Abigail Bruders nearly didn’t go to Alverno.
Bruders, a Wisconsin native, was accepted into an Ivy League school, but found it to be expensive, lacking in warmth and worried it wouldn’t provide the personalized learning experience she sought. So instead of looking to the East Coast, she looked much further west.
“I was planning on going to the University of Anchorage in Alaska for marine biology. Then my plans changed, and someone in the Anchorage admissions office asked me: ‘You’re passing up Alverno?’ I did some more research. People had incredible things to say about Alverno, and it piqued my interest. I decided to trust that this happened for a reason, and I’m very glad that it did.”
That reason includes getting Bruders, a double major in history as well as global studies and international affairs, ready for her next step. She is graduating in May and has been accepted into the Master of Library and Information Studies program at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. The program is online, so she will remain in Wisconsin and work part time in Alverno’s library. Her work will count toward her practicum hours, allowing her to complete the program in less than two years.
In fact, being able to work in Alverno’s library as an undergraduate student helped Bruders refine her career path after realizing that becoming a teacher wasn’t the right fit for her.
“I started looking at what else I could do with a love of history, a love of politics, a love of science and a love of sharing knowledge that wasn’t teaching. Librarians do that, too. So I’m going to be a librarian. It’s a very fun world to be in,” she says.
She gained additional hands-on experience through an internship in the Alverno Archives this semester.
“Archivism is a concentration of library science. My experience of interning in an archive will help me advance my career and will make me more marketable to anywhere I want to work,” she says.
Not only did Alverno provide opportunities for hands-on learning in her chosen profession, but it was also where Bruders felt at home and where she has grown as a person and as a learner. And that’s ultimately what she wanted from her college education.
“I knew that bigger schools are more competitive. But here, it’s not a competition against other people. It’s a competition between you and yourself. That piqued my interest, because I didn’t just want to be taught. I wanted to learn and grow. And I have learned a lot here – from professors, staff, classmates, and even myself.”
