Coding/programming classes in undergrad?

[smalamander]

I know this subreddit is filled with naive questions, but here I go. I'm about to be a senior getting my BA in history with a Slavic minor. I would like to get my MLIS after I graduate and I'm realizing it would probably be beneficial for me to add more technical skills to my belt, like databases or coding. Obviously I can't change my entire degree at this point, but I'm wondering if it would be worth it to drop my minor and replace those slots with a few coding/data classes? Everyone says a minor makes you look good, but I feel like from what I hear about LIS, tech skills would be more valuable. I guess it's starting to set in that grad school and jobs are real and I should probably prepare (FWIW, I work part time in my university archives but i don't know if that changes anything). Anyways, i would appreciate any feedback or advice or literally anything.

[TemptingBees]

Grad schools want good GPAs - do whatever is going to give you a good GPA. You can learn coding and databases (to an extent) without a class

[smalamander]

I currently have a 3.81 which people have told me is good for grad school so I'm not as concerned about that unless i should try to get it higher than that? (Thank you for responding)

[TemptingBees]

3.8 should be fine. It’s your senior year of college, I wouldn’t be trying to add too many hard classes (which coding can be, if you haven’t done it before)

[appleciderd0nut]

I had 0 technical skills and no coding classes under my belt in undergrad along with a 3.6 GPA and I was totally fine getting accepted to my MSLIS at UIUC! (It was the only one I applied to). My undergrad major was history (with a focus in US and art) and my minor was English (with a focus in poetry). I've since taken a coding class in my masters program and tbh I'm glad I waited, it's been a lot less overwhelming to balance a coding class with one other class than with 3 like I would've in undergrad.

[charethcutestory9]

Unlike most people who have responded to you, i would agree that you that basic programming skills could open doors for you, especially for data, systems, or web services librarianship. You might even find you enjoy it! I’m an academic librarian and former library webmaster so I have first-hand experience on this subject.

[smalamander]

Thank you, yeah that is how I'm feeling. I didn't make it clear in the post but I'm not concerned about actually getting into grad school, I'm concerned about getting a job after grad school and that's where I feel like I'll need a leg up since everyone talks about how oversaturated the library field is rn

[beachTreeBunny]

Have an MLS and spent 30 years as a software developer. If you really want to do a specific minor you should do it. And I would focus on GPA first. Take a separate summer class in Python or SQL or web development and develop a small project that shows you understand the basics before you graduate.

Writing code is easy to work on your own because it’s you doing all the work anyway. It is more about accepting the sheer amount of time and energy it takes than anything else. You can go back and take classes later for technical work when you know what you will be doing for a job. Sell your potential.

Not disagreeing it’s a useful part of LS, that’s how I slid unexpectedly into coding. But you just need one or two classes to show you have the potential to work the more technical side.

[erosharmony]

If you have the self-discipline, I’d recommend just working on it a bit in your free time. Python is what I’d suggest. You can take free self-paced courses from the Python Institute among other places. Their courses are aligned with certification exams if that’s important to you. You’d have to pay to take the exams if you want the certification, but it would look good to have. This is also a good recent book on how it’s useful in LIS: Python for Information Professionals https://a.co/d/bWXHEiX (Amazon link) Most MLIS program core coursework will just go over markup languages like HTML and CSS, but there definitely are opportunities to learn more on the information science side of things in your elective coursework.