MLIS Portfolio: Bret Masterson
The Information School, University of Washington
Introduction
I came to the MLIS program as a 44-year-old adult who had failed to find his calling in life. Twenty years ago I was just leaving law school for a job at a mid-sized Oklahoma law firm, a career that I expected to pursue until I retired. Soon, however, I realized that there were many aspects of being an attorney I neither enjoyed nor excelled at, and after eight years, I started looking for a new direction. I started working at a book and music store to bide my time until I figured out what I "really" wanted to do; I ended up staying for ten years before the job finally ceased to challenge me. What I wanted was a career that combined the intellectual challenges of legal writing and research with the service aspects that I enjoyed when I worked in a bookstore. Also, I knew that I loved being around books, music, the Web – things I’ve since learned to think of as "information objects." That’s how I ended up at the iSchool.
As I've looked back on my time in the MLIS program during the process of creating this portfolio, I've realized that my experiences at UW have delivered more than I could possibly have hoped for. The program has lived up to my expectations, but it has also challenged me, intrigued me, focused me, given me confidence, and changed the way that I view the world. I hope that the experiences I've chosen to focus on in this portfolio provide an indication of how the MLIS program has altered the person that I am today.
