I found the right fit: My first week at SI

Hello! My name is Charlie Kelley and I am a first-year MSI student and one week into my graduate school career.

My path to the School of Information has felt like a long one at times. I have been interested in attending graduate school since I earned my undergraduate degree, but never found the right fit. I have always been passionate about communities and became more interested in technology through my work experience, but never knew how to describe what I wanted. Was it an urban planning degree? Was it a computer science degree? Was it business?

After one week at UMSI I can tell you something you will hear over and over again is our mission, that we value three things and how they interact: People, Technology and Information. This intersection of values was exactly what I had been searching for and this first week showed my I was not alone in that. In my first 502 course, Dr. Chuck described the SI faculty as the “island of misfit toys” - as professors who have broken out of their silos in the academic world who see the sum of connecting these three values is much greater than the individual worth of the parts. 

You are probably wondering what exactly a Master’s of Science in Information is and if it’s worth pursuing. I can tell you that if you are curious, if you have more questions than answers and you care about connecting people to information in valuable ways then you should stay tuned. Over the next months we will be giving you snapshots of life in the MSI program, events to get connected to UMSI and hopefully you will decide if SI is right for you. 

After one week of meeting my cohort who amaze me and being introduced to professors and topics that will challenge me, I know I have made the right decision.