Conclusion
Doing this portfolio project has reminded me just how far I have come and how much I have accomplished over the past year and a half. The start of the program seemed daunting at first but after taking my first-class IST 605 Reference & Information Literacy Services and doing the largest most intensive project of my school career, both undergrad and graduate level, I felt I could tackle anything. I knew all the work I was doing was important in the learning steps of librarianship and the information field but the big picture of what I was being taught did not fall into place for me until linking classes and projects to the learning objectives of the program in the portfolio. I have learned a whole lot more than I thought I would during my time in the MLIS program. Coming up on the end, two weeks left as I write this conclusion and reflection, I knew I would get myself here eventually, but it seemed so far away when starting.
Looking back at when I first started the MLIS program at Syracuse University I knew two things. First, that the jobs I wanted required a master’s degree and second that I would work hard to be in my dream position. The jobs and fields I was looking at were museum jobs, cataloging, archiving, and working with special collections. I am very happy to say I was able to take some courses in just this field, IST 715 LAMS: Libraries, Archives, & Museums as well as IST 632 Management & organization of Special Collections. These courses solidified my idea of a dream job and gave me a great understanding of what I could get myself into in the future for a job. This has not swayed me in my dream job yet. However, the other courses I took also opened my eyes to how many enjoyable paths there are in the library and information world. Some of these are Reference Librarian work, Research Librarians, working in public or academic libraries, or working in law or medical archives, there are a lot of opportunities out there for a fresh MLIS holding graduate. The program has given me a lot to think on my future career path and really opened more paths than I thought were available. It has given me skills I did not even know I would need such as reference work, information literacy, collection management, general library management & leadership, marketing, disability and accessibility knowledge, library technology to name a few. I will take these skills with me into every job opportunity I land after completing the program.
