BBS水木清华站∶精华区
发信人: Kunk (汪洋中的一条船), 信区: AdvancedEdu
标 题: Personal Statement Sample
发信站: BBS 水木清华站 (Sat Mar 6 21:07:34 1999)
Example 1
Applicant: Kevin Polin
Program: MSE in Environmental Engineering
I plan to pursue an M.S.E. degree in Environmental Engineering with an emphasis in water
quality control engineering. Ever since I was 16 years old, I knew I wanted to be an
environmental engineer. When I obtain my B.S. degree in May, that dream will be fulfilled.
However, I still feel I have so much more to learn about the field of water quality
engineering. The pursuit of an M.S.E. itself will garner more knowledge. But equally important
is the flexibility and mobility such a degree allows me in the workplace. Companies allow
higher educated employees more opportunities to explore and expand the breadth of their
expertise. I want to be able to continue learning throughout my career.
My learning experience at the University of Illinois was a rich one. After the first two years
of prerequisites and general requirements I was ready to truly begin pursuing my "chosen path."
I knew after my first introductory environmental engineering class that I was in the right
field and my dream would become reality. While I found air quality and solid waste management
interesting, it was water quality that truly stimulated my interest. After a variety of classes
regarding water quality processing, ecotoxicological modeling in receiving waters,
hydrosystems, groundwater modeling, etc. I realize I need to learn more. Water is the most
important natural resource a vital area can have and maintaining its quality is as intriguing
as it is important.
I have had an opportunity to assist in research to improve wastewater quality. I am an
undergraduate laboratory assistant for a doctoral student, Christian Greenfield, who is
researching the chemical modification of activated carbon. The work I'm performing involves the
systematic variation of the chemistry on activated carbon by exposing granular, powdered, or
fibrous carbon samples to a series of reagents and temperatures in order to vary the acidity,
basicity, or nitrogen content of those samples. While performing the usual duties of buffer
preparation, glassware cleaning, errands, etc., I have also performed activation runs, surface
area and pore size distribution analyses, and adsorption analyses. This project has broadened
my understanding of water chemistry, carbon's physical and chemical properties, the
experimentation process, and the life of post-secondary students! I am fully aware of the hard
work and time necessary to make a project successful.
I am ready to begin the life of a graduate student. I hope to become a research assistant to
improve my knowledge of water quality beyond course work. I believe the University of Michigan,
which provides great facilities, employs notable faculty, and possesses a distinguished
reputation is the next step in the pursuit of my dream.
Example 2
Applicant: Candace Ghost
Program: MS in Environmental Engineering
I wish to enter the Environmental Engineering and Science program at the University of Richmond
(UR) and obtain a Master of Science degree in Environmental Engineering. I am specifically
interested in bioremediation of hazardous waste, and in all aspects of applied microbiology. As
an undergraduate in the same program, I have had the opportunity to participate in several
research projects at UR and elsewhere.
Since the first semester of my freshman year in college, I have wanted to be a professor of
environmental engineering. I was introduced to research the summer after I graduated from high
school. The mechanical engineering department at UR was sponsoring a summer high school
internship program and I was able to work closely with professor Ty Cable, who was studying the
city of Savoy's curbside recycling program. I collected data, analyzed it, and designed part of
a process to mechanically sort recyclable containers. I attended the Conference on Solid Waste
Research and Technology in Churchville, PA, with Dr. Cable the following fall (1991) and was
the first author on the abstract and research presentation.
I chose to enter the environmental engineering program in the civil engineering department
because I enjoyed chemistry and biology. I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in academic
research, but I found living biological systems much more interesting than the mechanical
systems I studied with Dr. Cable. Bioremediation using microorganisms seemed to be the perfect
thing for me to study. The summer after my freshman year, I worked as an undergraduate research
assistant in the Environmental Engineering and Science program at the University of Washington
in Seattle with professor H. M. Lilly. I had my own project and also spent much time with the
graduate students there, learning about their research. I have since spent two more summer in
Seattle, working with Dr. Lilly and his colleagues, Drs. S. Bryce and P. Miller. I have worked
on several different projects, the most recent being the most interesting: this past summer I
designed and built a completely mixed bioremediation reactor, maintained an aerobic mixed
culture of microorganisms, and conducted kinetic studies on its ability to degrade benzene,
toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes. As a result of my summer work in Seattle, I have
considerable experience working in the laboratory and I am very familiar with certain
analytical instruments, such as flame ionization detectors (FIDs) and thermal conductivity
detectors (TCDs).
