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February 14, 2008
Alternative Spring Break!
Today I'm going to sing the praises of a great program here at SI, because right now it's all I can think about. Normally February is a blue time for me. It's a time of crappy weather and crappier midterms, of stress and cold, and I don't like it one bit.
This year I signed up for Alternative Spring Break. I remember ASB from my undergrad years as a service opportunity: usually, students would travel somewhere and build houses, feed the homeless, etc. for a week instead of partying in Cabo San Lucas. SI, however, puts a spin on it to make a particularly valuable opportunity for MSI students, particularly those with their eyes open for summer internship opportunities.
ASB through the School of Information is also a service opportunity, but SI targets organizations specific to the field of information science, such as academic and public libraries, community nonprofits, and larger organizations such as ALA and NARA, and sends students there to work on 30-40 hour projects, like a mini-internship. Students gain a week of great experience (and are sometimes offered summer internships) and participating organizations get a week of free labor and the chance to impart a little wisdom to the next generation of information professionals.
And the cost? Just $25. Oh, and you have to pay for your own food and transportation (around the city, not to or from it, which makes walking a good and often feasible way to minimize costs). SI raises funds to cover your housing and transportation to and from the host city. They also find student volunteers to organize carpools and social events, so you'll still get a chance to hang out with good people. (You know what they say about all work and no play...)
So, I am very excited. There were a lot of great projects available at really exciting sites, like the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the Federal Trade Commission. I was assigned to my first choice, the Smithsonian Museum of American History, where I'll be working with a small team of SI students and some of the archivists there to process the Naff Arab American Collection, which is a collection of oral histories, photographs, manuscripts, and other articles documenting the experiences of Arab-American immigrants in the early twentieth century. My inner history geek is, well...geeked.
Oh yeah, and right now it's 28 degrees outside. In DC, it's 42 degrees. Should be a good 10-20 more when I'm down there. Heck yeah!
Alright, enough from me. I'll write more when I'm actually down there.
-Megan
Posted by messelti at February 14, 2008 04:40 PM