Creating this portfolio has been an exercise in thought and reflection. I needed to think deeply about the courses I took, the learning I did, and find a way to tangibly connect the assignments and projects to program learning objectives. As I slowly put this portfolio together, I noticed the obvious. Unsurprisingly, the projects or assignments that were the most onerous, the most taxing, that seemed to be written in my very blood, were the ones that ultimately, I was proudest of and pushed the most growth.
The best example of this would be the course IST 605 Reference & Information Literacy Services. It is the course that most MLIS students take in the first semester and quickly becomes the course that becomes “infamous”. My peers and I whispered in quick asides during group work about the seemingly relentless pace of the course and the sheer amount of work. However, that was stressful but manageable. What induced terror in us was the final project, the Reference Scenario. This behemoth of a project weighed in at 90+ pages and consisted of a reference scenario, profile of an information user, 18 sources in a variety of formats, and a few other requirements. As I plodded away at it during that first semester, I couldn’t help but feel imposter syndrome. Was I really grad school material? Did I have what it takes to not only do it, but to do it well? Would this tick in my eye (that “coincidently” appeared during that first semester) ever go away? These were the doubts I wrestled with during that first semester.
However, I did finish that project and got an A. And that gave me such a needed shot of self-confidence. First, I learned so much about librarianship. As a novice to the field, there was much I didn’t know at the time about the profession. I learned about the information life cycle, different reference sources, user-behavior, evaluating sources, etc... I felt that this set the tone for the rest of the MLIS program. I knew the material would be challenging but it would also be invigorating and excite my love of learning. Secondly, and equally as important, it reminded me and the rest of my peers that we are more capable than we think ourselves to be. Throughout the rest of the program, there were many challenges. Many of us are balancing this program with work and family life. There were other classes and other projects that taxed our minds, induced stress dreams, tested our limits. But we all knew we were capable. After all, we survived “605” didn’t we?
This is just one class, and one example. But I feel that it was such an enduring lesson to come away with as I finish this program. My professional life will be filled with challenges. There will be times when I feel that the task at hand is too much, too long, undoable. And at times, that might be accurate as this will be the real world with the limitations imposed by budgets, city politics, patrons, etc....But I will remind myself that I’m capable of more than I had imagined and that there is beauty and growth and learning with accomplishing the difficult.