I am deeply grateful to the Syracuse University MLIS program for giving me the opportunity to pursue this degree. My undergraduate GPA, which I earned more than twenty years ago, did not fully represent my professional experience, growth, curiosity, and determination I had developed since college. I appreciate that the admissions committee considered the quality of my more recent work and recognized the skills and perspective I could bring to the program. The ability to apply without involving my current employer allowed me to begin exploring a future career change before I was ready to share those plans professionally. Throughout the program, I continued working full-time while still balancing parental and community responsibilities. I expect to remain in my current career for some time as I thoughtfully prepare for an eventual transition into the library and information field.

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     This program has taught me far more than I anticipated by strengthening my research skills, leadership, technology, instructional-design, and information-literacy skills have grown alongside a much deeper understanding of equity, accessibility, ethics, community engagement, and the responsibilities information professionals have to the people they serve. Across the five program learning outcomes, I learned to identify information inequalities on a deeper level, understand and collaborate with users, design more equitable resources and services, manage projects responsibly, and approach information and technology with greater critical awareness.

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     Most importantly, the MLIS program helped me recognize that many of the interests and projects I had already pursued including my local history research, community advocacy, website development, and information preservation were not disconnected hobbies. Together, they represent my developing professional identity centered on public librarianship and community archives. This has given me greater purpose towards the projects I plan to continue working on after graduation. The technical skills developed throughout my career remain an important part of what I bring to librarianship, but this program has helped me understand how those skills can be used together to better my community. 

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     Graduation does not feel like the end of this learning process and instead marks the beginning of a more intentional path toward work that brings together technology, research, public access, and the preservation of community histories.