Student Profiles
Sally Howard and Daisy Chen, Future Information Managers
By Blythe Summers, MLIS Day
Often, it seems, information has a life of its own. Emails are choking
inboxes everywhere. Documents play hide-and-seek in our computers, while
piles of paper blatantly clutter our desks.
The world needs people to manage information of all kinds and this
is what Sally Howard and Daisy Chen have come to the iSchool to learn
how to do. They are both current students of the MSIM program. When
asked why they chose the iSchool, both Howard and Chen mentioned the
iSchool’s philosophy to provide both a practical and theoretical
approach to information.
Chen is in her second year of the program and plans to graduate in
the spring. She especially enjoyed IMT 582 Strategic Planning and
Evaluation, the course in content management taught by Bob Boiko,
and IMT 589 with Mike Crandall a special topics class on metadata.
Howard is new to the program this last fall and reports that already
classes have “stretched both my mind and imagination far beyond
my expectations.”
The curriculum, says Chen, provides a great knowledge base for any
information professional in management and she believes it will deepen
the knowledge of IM issues for those who are already serving that
role. Howard observes, based on her class work, that “everyone
is an information manager in some fashion, professional or not.”
The MSIM program, according to Chen, helps represent the private-industry
side of information science in the iSchool. It also provides a unique
approach to information that you can’t always find in other
degrees like an MIT or MBA. There is a “big picture” provided
by the program that Chen sees helping her in any information position.
Howard and Chen both enjoy their ability to learn from their fellow
students, exposure to “leaders in the field” and professors
who are “on the cutting edge in the field.” Howard says
the challenge of the program is not balancing the workload but in
taking advantage of all there is to learn from peers and teachers.
Both Howard and Chen identify information overload and changing technology
as current challenges in the field of information management.
Chen’s interest in information management began when she worked
in an IT support role. She began to ask questions about the “broader
issues” such as how can we help people navigate through information
and what about people who don’t have convenient access to technology?
And perhaps the most important question, “Does more information
mean a better society?” She hopes to use her skills in information
management to benefit the public good.
Howard, who works in finance, sees her organization produce huge
amounts of information. Her goal as an MSIM student is to learn techniques
and tools that will help her workplace cope with the information.
She explained that her organization recognizes the problem of too
much information, but they do not have an understanding of the problem
that allows them to solve it and make use of the information. When
Howard graduates she foresees being able to use her learning to add
value to any organization.
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