iSchool Student Snapshots: Susan St. John
By Heidi Andress
March 7, 2002

Silverfish: We're sitting here with Susan St. John, the recently elected ALISS Treasurer. Hi Susan! One of my first questions is…well, you are one of the happiest, genuinely nicest people I've ever met and I was just wondering how you pull that off. I'm not even sure you ever have mean thoughts in your head.

Susan: Oh, I have mean thoughts in my head. (smiles)

Silverfish: Here we are at the end of our second quarter- has there been anything testing that happy-go-lucky side of Susan? Do you ever find yourself losing your niceness?

Susan: Oh definitely! I don't know about losing niceness so much but I definitely feel stressed. You know, you're lying there at night when you say, 'Oh my god, I'm going to drop all my classes and forget the program. And then the next morning, it's not so bad."

Silverfish: Do you get cranky when you are super stressed?

Susan: I guess I do. I don't know- you'd have to ask Anna.

Silverfish: Hey, what did you have for dinner last night?

Susan: Um, we had potatoes and chard and Boca's fake chicken.

Silverfish: Is that Boca chicken good?

Susan: They're OK. Most of the Boca products are great. Their fake hamburgers, their Tofu Pups which I like and Anna doesn't like. We tried their Italian Sausages and they were pretty good. They're not like an Italian sausage, but for a source of protein that tastes good…

Silverfish: But the chicken?

Susan: They're OK. They are made like chicken McNuggets and that style of them and I don't really need the crumbs on the outside. And they're sort of pseudo-fried.

Silverfish: So are you a vegetarian?

Susan: Um, mostly. I just sort of realized it doesn't have to be a black and white thing for me. I don't eat very much in the way of animal products but I don't have a hard and fast rule.

Silverfish: So what were you doing before you joined the program?

Susan: I was temping down at the Department of Physiology and Biophysics. I was the editorial assistant for the Journal of Neurophysiology so I got to see how the whole peer-review process worked. Before that, I had been doing software. And I was just burnt out on software so I had just quit that again. Every ten years I quit software.

Silverfish: So you just decided to try your luck with this program?

Susan: I had been casting around for my next career for the last fifteen years. I quit software and donated all my journals to the grad student lounge in Computer Science. I took off cross country in a van and didn't find that next career so…

Silverfish: Are you feeling good about your decision to be in the program?

Susan: Oh yeah, I think it was a good decision.

Silverfish: What are you taking next quarter?

Susan: I'm taking Value-sensitive design, the five credit one. And I'm taking the library consortium for 1 credit. And 531- cataloging.

Silverfish: How come it sounds like you're not taking any cores? Are you having a core-free quarter?

Susan: Exactly.

Silverfish: I suppose we should probably talk about ALISS for a minute. Do you have any pet projects coming up that you feel really excited about?

Susan: Some of it is just maintaining the energy and the good place where things are now… keeping the communication open with Mike, the faculty, and staff. And I guess, one hope I have, and I know Amanda shares it, is to just make more social events happen where students get a chance to spend social time together and in ways that will fit in with the quarter. More at the beginning of the quarter instead of scheduling them at the end of the quarter. I don't even know whether it's possible but I want to do some talking with the folks in the Evening program and see whether they have a real desire to mix more with the day folks, and if so, can there be attempts to make that happen more. If it's more a chance that they have their own community and are happy that way… Just so the Evening folks don't feel like they're being left out in the cold.

Silverfish: One of your campaign promises was to choose really good snacks for the meetings and events. Where are you with that?

Susan: I haven't started on that yet, but I need to.

Silverfish: My last question is one of personal interest. This is a picture of my puppy. Is he not the most adorable puppy in the universe?

Susan: I think he is and I can say that because our dog is past the puppy stage.

Silverfish: Thanks for your time, Susan!

Submissions Requested

Are you interested in sharing your knowledge with the rest of the student body? Have you attended any conferences or taken an interesting or worthwhile class outside of the department? Would you care to review nearby bars for us? Send your Silverfish submissions to Ariel Johnson or John Buell.

Edited by Ariel Johnson and John W.N. Buell

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