Because I've been fielding congratulatory emails and texts wondering when I'm moving to Tucson, I wish to clear up a couple things. First, thank you to everyone who has been supportive of my decision to go back to school - many of my friends and my family members were instrumental in my making the choice to continue my education, and without people like my folks and my close friends, I might not have done so alone.
I will not be moving to Tucson for this degree. I mean, I could, but I'm not. The degree is offered completely online, save for a 7-day face-to-face introductory course at the Tucson campus. I will for the foreseeable future be working from my home in the Phoenix area in order to save a little money on housing and such until I can get on my feet financially. That said, I do intend to start seriously job hunting in the Tucson area in case something pops up that would be beneficial to me.
Technically, I am still waiting right now to hear from the Graduate College whether I am formally accepted to the University of Arizona, but I expect that will not be a problem since I have now been admitted to the SIRLS program. After that, registration for classes takes place in November, followed by my SIRLS 504 Intro class December 20-January 11, 2011. The 7-day Tucson portion of that class is scheduled for January 2-8. After completion of that course, I start a 12 credit hour regimen of classes in information technologies, librarianship, resource management, etc for the next two to three years, again, all in online classes unless I choose to move to Tucson. Practically, for me this likely means two courses per semester for six academic semesters.
The "sub"-program I am going to be working on is the "Information Professional" program, which will prepare me for research, database management, and information management. It involves four "core" classes: the program intro in Tucson, Research Methods, Organization of Information, and Ethics, and then 8 more classes with titles such as Government Information, User Interface and Website Design, Database Development and Management, Digital Libraries, Business Information Resources, Information Seeking Behaviors, and Online Searching. I also have options to complete an internship for credits and to write a thesis for credits.
On a much more serious note, though, I've been trying to figure out how to support both Northern Arizona University (the Lumberjacks) and the University of Arizona (the Wildcats) at the same time.... I think I'm going to have to go with "LumberCat" because "WildJacks" just sounds silly...!
congratulations!
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