and I love all the feminists who came before me and suffered so that I could just follow my passion, regardless of my gender. I am lucky.
I’m pursuing my masters in Theological Studies with a concentration in Feminist Liberation Theology. My BA was in English and Religious Studies. I hope to go on for my PhD, and I all I get are blank looks, and “The Bible has feminism in it?” or “That isn’t a real thing, you just made that up.”
People sometimes drive me nuts. Nice to know other people get this as well.
wooh, a librarian post!
i graduated last may from my master’s degree. i studied at the only french university in north america which gives the MLIS program. don’t know if the study/work perspective is much different from elsewhere in north america/europe though.
the program used to be called “bibliothéconomie” (roughly translated to “libraryconomy”). so whenever someone asked what i was studying and i replied that, they was a deer in headlights moment and they thought i was in economy, but with books, what?, then i would say “i’m studying to become a librarian” (which is very limited compared to all the careers related to MLIS), and then i would get the “you need a degree for that?”
people really think librarians just reshelf books and take care of the loans/returns (not saying that this part of the job isn’t important). they don’t get that, you know, the books have to be ordered from somewhere, and processed, and classified, and we manage budgets, and employees, and so on.
i decided to do this as a master’s because i couldn’t find work with my bachelor’s degree, and i figured it seemed interesting, i have friends who are librarians too, and they gave me a really good impression of the job. plus, in montreal/quebec, there’s more demand for librarians than the universities (mcgill offers the programm too) can prepare.
what i realize now (i specialized in becoming what i call a “regular” librarian, meaning i have some but not much knowledge in html, databases, programing, etc), is that the demand for librarian-web admins, librarian programers, and so on, seems higher than the demand for “regular” librarians. i’m afraid i’ll have to get some more knowledge in the next few years, or risk being left behind, or having a hard time finding my next job.
i worked in a public library last summer, and i ended up really liking it! now i’m working in a small specialized library, and i love it, though it’s more challenging, since there are less employees, more responsibilities, but also the work is more varied, so i never get bored.
i wasn’t sure i’d like being a librarian, but so far, i seem to enjoy myself and i don’t regret my decision
and because i read this just before coming here, i’ll share this with you, about québec’s national library in montreal. filled with beautiful pics
(also i worked there too for a summer. it was a good experience.)
http://www.archdaily.com/102511/grand-library-of-quebec-patkau-architects-with-croft-pelletier-and-menkes-shooner-dagenais-architectes-associes/
@Sara: I think you’re certainly right about there being a humanities/psychology divide. Maybe there isn’t one otherwise, but I do get the impression that Freud (and Lacan even more so) is more acceptable in Europe, even in the humanities (to feminists as much as others). But like I say, it’s just a vague impression…
Yay for librarians! I’m a relatively recent MLIS grad and have definitely gotten a lot of those questions and comments from people. On top of that, I now work in knowledge management so I have the added joy of explaining to people what that is as a job. (For those who don’t know it’s like being a librarian but for an organization’s internal information instead of books.)
@betterfishtofry
As someone who was introduced to feminist theory in college through a “Christian Feminism” class, which did a LOT with feminist liberation theology, it’s always lovely to run into others who don’t see feminism & faith as inherently incompatible. I’ve always said feminist theology was what brought me as close as I’ve ever come to joining a church … and it was the failure of local churches to practice that theology that finally drove me away. Good luck with your studies!
I’m afraid I’ll have to get some more knowledge in the next few years, or risk being left behind, or having a hard time finding my next job.
I’ve been an academic librarian for 5 years now and the one thing I would tell anyone contemplating this career is that “getting more knowledge” about technology is a constant, no matter what your job. When I was in library school we had to practice putting together web sites, but since then I’ve worked with two different types of software for research guides, learned clicker software, increased my mad skillz with Excel and started playing with Captivate that lets you create tutorials. I haven’t created a non-mediated web site in 4 years.
There may be public librarians that don’t have to be immersed in technology (I doubt it) but most academic librarians and special librarians don’t have the support to hand projects off, if we want it done we have to learn to do it ourselves.
I love the fact that my job means that I have to be learning continuously, and not just in technology. My MLIS was just the starting gun in this race and I’m having a ball.
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. They say terrible things to (former) art majors, too. Among my favorites:
- “Doesn’t the computer just do it for you these days?”
- “But you seem so smart!”
- “Really? Hey, do you know where I can get some [insert mind-altering substance here]?”
- “You’re not going to cut off your ear, are you?”
And my all time favorite:
- “Oh, why did you do that? You’re never going to make any money, you know. Hey, do you think you’d have time to design a t-shirt for my company? For free?”
>_<;
And they think that the fact that you're only part-time in your field means that you should go back to school "for something a little more mainstream." Never mind that I'm working on a massive graphic novel and that they, with their "mainstream" degree, can't get a full-timer either.
Don't let 'em get to you! You'll be happier than they are, even when you're trying to find them a book that they can't remember anything about other than the color of the cover.
I have a bachelor’s in women’s studies. The comments I mostly get:
“Are you a lesbian?”
“What, did you get tired of studying men?”
(From straight dudes): “I should have a degree in women’s studies, all I do is study them!”
and of course, the always ubiquitous–”what the hell are you gonna do with that??!”
Eventually, I started telling people I was just meeting that I was a Sociology major and only telling them I focused on gender once I thought they were cool. My (now ex) boyfriend would always give me shit for doing this and say he didn’t get it. But now, he’s about to go back to school to get his BA in Women’s Studies as well, and he called me one day and said “NOW I understand why you always told everyone you studied sociology! This shit sucks!”. Haha. He says people ask him if he’s gay almost the second he says the words “women’s studies”. Ridiculous.
I study two major East Asian languages. Here are some classics:
- China’s about to take over the world, you know!
- You won’t find a job. They could hire 3 Asians for the same price as hiring you! (This is both insulting to me as well as racist! Good job, slugger!)
- Asians don’t use an alphabet. They write with little pictures. (The wrongness of the second statement aside–they say this as if I would have NO IDEA that many Asian languages use their own script. It’s not like I’ve been studying it for years or something.)
- So you must be really into manga and anime. (I don’t even study Japanese.)
- What does this illegible calligraphy poster say?
- Sweet, can you help me pick a tattoo? (<–not kidding!!!)
I also definitely get less-positive/fewer positive reactions than male colleagues, who often get some kind of like "Oh I see *approving nod to their yellow fever*" and also are praised constantly for their language ability/"knowledge" even though they are mediocre at best.
[...] really enjoyed reading all of your responses to my previous post about innane responses to, “I’m getting a Masters in Library Science.” I [...]
I’m studying to become a librarian, doing two seperate courses on it. When I tell people I get the same as you and:
“You’re a bit young aren’t you?” (Which, according to my courses, yes. I’m the youngest by 5 years.) and
“Wow, you must love reading to go into a job where thats all you do.” (1. yes, but that’s not why I’m becoming a librarian and 2. it’s not what you do all day.)
I just added this to say this made me smile, seeing all the different comments. Go all of us, we’ll defy society anyway.