During the school years, I have paid for roughly one third of my education by working part time
at various jobs. Most recently, I worked for professor D. Houseman in the civil engineering
department at UR during my junior year as an hourly lab assistant. As a result, in January 1994
I began work on an independent study project which is currently continuing. With Dr. Houseman's
guidance, I hope to isolate and characterize a microorganism from a mixed culture capable of
degrading dichloromethane under anaerobic conditions. The project has enabled me to apply what
I have learned in the extra course work I have done in chemistry, microbiology, and
biochemistry. I hope to continue with this project, perhaps for my masters thesis. I also want
to pursue, with help from Dr. L. Ling, the use of molecular biological techniques to study the
microorganism once it is isolated.
From all of this research experience I have learned that I would not be happy working outside
an academic research environment. Since I was small, I wanted to be a professor. I grew up in
Richmond, immersed in an academic lifestyle because my father is a professor at UR. Thus, I
plan to follow my masters degree with a Ph.D. in environmental engineering and then look for a
faculty position in the areas of applied microbiology or environmental engineering.
Example 3
Applicant: Harold Soggin
Program: MS in Environmental Engineering
My purpose is to obtain a Master of Science degree in Environmental Engineering with an
emphasis in water resource management and remedial activities. My undergraduate background in
these areas has given me the experience, the knowledge, and the desire to continue my formal
education.
Earning my Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering with a specialization in
Environmental Quality at the University of East Dakota has provided me with a profound
background in all areas of environmental engineering. I have studied graduate level topics such
as Hazardous and Solid Waste Management, Biomonitoring, Wastewaters in Aquatic Ecosystems,
Water Quality Processes, Air Resources Engineering, and Chemical Principles of Environmental
Engineering Processes.
It is this background that has helped me in my summer internship and to contribute to a
research project being conducted by Professor Jerome Marshall. Under Professor Marshall's
guidance, I conducted basic chemical analyses for alkalinity on the sludge of an anaerobic
digestor. Also, in industry I managed a ground water sampling program for over 300 private home
water wells.
I would like to concentrate on the study of the physiochemical and biological processes under
the Environmental Systems Analysis option. By expanding my present theory and technical
knowledge, I hope to obtain an environmental engineering position in a consulting agency. The
desired areas I hope to work in include water resource management, remedial treatment
activities, and wetlands conservation.
In conclusion, I feel that I have the theoretical as well as the technical experience that will
help me in my desired area of graduate study. I believe that my undergraduate training and past
industry experience has provided me with the necessary dedication, persistence, and discipline
to be a successful graduate student.
Example 4
Applicant: Hester Bing
Program: Law
I could continue to "climb the ladder" at the Mart, become even more successful and make a lot
of money in marketing. However, making myself or my company richer will not necessarily enrich
my own life or the lives of those around me. Becoming an attorney will help me to fulfill my
goals by giving me the opportunity to succeed for myself and to make a meaningful contribution
to society.
Several recent situations affecting close friends and family have inspired me to pursue a legal
career. One friend is a single parent. Despite ongoing problems in collecting child support,
her lawyer continues to tell her, "Just be happy you get anything at all. You're luckier than
most people in your situation." Tell that to her child who needs clothing, food, an education
and day care so his mother can earn a decent living to support him. Her frustration with the
legal process continues.
When another friend's grandmother and uncle were tragically murdered five months ago, the
victims' rights issue hit close to home. After the murderers were caught and pleaded guilty, I
helped my friend write her victim impact letter prior to sentencing. It was gratifying for her
to see that many aspects of her letter were incorporated into the sentences. While the entire
situation was traumatic, she felt the judicial system was working because the public defender
representing one of the defendants did everything possible on his behalf before entering a
guilty plea. In her opinion, the rights of the defendants - and of the victims - were fairly
represented.
My grandfather, still working at 9l, came to this country from Abruzzi, Italy in 1923 with a
third grade education. A few years ago, he built a parking garage next to his house in
Maryland. He continued adding to it little by little (doing the work by hand) until it became
an entire house complete with electricity and plumbing. Unfortunately, because the structure
had "evolved," he had never obtained a building permit. Therefore, he was not permitted to
allow anyone to live there, even the homeless family he had taken under his wing. It took
several years in the courts - not to mention a substantial amount of his time and money - to
finally be able to put the home to good use. I wish I could have helped.
