This week the University of Illinois celebrates both Graduate Student Appreciation Week and International Week. At GSLIS, we are proud of all our students and our international connections, including faculty, research fellows, scholars-in-residence, and students like Nushrat Khan, who hails from Bangladesh.
Why did you decide to pursue an LIS degree?
Prior to starting graduate school in the U.S., I received my bachelor’s degree in information science in Japan. So, the route to a master’s degree in LIS seemed pretty clear-cut for me. But I was not aware of this field when I started my undergraduate studies. Initially I started with electrical and electronics engineering, but later decided to transfer to the iSchool of Tsukuba to study LIS in my junior year.
The greatest motivator to pursue a LIS degree was the ability to merge my broad range of interests into learning and research. Also, it was quite exciting to learn that this interdisciplinary field integrates information, technology, and innovation along with user studies in such a way that it is possible to make a real contribution to society. Besides, my first exposure to computer programming at the engineering school made me keen to further my learning about design and innovation of information technologies. Also, language learning being one of my personal interests, I was reading about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and found that researchers in this field are working to develop information technologies to support language development of people with ASD. So a LIS degree seemed to be the right choice for me.
Why did you choose GSLIS?
The core reasons for choosing GSLIS were the overlap of my research interests with a those of a number of faculty members, the variety of course topics, the degree specializations provided, and the freedom to design my own course curriculum based on personal interest. Also, the large-scale research projects undertaken by GSLIS faculty members and students were very fascinating to me, and I think such an environment full of opportunities is important to learn and grow better. Especially, I had the opportunity to meet Professor Stephen Downie and listen to his talk on a HathiTrust research project in Japan. I was greatly motivated by his talk and particularly thankful to him for encouraging me to apply to the master’s program at GSLIS.
What particular LIS topics interest you most?
I am particularly interested in data management and information system oriented topics, especially in the areas of health and educational informatics. I have always been curious to learn about users’ information behavior, user interface design, and computer-supported collaborative work. But as I am exploring more into this field, I am developing interests in topics related to data curation, preservation, and scholarly communications as well. Therefore, I decided to specialize in both socio-technical data analytics (SODA) and data curation.
What do you do outside of class?
Currently I am working at the Scholarly Communications and Repository Services unit of the University Library, where I spend a lot of my time learning about technologies related to digital repositories and programming and implementing them. In my spare time I enjoy painting, listening to music, and baking. When the weather is nice, I can be found walking around with my camera in my neighborhood or around campus. I enjoy both nature and nature photography a lot. Also, I am always excited to learn new human and computer languages.
What career plans or goals do you have?
In the future, I would like to see myself as an information professional or information scientist in a research-focused environment. I am still considering pursuing a PhD to fully develop myself in this area. But my ultimate goal is to help society with my skill set, so I am open to exploring other opportunities as well. Through my work with information and communication technologies, I hope to bridge the gap between developing and developed countries in some ways in the future.