During the summer 2021 semester, students of Julie Cornett's LIBR C111 correspondence class were asked to reflect on the impacts of an information-saturated society while they themselves were living in the information-restricted society of the California correctional institutions in California City and Tehachapi. The top five submissions were selected by the instructor and voted on by the library staff. The winning essay has been reproduced in full below, along with excerpts from the runners-up.
It is a quite unique experience in itself to be imprisoned; without living it, similar to loving a loved one, you can’t truly fathom it. The same goes for pursuing higher education behind bars. It brings unique challenges – and with it unique rewards and satisfaction. Battling with so many distractions, in my case a good handful: full-time job, self-help programs, noisy dorm setting, irregular yard schedules (if you want exercise you had better drop what you are doing and get to yard while you can), noisy, needy, sometimes pesky neighbors (sorry Matt), and the ever-tempting T.V., discipline is extra important. On the other hand, once in the zone, I’m no longer in prison. I am no longer just wasting my life, watching rain down the sands of time. People give years of their lives to get an education, so as I get mine, my life is on hold, but not much more than a college student out there, right? It’s about perspective. Mine tells me it’s a blessing, and I’ll take it.
Last semester I earned my associate’s degrees (3 of them), and I’m not stopping there. Due to the lack of a bachellor’s program here, I’ll be paying my own way from here on out. Well, with help from my awesome family; at 11 cents an hour it’s out of my pay grade (by a lot). I will be getting a degree in business administration, hopefully before I parole in a couple of years. I plan to use this in starting my own company some day. As a professional I worked as an electronic engineer, but I never took my formal education in my field as far as I wished to. And so, once parolled I want to finish getting my master’s in electrical engineering. I’m on the education train, and I’m not getting off anytime soon, choo-choo!
I was happy to see that a library class was offered this summer; I jumped on it. I’m still learning how to learn, and I must admit that I need to get better at doing research. So far, this course has been a good thing for me. Some new or better resources have been brought to my attention. Believe it or not, I’m 87 units into my education at Cerro Coso and I still had no idea the scope of search engines and scholarly resource subscriptions that the school provided me as a student. In my defense, though, my access is limited, as I’ll explain in a bit. I like that the concept of confirmation bias was brought up. I do see it in myself more than I’d like. Going forward I will be more conscious of that. I’m going to also build a tool, possibly in Excel, to track and record my searches and keywords. These and other tools that this course has introduced me to will be invaluable as my education goes to higher and higher levels.
Sadly, as an incarcerated student, my access to information is relatively limited. The library is small and outdated, also scarce of scholarly books. It’s not often open, and very unreliable. We have no internet access at any time. We are allowed to own only 10 books at a time (the institution requires a turn-in book, one for one, if you already have 10). From the day you order a book it takes a month or more before it’s in your hands. And we have no access to any book lists through CDCR. Typical phone conversation to my brother: “Hey Josh, can you do me a favor?”, “Okay,” “Yeah, so I need a book on Altium Designer – something that is high rated on Amazon,” “Alright, I’ll find something and let you know the next time you call,” “Cool.” Slow, not ideal, and reliant on another person (luckily my bro is sharp), but it gets the job done thankfully. Anyways, despite the hurdles we get things done in here.
As just mentioned, information is hard got in here, but I’m no newbie when it comes to learning, and I won’t be in here forever. I know what it feels like to have access to the internet, and man is there a ton of information to be had about pretty much anything under the sun. One needs a strategy to avoid “information overload.” I feel that being picky about what info we spend time investigating, and what sources we turn to, can help to mitigate this problem. Having a well thought out system of tracking our research can be a great aid. I personally study in spurts – I don’t cram, I pace myself. It lets things sink in. It lets my brain sort out what’s useful to me and what’s not. I also have a circle of like-minded peers who I run my work by sometimes. Many times they have done the footwork for me and I don’t have to dive into the bottomless pit of the internet. I’m still working on many things on my path through school, and classes like this are always helpful and welcome. So thank you for including it in your available courses, I will definitely be recommending it to my fellow students.
I think what I gain the most from this class is the knowledge that was given to me in regards to the Internet, researching, fact checking and the unlimited amount of information there is out there. I’ve been in prison for almost 19 years so everything taught to me in this class is truly new news to me. The skill I look forward to using is researching at the click of a mouse. No going to the library, no reading through stacks of books. It’ll all be there right in my face on the screen. I also look forward to making sure what I’m reading or researching is accurate, true, factual and not just someone’s idea of the truth.
As a college student in prison I have never used google or the internet once in my research efforts. I have never suffered from information overload or had to deal with the problem of too many search results. To me, with the struggles that I face, those types of problems seem like blessings, like gifts. As an incarcerated student I deal with the very real problems of the lack of access to information and the lack of sources. I am completely dependent upon others to provide me with my sources, basically to do my research for me. All I can do is fill out a form regarding the research topic and I get five printouts in return.
To overcome information overload, will begin with using fact checking techniques that will help me to get rid of fake news, misinformation, and disinformation. This online evaluation and verification skill will allow me to approach my research skeptically rather than cynically.
Our information access in prison is so stunningly low, it should be a crime. The digital age has almost been outgrown and CDCR is barely beginning to enter it.
Still, I press on towards collegiate goals. I hope to be as close to a doctorate, when I leave prison, as possible. Hopefully, in a career field I enjoy. Our offerings of degree paths is quite limited when compared to the public. Our limited offerings have helped quite a bit. The last time I had access to free information was in 2010. The Advanced Library Research class has helped to update my slightly out-dated internet research skills.
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