Becoming a lawyer will allow me to work with people in a productive, rewarding environment. I
have always been a "people" person, perhaps because I was raised in a family of ten. I consider
myself a well-rounded person. As an ardent football fan, I made my own first tackle (my older
brother Joe) at age seven. I enjoy reading, volunteering at homeless shelters and participating
in charitable activities. I often served as a translator at the Grand Hyatt Washington to
determine the needs of our Spanish-speaking guests.
A native of Charlotte, North Carolina, I moved to Chicago five years ago and fell in love with
the city almost immediately. I plan to make the Midwest my permanent home. Because I plan to
study and practice law in Iowa, the contacts I will make during school (in addition to the
important relationships I have already established through Hyatt and the Mart) will be
invaluable. Therefore, the location of The University of Mideastern Iowa makes your law program
especially appealing to me.
Example 5
Applicant: Michael Dorn
Program: Ph.D. in Communications
I wish to continue my academic career at the University of Southern Minnesota in the School of
Journalism and Mass Communications, with the eventual goal of receiving my Doctoral Degree. As
a Master's student in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, I learned research
methodology and theories of mass communications, which I have applied in a professional
marketing/advertising career for the past one and a half years. At this time, however, I wish
to continue my research in advertising and further explore the ways by which manipulating the
content of an advertisement can affect consumers' attitudinal responses to advertising and,
subsequently, their brand evaluations and/or purchase behaviors.
I will present a brief history of my academic and professional backgrounds as they relate to my
application to the program. My Bachelor of Science degree in English at the University of
Southern Minnesota afforded me the ability to research and write coherently on a wide range of
subjects. After a brief professional interlude as a technical editor, I returned to USM in
January 1990 to seek my Master's degree in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications. As
an undergraduate, I had taken introductory public relations and advertising courses and I
decided to devote my academic career to one of these areas. My graduate degree focused on
advertising theory, along with coursework in public relations, sociology research methods, and
marketing. In addition, I served as a research assistant to a graduate student who was studying
the effects of color and graphics in print advertising, which incited me to investigate the
"other" facets of print advertising for my master's thesis.
With this research, I realized that much emphasis had been placed on graphics in advertising,
but what of the written word? I questioned, "How does advertising copy in general and certain
types of words or phrases affect the consumer's perceptions, cognitions, emotions, and
understanding?" My master's thesis investigated the effectiveness of synesthetic metaphors in
print advertising headlines. Synesthetic metaphors are "words or phrases describing experiences
proper to one sense modality, which transfer or compare their meanings to another modality."
Although advertising practitioners are using synesthetic metaphors such as, "Can't You Just
Hear This Color," for a printing company and "Juicy, Mouth-Watering Color" for a lipstick,
there are no published studies about synesthesia in consumer literature. While the results of
my exploratory experiment showed that subjects exposed to synesthetic metaphors evaluated
brands and advertisements more unfavorably those exposed to literal headlines, a number of
considerations and future research questions remain for this novel area of advertising
communication.
Last summer I presented this synesthetic metaphor research at the Annual Convention of the
American Psychology Association (Consumer Psychology Division) in Washington D.C. My
presentation was part of a panel discussion on the effectiveness of print advertising
headlines. Currently, I am enrolled in a graduate level Marketing Research course at USM, where
I intend to gain a better understanding of the entire marketing process, while reviewing
research skills. Since receiving my Master's Degree, I have been employed as a Marketing
Coordinator for a construction industry trade association, where I am responsible for the
development of a marketing plan and all external communications, including a monthly
newsletter, a print advertising campaign, and collateral materials.
At this time, however, I would like to return to the challenge and intellectual stimulation of
academia and work toward contributing to the field of communications through research in
innovative areas and teaching. For m academic area of concentration, I would like to continue
my master's research on synesthetic metaphor and delve further into the processes of human
communication, particularly in the area of advertising.
Example 6
Applicant: Chris Krindle
Program: MS in Computer Science
So you may understand my current goals better, I would like to explain my educational
experience to this point. I grew up in Oscar, Ohio, where I attended Pleasant Meadows High
School, a nationally recognized college preparatory institution. Pleasant Meadows is a public
school which all academically inclined students throughout the city can attend if they manage
to pass an entrance examination. At Pleasant Meadows I was placed in the honors program; later
I took six advanced placement courses, receiving college credit for five of them. I also
completed three full years of Greek and two full years of advanced German. I graduated from
Pleasant Meadows in the top ten percent of my class.
