II recorded my grades today in Workday just before noon today and with that I finished teaching my first college class!
I feel like I have come full circle in the last ten years. It’s been a journey, I can tell you that.
When I had my first child in late 2015, I quit my full-time job as a children’s librarian. I thought that I wanted to stay home fulltime but it turned out to be harder than I thought.
I don’t know if you remember the year 2016 but Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In was all the rage. I went to new baby groups and was introduced to several women who were “doing it all”. One of the first questions people asked you was “Are you working”? Also, my new baby was colicky one. After several months of staying at home, I decided that I wanted to go back to work but I couldn’t find anyone to hire me in any capacity. Little one turned into a smiley baby but there was no denying it, 2016 was tough year for me.
In 2016, it had 10 years since I graduated with my library school graduation and I already felt like a relic of past. I really thought that my degree was irrelevant and I was irrelevant.
Eventually, I was also able to secure a part-time librarian job at my previous workplace.
However, before this stroke of luck, I consulted various people that I knew in the library field and one library director asked me what computer programs I knew. I asked her what specifically she was looking for in a librarian, and she said the words that changed my path. They were “Wordpress”.
So in 2017, I started a free WordPress blog to express myself and maybe learn a computer program at the same time. It worked out better than I thought as an outlet and in 2018, I started a self-hosted blog.
In 2020, I got another very-part time library job at a community college branch campus. I had gotten my foot in the door at a college, something that I haven’t done outside of a stink as a student employee in graduate school. Gradually, I started working more hours at my part time library jobs.
Which brings me to last year. I took a chance when I saw a job posting for a children’s literature adjunct professor at another community college. My experience with computers and my background in public libraries made a good candidate to teach students online about children’s literature and programming in public libraries.
So today, I am feeling pretty good!
