Lost between two choices

I have been applying for my master degree and I am confused about what I want to do.

- I applied to McGill university (which is one very good university in Canada). I have been accepted in a program called education and society.

- I applied in a program called english studies at McGill. I have been refused. It was my first and primary choice between "Education and Society" and "English Studies" principally because I wanted to become a teacher in college and my bachelor degree was in english studies.

I have applied to another university with a less good reputation for a MA of library and information science AND a MA of English Studies. I am waiting for my applications to be processed.

Lately, i have been considering going into the MA of library and information science principally because it is a degree that open many doors and i think i would enjoy working in that field. I love books and I could work possibly in universities. I could make research etc. It would be interesting.

The thing is i feel horrible about losing my only chance to go to a good university like McGill. My goal, as I mentioned, was to become a teacher. The MA of education and society does not really open doors to teaching. I have no background in teaching and it scares me to go there even if i probably can do it.

The MA of library and information science offer an internship, which would be a good way to find a job right after I finish my studies.

Basically, I am scared to make a mistake. I spent lots of money on these multiple applications and lots of time and asked many letters of reference to my professors and now, i am stuck between choices.

Should I choose a good university that has a good name to have better chance to find a job? What sound more promising in terms of career according to you?

My brother got his PhD in psychology at York Uni in Toronto as did his wife, same degree. There's also Uni of Toronto. Both are well respected universities in Canada. McGill is in Montreal and could the problem be you wanted a course that was offered in French and not English?

I have a friend who has degrees in many things from Uni of Regina and he became the head librarian there and stayed there until he retired. It's also a good uni. There's way more unis in Canada than just those. There's Queens and Brock as well.

Yeah I know there are many more universities than just those ones. I just wanted to stay in the province of Quebec :) my struggle is more related to my career path than the choice of university itself.

Basically I'm not sure if the MA of education is worth it despite the fact that it is given in a good university. I saw a counscellor who told me that it would not help me to get a job as a teacher. So, I am considering maybe the library program.

I can speak fluently English and French. I just finished a bachelor degree that was full-time in English. I am just worried the expectations will be higher at McGill and it's a lot of work and I am scared to realise I am just not able to follow.

I guess that's just a big step in my life and I feel that both programs would open me two different career path. I'm just scared to make a mistake.

If your choice of the university itself pales in comparison to your career choice, do what you enjoy. Choose a major which will provide an internship and a career which will open a lot of doors for you. If McGill will not help you get a job as a teacher, then why bother? And why bother if you don't wish to teach anyway?

Just go with your gut feeling and what you feel is best for you overall and if it meets your goals of becoming a teacher.

"Two surveys conducted by Gallup on behalf of the Lumina Foundation, an organization committed to increasing the percentage of Americans with post-high school degrees, found that hiring managers weren’t that concerned where their new hires received their college degrees."

Go with the accredited college that will give you the career you can be passionate about. You will be spending 40 hours a week for the next 50 years of your life working, so make sure you're setting yourself up for a career you love.

I'm a retired English teacher (high school). If you don't have a real natural inclination to be a teacher, I would recommend that you go with the library science. English teaching positions are hard to come by on a college level, and you might spend a lot of time getting a degree and then discover you don't have a propensity for it or that there isn't a market for it. If you get a degree in library, there are more doors open for you, I think.

I agree that the college itself is secondary to the degree that you get that will help you earn a living.

Don't worry so much about the university and it's reputation. There may be better, newer, up-and-coming professors at a lessor university.

I just read in the paper that the Government in Canada is focusing on hiring teachers of Black and Indigenous heritage to help children of the same culture have role models that will keep them in school longer. They are hiring only about 300 teachers in Ontario this coming year and there are 3,000 waiting to be placed full time in schools.

I suggest you do your research and get your degree in a field where you are going to have the best chance of becoming employed. Teaching wouldn't appear to be the way to go right now.

What fields are currently doing the most hiring? Would any of them interest you.

I agree with you that you'll likely have more options with Library Science as a component. There is a hybrid term called 'cybrarian' that crosses over into the IT field and offers some pretty lucrative work on it's own, much less with teaching opportunities. Most research work increasingly involves academic or corporate databases, so this would prepare you for the future beyond traditional academia and open doors into nearly any field that might interest you over time.

For instance, after consulting in IT for years, I now work in an art department managing a large photography database servicing multiple companies owned by one parent firm. I train users classroom style and remotely, even while I've crossed over into managing photography and retouching, which I love. The graphic artist skills were not something I brought to the job, I was able to negotiate training in those based on my database background. So foundational cybrarian skills can be used to navigate you into teaching or training or any other field that may be unrelated yet dependent on the combo plate you can bring to the table.

You don't need to know exactly how you will use something in the future in order for it to be valuable. As long as it's future-focused rather than a dinosaur, you are golden.