Upon graduating Pleasant Meadows I was accepted to Carillon Cross University. Since my family
was of very modest means, I relied heavily on financial aid. I immediately decided to become a
chemical engineer, a decision that was not well informed. My first semester at Carillon Cross
was promising, but I struggled through the next three years pursuing a career that I eventually
had to admit did not interest me. I learned from this experience that my true strengths and
interests lay not in applied technology but, rather, in the philosophical constructs of
scientific principles.
So, it is not surprising that, in reaction to my unsatisfactory engineering experience, I spent
the next year and a half in the humanities, completing a B.A. degree in history, which I was
awarded in the Spring of 1987. I excelled during my studies in the history department, but I
decided that I did not want to pursue graduate study in the field. While considering career
options, I took the LSAT, which strongly tests analytical ability, placing in the 95th
percentile. However, I really wanted to pursue a career in the sciences.
I knew that I wanted to continue my education, but I was out of money. So, I got a job working
for University Development at Carillon Cross as a PC programmer. My job duties were to develop
a database reporting system to track potential donors to the university. I was very successful
and was quickly promoted (within 4 months) to manager of the donor accounting department, but,
more importantly, I discovered that I truly enjoyed working with computers. I liked the
creative possibilities in programming; even more, I was intrigued with the process of modeling
problems and then implementing different solutions through programming. I realized then that I
wanted to learn more about computing. So, I decided to use my tuition waiver benefit to begin
to explore the computer engineering/science field. I started to take classes towards a B.S. in
computer engineering, but later switched to computer science because I wanted to work more with
ideas and less with implementation. I was able to take one course (sometimes two) per semester,
which will enable me to receive my B.S. this Spring (1993).
As you can see from my transcript, in all of the courses that I have taken while employed, I
have received only letter grades of A or B (3.5 GPA). Meanwhile, I received two more job
promotions and currently hold the title of Senior Manager in Advancement Services. My job is
equivalent to a programmer/analyst II, but requires extensive knowledge of University
Advancement and has managerial responsibilities as well. I spend much of my time programming on
an IBM ES9000 mainframe system as well as working with many PC applications.
I feel that I have grown tremendously as a person through my employment at Carillon Cross. I
have learned a lot about myself; for instance, I find teaching others to be very rewarding
(something I would like to pursue further along academic lines). Although my employment of five
years with the university has taught me many valuable skills, I find the work to be
unchallenging and devoid of ideas. It pains me to leave the security of a good job and many
close friends to go back to school, but, I am very committed to my career goals.
My sincerest desire is to become a computer scientist. Specifically, I am interested in
exploring how problems can be modeled and solved using artificial intelligence. I also want to
learn about human cognition and machine intelligence. I have been studying the debate over
whether machines will ever become "intelligent" given the current course of research and
reading about such issues as whether a machine can acquire "common sense" (as discussed in
Hubert Dreyfus's book What Computers Still Can't Do). I have been exploring many different
areas within the domain of artificial intelligence (such as neural networks, genetic
algorithms, and natural language processing). The bottom line is that I want to be a part of
this exciting field. To that end I would like to come to Indiana University to work towards an
M.S. in computer science with an emphasis in natural language processing.
I am looking forward to attending Indiana University in the Fall. I recently took the GRE
general test and received a 2200 combined score: a 670 in verbal (93rd percentile),750 in
analytical (93rd percentile), and a 780 in quantitative (92nd percentile). I know that I can
make a positive contribution to your department, and I hope that you will give me that chance.
I thank you for you time in considering my application.
Example 7
Applicant: Mitchell Kessell
Program: MA in Writing Studies
Through six years of teaching experience in the public schools, nothing has proved more
challenging and intriguing to me than the teaching of writing. My experience in writing
instruction has led me to two principal areas which I desire to research further in my graduate
work: computers in the composing process and writing across the curriculum. Over the past three
years I have become especially interested in the developing field of composing with computers.
I have used my English classes as informal laboratories to observe different stages of writing
processes on computers. My current experimentation is in the use of computers as tools for
response and revision via a distance network. In my graduate study, I would like to further
explore the range of possibilities of computers and networks assisting in revision processes. I
am also interested in the design of computer writing centers and would like to study how these
environments both change our approaches and aid us in our writing tasks.
