a new chapter

Two weeks ago, I started my first semester at the University of Michigan School of Information (SI).

It has been a hell of a ride so far.

I am taking four classes: 501 Contextual Inquiry and Project Management, 502 Networked Computing, 658 Information Architecture, and 688 Fundamentals of Human Behavior. All four classes are great so far. Although the adjustment to full-time masters student is a big one, at twelve days in I have already leaned more than I expected or hoped for. And not just in class material, either.

The lessons I am gaining from networking and collaborating with peers, faculty, and various other people connected to SI are invaluable. 501 is a required class for our first semester, and is essentially a semester-long consultation job working for a real client. There are five of us in our group, and we are already learning how to work together and solve problems before we’ve even met with the organization with whom we’re working. SI also offers so many workshops, lectures, and events that there is something exciting to attend every time I turn around. The ones I’ve been able to go to have been fantastic. The staff and faculty provide a level of support and connection that I could not have made up; they listen to students and strive to give us exactly what we’re looking for from the program.

Too, the insights I am gaining about who I am and who I can become are invigorating. My brain has been spinning in a hundred different directions about where I could go with my career. At our Welcome Back picnic yesterday, Dean Mackie-Mason gave a short and inspiring speech. He reminded us that we are the information leaders of the future, and emphasized that SI is the best school around for learning to use our skills for social good. I am an idealist at heart and, to be perfectly honest, his speech made me tear up a bit. My greater goal in life has always been to make the world a better place, and I truly believe that SI is the place to help me achieve that.

This program is, so far, exactly what I have been wanting for a long time. My intuition tells me it’s only going to get better.