Does your school have a thesis or practicum? (or both, or neither...)

[Karin Dalziel]

Chris recently posted (http://www.libraryola.com/2007/04/08/e-gov-for-the-thumb-generation/) about having signed up for a masters thesis, and it got me wondering- how many schools have a thesis? My school doesn't. We have a practicum instead. I think I remember hearing a brief mention of the possibility of doing a thesis as independent study, but it does not seem to be done very often.

I can see advantages and disadvantages of each. I really like the idea of doing a thesis, and I might try to do one on my own (ok, maybe a mini-thesis), even if I don't get credit for it. I have too many classes I want to take already!

[Martha]

Since my program has neither a thesis nor practicum requirement, I find myself thinking about this a lot. Specifically, I wonder how the lack of a thesis will affect my professional future. I am fortunate, however, to have a great job in which I am obtaining a wide range of professional experience - kind of like a practicum, except that I get decent pay and benefits :-) I have also set myself a goal of trying to get a paper published in a scholarly publication during the next year, in hopes that will partially make up for not having written a thesis.

[Karin Dalziel]

I would like to get something published, but I think that, for now, I am going to concentrate on presenting on conferences instead. I'm doing a presentation for a Spring meeting this May, and one of my classes in the fall semester will involve presenting at our state's conference. I hope to move up from there.

I, too, have a job that I think will help quite a bit in landing me a position once I am out of school. I look forward to the practicum because, for me, it's a chance to pick a dream job or two and try them out for a few weeks. It'll also help fill out my resume, which is a little paltry at the moment.

[Karin Dalziel]

We do have comps as well- I wish we could choose a thesis *instead* of comps. ah well.

[NancyPic]

At Drexel's School of Information Science and Technology (IST), we don't have any of the following requirements: master's thesis, practicum, or comprehensive. Instead, our MSLIS requires 15 courses, six of which are core, and the rest are electives and/or requirements to satisfy sub-specialties like Digital Content Management. We do have quite a few classes that require group projects, which is an interesting experience online!

[librarienne]

UIUC doesn't require a thesis or practicum, though many people end up doing a practicum for the sake of experience. The thing about UIUC's GSLIS is there are SO many graduate assistantships for library students! In fact, I don't know of any on-campus students who *don't* have an assistantship. But UIUC has enough little separate libraries (40ish) to make this possible.

I have mixed feelings about this no-thesis trend in library science programs. On the one hand, I'm mighty glad I don't have to write a thesis! But on the other hand, I wonder how this affects the acceptance/perception of library science as a valid academic field among other academic disciplines. I've known a lot of non-library people who think of our degree as nothing more than a basic vocational program ... which really irks me. What do you folks think? Have you seen anything like this from colleagues in other departments?

[Karin Dalziel]

My perception is that colleagues treat librarians as equals- but that may just be my school and/or my department. One of the librarians at the Center for Digital Research in the Humanities is a XML coder/ visualization expert, and my boss is a grant writing expert (among many other things). I think it kind of depends on what other experience the librarian in question has sometimes.

I do worry about the devaluation of the degree and the perception by other departments. Some of the ALA approved degrees don't seem all that academically rigorous- unless the student makes it so. I'm going out of my way to take challenging classes, and many of my fellow students are too. But there is a fairly easy path through the school, though. That might be true of any discipline, though- there are some schools that are just easier than others, and it always depends on what the student puts into it.

My mind is a bit jumbly this morning. I think I've had too much caffeine!

[Rhonda Crim-Tumelson]

UA doesn't have a thesis or practicum assignment. We have core class requirements plus a lot of electives. We are hiring a few new faculty for the fall, and I am sure we will get some new cool classes.

[Mark Lindner]

UIUC has an option to do a thesis as a Masters student, but almost no one does. It is not exactly encouraged either, although I do not know if it is actively discouraged.

Certificate of Advanced Study students (like me) have to do an 8 semester hour capstone project, which is fairly fluid. It could be the equivalent of a thesis or a project or .... It will probably become mostly projects soon as our Digital Libraries degree is a CAS degree. Me, I haven't figured out what I'm going to do yet. I have enough hours to do it in the Fall but will leave it for Spring 08. I'd love to do a project and I have some ideas for encoding thesauri/authority files, etc. but I have no programming skills to be able to do anything with my encoded data.

[Joe Fox]

San Jose State requires either a thesis or an e-portfolio to graduate. Starting with this semester, the e-portfolio is replacing the option to write two research papers as the culminating experience. I think I'm going to go for the e-portfolio option...I can see the benefits of writing a thesis though, especially for an academic track...hmmm....