Five years ago I was a third year English teacher with a strong interest in acquiring more education and new professional skills.  I had spent the previous year considering a variety of possible career and educational paths, including completing my coursework for a teaching endorsement in social studies, going into school administration, and earning a master’s degree in English literature. Though I can’t pinpoint a specific turning point in my considerations, by the middle of that school year I had decided to study library information science.  As a classroom teacher, I had been frequently using the library and teaching information literacy skills, and I recall having long conversations with the school librarian about what he did and what he liked about his profession.  Somewhere along the way, a spark ignited, and though it smoldered for weeks if not months before fully catching flame, I eventually came to a decision.  I applied to the UW Extension Certificate Program for School Library Professionals that year and earned my school library media endorsement the next.  Shortly thereafter I enrolled in the Information School’s dMLIS program.  Looking back, now, from the cusp of graduation, I see that these have been some of the best professional decisions I’ve made.  My time at the iSchool has provided generous measures of professional, intellectual, and personal growth; I’m working in a position that I sincerely enjoy; and I’ve developed a wide range of professional interests that I look forward to exploring over the course of a long and satisfying career.