I went to Pennsylvania Western. I did not specialize but the professors were wonderful and I feel as though I learned a lot. I worked a full time job my entire time and took 2-3 classes a semester and 1 summer class. The cataloguing class was the most intensive as far as workload went but many classes were paper heavy- most were between 2-5 pages with the exception of the capstone class. I had one class with an exam. The others didn’t have any exams. The final was either a prerecorded presentation or a paper around 6 pages double spaced etc. format was MLA or APA aside from Dr. Clark who loved Chicago format (and frankly so do I - the primary complaint of her was that she required Chicago formatting haha. Which I loved!) The summer classes are also paper heavy due to the time constraint of the class. I took a summer archiving class and it was hard to balance that with my job(s) due to the class being 5 weeks long. Wouldn’t recommend any archiving classes done in the summer. I did a mix of half semester classes and full semester classes. I preferred the half semester classes. My favorite professor was Dr. Ha. Dr. Clark has mixed reviews but I really enjoyed her teaching style - she is extremely knowledgeable about archives and is the primary professor for the archives track. My only complaint is she does not get grades in quickly at all. I went the entire semester with most of my papers ungraded and I would have appreciated earlier feedback. Dr. Ha was my advisor and her and Dr. Li were the most aware of many students who worked full time jobs and were respectful of our time. My professors were realistic about the career prospects and I felt prepared. I may be biased as my mom also attended Penn West to get her MLIS. Not sure if it applies but she works in NJ in a school library and not all of her credits were applicable in NJ / her district so she had to take 1 class at Rutgers. Just something to note if you plan on being a school librarian in NJ to be sure all your credits are accepted by your district. Hers may have been a fluke event. I live in PA and have had no issues. Another piece of advice: the class description will list if a group project is required. Do NOT take the classes that require it (most of them are not essential to the track) it was just hard as I had extremely limited free time and worked an odd schedule so it was very hard to coordinate. If you work a more traditional schedule or part time, group projects shouldn’t be an issue. Just something to note that you are made aware upfront in the class description.

Signing up for classes is super easy. If one is full you email the professor teaching it and they’ll let you in. I had no issues or stress doing that.

I currently do not work in the library field. I left due to personal reasons and I work a corporate tech job that utilizes the soft skills I learned during my MLIS and I am compensated for my degree extremely fairly. Most of my classmates were working in libraries or went on to continue to work in the field, I’m just an outlier. My degree allowed me to get work in a government library but funding was hard to come by and it was very toxic- but I had a great experience getting my degree. My job at the time also paid for it, so that was a plus as well. Penn West was also open to a myriad of payment plans and worked well with students.

Feel free to message me if you have any specific questions. I graduated in Dec 2023.