Graduate /
Statement of Purpose for MLIS (Library & Info Studies) Program at LIU [4]
Please comment on the statement of purpose (below). It is right around the target length, so I will not expand it too much more. I have a dilemma: I had an internship at the research library of a local historical society in college, and seeing that it is so closely aligned to my potential area of study I would like to discuss it somewhere in the essay. On the other hand, I cannot find a proper place to talk about it. Seeing that it is already on my resume, should I even bother to shoehorn it in anyway?
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PROMPT: Describe your reason for pursuing graduate study at LIU, your personal and academic background, relevant experience, and your professional goals.
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I broke my mother's heart when I went off to college to study history. I could not afford the luxury of a degree in something so unsound, she insisted. As a newcomer to this land I had to be more practical than its native daughters. However, I was unmoved. In history, I found the human connection that was denied to me at home torn by constant violence and recriminations. In it, I rediscovered a personal and national self that I lost in the turbulent years of my adolescence and the fateful move from rural Russia to that metropolis of American life, New York City.
In the course of study, I have moved away from retelling historical narrative toward analysis of its construction. I became interested in the role of personal bias and ruling interpretation, availability and indeterminability of source material, process of scholarly review and consensus. To complement this shift in focus I undertook a study of philosophy. By the time I received my BA, I completed a 30-page independent project in history of Russian Orthodox Church during Russian Civil War and a 50-page analysis of the concept of objectivity in historical narrative, earning a joint major in history and philosophy, with honors.
However, before this could happen I had to face challenges that threatened to derail my future. In my third year of college it came to light that my stepfather, whether out of spite of indolence, did not renew my visa effectively rendering me an illegal alien. Despite my immediate best efforts I failed to rectify this situation and Middlebury College asked me to withdraw until I did. It took me four years of uncertainty, around the clock jobs and legal battles but in the end I won and returned to earn my degree.
After receiving my degree I have largely continued in customer service work that I took during my academic hiatus. And while I found it rewarding to work with people I feel that I need refine my qualifications to make my work more meaningful for myself. I want to be able to curate information as well connect it with the public. In seeking MLIS I hope to complete the training I started in Middlebury College--learning to locate information quickly and efficiently, to preserve a record of the present, to put it into proper context and engage the audience. It is for this reason that I am interested in MLIS degree as well as the archive and record management certificate which would allow me to work with collections of historical documents. I plan to complement this with work in digital library courses. Explosion in e-book publishing, development of on-line tools like Zotero, and growing efforts to make institutional holdings available online point to the potential of digital media and growing demand for on-line library engagement. As a library professional of twenty-first century, I want to be able to engage patrons on terms and platforms of their preference.
I know I have an unconventional history, but I also know that I have the dedication and humility it takes to succeed. I have long been interested in how we preserve and present the record of our past. As I turn this interest into a professional pursuit, I hope I can do so at LIU.
