Thing 10 - Graduate traineeships, Masters Degrees, Chartership, Accreditation

Ok, so.. my route into librarianship. Well first off I completely missed out the whole graduate traineeship step because I couldn't bear to add another year to being a perpetually poor student. I was really lucky to get a job as a part time library assistant n a public library whilst I was finishing my undergrad (English and Economics - what the hell was I going to do with that?! and fell in love with the idea of being a librarian. I decided to hope that I would have enough experience to get on a masters course without a traineeship and I was accepted at City University London. So here I am 6 months after graduating with a librarian post in the very same library service I started out in and I can honestly say that I love it! Whilst I am still perpetually poor (let's face it, there's not much money in public libraries) I do appreciate how lucky I have been to get this job. Having seen the extremely tough competition people are up against when applying for even the most part time of library assistant jobs I thank my lucky stars that I was given that first post. Especially as I wasn't even the first choice but was fortunate enough that the woman who was originally offered the job declined it! If I hadn't ended up in that library I really don't know what career path I would have chosen. I have a sneaking suspicion that I might have foolhardedly decided that teaching would be a good back up, so for saving me from a career that I definitely would have loathed I have to say a big hooray for librarianship!