My second principal area of research interest is cross-curricular approaches to writing. My
personal academic interests have always been very eclectic; presently I would like to expand my
knowledge of composition modes to encompass the broad range of writing tasks which occur across
the university curriculum. Further, I would like to research how writing can be used as a tool
for learning in diverse subject domains. My current team teaching in Geography and English have
reinforced my belief that there is a tremendous amount of untapped potential in the area of
writing to learn.
The literature from the University of Decatur impressed me with its value placed upon the
teaching experiences of its graduate students. Beyond my research goals, I hope that my
continued teaching during graduate study will build and expand my skills for university
instruction. I first became interested in the teaching of writing when tutoring Freshmen at the
University of California for a remedial English course. Their diverse problems and processes in
composition fascinated me, as do those of my current students in English 7 and 12 Honors. By
teaching during the course of my studies, I look forward to broadening both my teaching
repertoire and my understanding of students' diverse points of development as writers.
When I have completed my Ph.D., I plan to seek employment in an English or rhetoric department
as a university composition instructor or coordinator of a university-wide writing program. I
would like to work in both instruction and in the development of new programs to help students
to think (compose) more effectively. Further, I plan to work in my research and development in
frequent association with the public schools so as to aid in the flow of discovery between
their world and that of the university. Among my most rewarding professional experiences over
the past three years has been my frequent involvement in the Mediterranean Area Writing Project
as a presenter to teachers in various countries. To help mediate between public schools and
universities, I hope to maintain my involvement in the National Writing Project, and my belief
in its philosophy that no single organization or individual has a corner on the very best
ideas.
Example 8
Applicant: Miranda Sulikowski
Program: MA in English
My two-year hiatus from the campus setting has caused me to make a careful inspection of my
decision to return to school. This inspection has strongly confirmed my previous belief that I
have a vocation for both teaching and research, and it has increased my determination to enter
the profession. My experience at the University of Tuscola Honors College showed me the
excitement which can be created through classroom interaction and hallway interaction, whether
the topic is Aristotle, Chaucer, or simply the daily news; and the eleven months which I spent
producing my undergraduate thesis showed me the rewards of scholarship. I wish to continue
these discussions and to pursue my own research in the future.
Admittedly, the weakest element of my undergraduate education is the sparseness of theory to
which I was exposed. In order to remedy this shortcoming, I have solicited reading lists from
several sources and I have begun my own preliminary exploration of the field of theory. I have
become interested in the work of critics such as Barthes, Derrida, Jameson, Gallop, Sedgwick
and Eagleton, and I look forward to exploring it further in an academic setting, and to
incorporating it into my own practices. I am also eager to take part in the developments which
will occur in the field of theory over the next several decades.
At this point, I believe that I would like to focus my graduate studies, and my career, on the
Twentieth Century - both in England and in the United States. I do not, yet, feel prepared to
select a dissertation topic, but I am drawn to the novels and short stories of authors such as
Joyce, Woolf and Walker, and the work of such poets as Yeats, Pound, Eliot and Rich. (I am also
interested in the works of several Hispanic writers, especially Gabriel Garcia Marquez and
Jorge Luis Borges.) One topic which I find appealing is the examination of the plurality of
perspectives a text contains, especially with respect to the characters, and the way in which
these perspectives allow the reader to interact with the text.
A striking example of this effect can be found in Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. The text constantly
changes perspectives from one character to another. And, though we are most aware of Clarissa
and of Septimus Smith, we are constantly reminded that neither has a transcendent vantage
point. Indeed, the perspective which I find most intriguing is one to which neither the reader
nor Clarissa has any access:
Oh, but how surprising! - In the room opposite the old lady stared straight at her! . . . It
was fascinating, with people still laughing and shouting in the drawing room, to watch that old
woman, quite quietly, going to bed.
The existence of this perspective which we cannot see (but which Clarissa understands to be
unappreciative of the momentous nature of the evening) is a reminder to us that there are
meanings and realities which exist outside of those presented by the author, meanings which it
is the reader's part to explore. It is my intention, in applying for graduate school, to join
the exploration.
Example 9
Applicant: Branford Corners
Program: MA in English
I hope to go to Graduate School at Kankakee because I believe it represents the next important
challenge in my life. The last two years have taught me that learning about literature can be
more than an avocation. Returning to school has brought about a transformation in my life, and
as I make discoveries about literature, I learn about myself. I want to keep making
discoveries.
