Grad School 1990-92

I will have graduated from graduate school 30 years later this year and I just saw of picture of me in my cap and gown. It got me thinking about grad school and how that all happened.

During the mid 1980's I had begun to seriously think about going to graduate school. At that time Becky was doing her MFA at UB. I was tentatively looking at some programs in town and looking at the costs. One that I was briefly interested in was the MPA degree at Canisius College. Masters of Public Administration. 

Then in 1988 I decided to find out about whether or not I had an aneurysm like my father and uncle. I certainly expected to find one and talked with my doctor about the family history but that is another story. I had my brain surgery to clip my aneurysm in June 1989 and it took several months for me to fully recover plus we had a new baby in our life.

I went back to work at the art store in the fall of 1989 but only stayed there a few months. I was ready to move on. 

In the spring semester of 1990 I took a class at UB in computer science. I wanted to work with computers which I had been doing a lot at the store but I didn't really want to work in a high stress business job. Although I had one aneurysm clipped I still had another one that was inoperable and that I would need to live with. I had to take care of myself. I looked into the library science program at UB and specifically with the intent to focus on computers and information technology. I applied and interviewed with the dean of the School of Library Science (SILS) and excepted into the program.

I took two classes as a part time student in the fall of 1990. I spent a lot of time in the department computer lab and ended up helping a lot of other students because I was one of the few people there comfortable with computers. There was a grad assistant for the computer lab but she was not a very helpful person. I was in class with her and knew her well. After that first semester the Department let her go from the lab and she left the program. Then they offered me the position.

I accepted and became a full time student and grad assistant with an office. The best thing was that I did not have to pay any tuition as a GA and could also have a smaller class load and still be considered full time. I ended up in the program for two years and had no debt.

I was fortunate at the time to get an internship in the Business Information Dept. of the downtown Buffalo and Erie County Public Library to work with their computers and setting up their new CD-ROM databases. The photo is Baldy Hall where I took classes and where the computer lab where I did my GA was located. My office too.

I graduated from the program in May 1992 with my MLS. I immediately was offered and accepted two part time positions. One was at the UB Library School where the position of the computer lab person became a part time staff position. I also started working at the downtown public library in the evenings in the TOLIS department which was an early computer database program where I supervised a group of college students entering data. Both of my supervisors said the position would turn into a full time job at some point and my plan at the time was to take whichever one went full time first. Well, that turned out to be BECPL but that again is another story.