A day after I sat on a panel on the issue at my alma mater, Stephen Abram posts a fantastic list!

I mostly spoke to the issues that resonated the most with my experience:

• Experience matters.
• Write papers in school that can be modified and published when you graduate.
• You can participate, in all kinds of ways, in major professional organizations, while a student.
• Personal branding (I focused on online) matters. Google rank matters.
• Knowledge of technology, even without knowing code, is very beneficial.
• I wish I had taken more coding classes (this type of knowledge is power). My colleagues have mentioned they would recommend beefing up on instruction, technology, and management classes.

The list on Stephen’s blog is very good, too.

The session was a lot of fun. I carpooled with a friend from work, saw some library school friends, met someone in person I’d only known online before, and met some other new folks. Good times!

(Hannah, if you ever want to get together and talk tech/instructional design/etc, just let me know!!)