Since 1977 I have worked to develop a technical career. I enjoy this work, but it cannot
compare to the fulfillment of reading and studying literature. Experiencing literature, and
working with people who know and care about it, are what I want to do. Committing any more of
my energy to a career other than this would be like writing with my left hand.
I want to go to Graduate School so that I can learn to know literature well. I want to explore
the shape and the meaning of the novel and its literary antecedents. I want to understand what
the novel has meant in different literary periods, and what is likely to become. I want to
explore its different forms, realism, naturalism, and other modes, and the Victorian and
Modernist consciousness as they are revealed.
I am drawn to the works of Hardy, Conrad, Faulkner, and Morrison, the poetry of Herbert,
Dickinson, and Hopkins, and the tragedies of the Greeks and Shakespeare. I want to speak and
write about the power of literature, and the experience it is for me and for others. I want to
learn to read, to write, and to think critically, and to use these skills as a professional.
Most of all, I want to teach, and to guide others in their explorations of the world through
literature, to encourage them to see in it all that I see in it: the whole of human experience,
beautifully and fully and truthfully contained in words.
Example 10
Applicant: Lincoln Jersey
Program: MA in English
It all started with "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," the one poem I could quote from the
hundreds I read in a year-long freshman survey of "Western Heritage Literature." What made it
stand out in my mind? Everything that made the poem modern: the juxtaposition of drama and
triviality in Prufrock's mid-life crisis, the unexpected images of an evening under anesthetic
and cat-like city smog. An elective Eliot seminar followed, in which I was immersed in critical
readings, lively debate, and intensive research unlike any I had encountered in required survey
courses. That experience convinced me to officially declare an English major, but I was not yet
declaring aspirations towards an academic career. Through three years as a reporter/editor for
the La Salle Collegian, I dreamed of distant Pulitzer Prizes for investigative reporting. By
the fall of 1991, however, I was beginning to envision fellowships, laudatory bookjacket
blurbs, and a tenured professorship as my ultimate goals. Several semesters as a peer tutor in
La Salle's Writing Fellows Program had convinced me that I have an aptitude for teaching to
match my talents in academic research and writing.
To clear up any uncertainties about committing myself to advanced scholarship, I decided to
take "a year off" after graduation to explore other career paths. Since August 1992, I have
been the Editor and Report Coordinator at McCormick, Taylor & Associates, Inc., a
transportation engineering and environmental planning firm based in Philadelphia. As MTA's
"grammar guru," I have pondered at length the intricacies of comma placement, the evils of
passive voice, and the burning question of whether to pluralize acre when it follows a
fraction. This preoccupation with details has strengthened my basic writing skills. In the past
year, I have also been called upon to teach the basics to others. Most newcomers to our staff
have little or no training in technical writing, and some would definitely benefit from a
refresher on the fundamentals of composition. In the spring, I will conduct a one-day writing
workshop for MTA's traffic engineers, environmental scientists, and planners.
I was first attracted to the University of Kankakee by the Writing Studies Program. From
working with software design and advanced biology classes at the college level, and with
technical professionals in the business world, I have become convinced that college curriculums
must place more emphasis on "writing across the disciplines." The influence of computerized
word processing on writing strategies is another area I would like to research. Because my
experience with theories of rhetoric and composition is limited, however, I am wary of
declaring a concentration in writing studies. I hope that I will have the opportunity to sample
courses in the Writing Studies Programs a graduate student of literature at Kankakee.
My interests still lie mainly in the modern era. . . but my conception of the modern has
changed a great deal in light of the theories I have explored since college. A seminar in the
Brontes (HON 315, 1991) and a women's studies class (audited in 1992) first exposed me to
feminist criticism, which I have continued to investigate on my own. As a result of this study,
I now recognize the modern spirit in such rebellious female voices of the 19th century as
Charlotte Bronte and Emily Dickinson. I plan to focus my research on issues of gender and
identity in women's literature in England and the Americas. In researching your program, I was
pleased to note that several professors in the department express an interest in feminist
theory, women's writing, and gender studies.
My early interest in modernism was born of a passion for poetry, but I am currently intrigued
by changes in narrative technique through the 20th century. While the modernists experimented
with multiple voices and streams of consciousness, contemporary novelists like John Fowles have
represented conflicting realities that seem to exist independent of the mind. I hope to
investigate this and other postmodern trends in fiction through graduate study. Your faculty
list includes many 20th century scholars, who would undoubtedly help me to discover exciting
avenues of inquiry I have not yet imagined.
Example 11
Applicant: Brent Spiner
Program: Ph.D. in English (received MA from same school and department)
When I began thinking about how to write this statement, one that I expect will help me to
chart my course for at least the next several years, I thought it might be a good idea to pull
out a certain manila folder containing the original "Statement of Purpose" I wrote when first
applying to programs for graduate study. It might be interesting, thought I, to see how closely
I had followed the trajectory set for myself all those years ago (well, all three years ago,
anyway).
This blast from my past was - need it be said? - embarrassing. To make a "statement," I
suppose, I had strung together a list of interests that were hopelessly, if optimistically,
broad. They ranged from Chaucer to the 18th century novel to canon formation to jazz writing to
Harold Ross's New Yorker humorists. My interests still range rather widely. But in the two
years of research, writing, and listening I have done here, I have been able, at least, to
narrow my focus to a particular literary concern: the vexed, rich relations between Anglophone
writing and African-derived music. In part this focus has stemmed (if I may wax catachretic)
from my growing investment in jazz - after all, I did buy a cornet last summer. In addition, I
find myself more and more struck by the music's remarkable textuality: jazz has its canonical
texts, auteurs, and characteristic tropes; its metaphoric substitutions, metonymic
elaborations, synecdochic quotations, and ironic revisions; its hybrid utterances, dialogic
interplay, and signifyin(g) rhetorical posturing. And so the writing that currently has the
strongest hold on me is that which recognizes African-derived music as a full partner, whether
for sparring or for building formal alliances. The writers I have been reading for whom this
music becomes a structuring voice include Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, Langston Hughes,
Vachel Lindsay, William Carlos Williams, Zora Neale Hurston, and Sterling Brown.
While my focus has narrowed from that first (over)Statement, my Purpose remains much the same.
My "prime concern," as I put it then, was to develop "an approach that met the challenges race,
gender, and power relations bring to understanding the dialogue between a text and its
historical situation." Within that framework, I especially want to explore particular
historical moments when Anglophone literature has deployed African derived musical practices
(jazz, but also blues, calypso, soul, gospel) as a way to articulate the ideological category
of race - race as a marker of difference (biological or cultural); race as history, and
particularly as a political unconscious underwriting the West's historical narratives
(including the narrative of its literary history); race as the subject's interpellation into
what DuBois called "double-consciousness"; or even race as non-existent.
By necessity, given my somewhat extra-literary focus, I have had to add to my stockpile the
critical tools used by several other fields of cultural studies, most notably historiography,
ethnography, and musicology. Yet I remain convinced that any adequate ideological critique has
to be grounded in the kind of close formal analysis that best comes out of solid training in
literary criticism. I have tried to use the training of my two years spent working towards an
M.A. at the University of Illinois to build up a basic body of work out of which I feel
comfortable making future excursions. To that end, I have researched and written on: the
gendering of the blues that distorts even accounts as subtle as that offered by Houston A.
Baker, Jr. in Blues, Ideologv, and Afro-American Literature; the boogie-woogie rumble that
Langston Hughes's jazz recordings created beneath the unitary surface of McCarthyism; the
outre-avant-garde avant-gardism of dancer, film star, and writer Josephine Baker; the
polyrhythmic plotting of 18th-century West Indian slave narratives; and the racial love and
theft that white writers articulate through the "verbal analogues" they create for black jazz
forms.
So where do I go from here? While there is nothing especially new about entertaining a
connection between race, music, and literature (it goes back at least to Zora Neale Hurston's
"Characteristics of Negro Expression"), I hope to work through this connection specifically as
a way toward opening up what Houston A. Baker, Jr. has called "Harlem Renaissance, Ltd": that
is, a Renaissance that traditionally has been limited-temporally, geographically, and
aesthetically-to 1920s Harlem under white patronage. As an example of what I mean by "opening
up," I have in mind a project in which I look at the calypsos (or "kaisos") that became a
popular forum for debating Trinidadian national independence in the 1930s and 40s. My intent
with such a project would be to add to the larger picture of what Paul Gilroy has called the
"black Atlantic" modernism within which New Negro calls for an African American cultural nation
took place. My approach has a precedent in the writings of Hurston, Baker, and Gilroy (and
others like Hazel Carby and Robert Farris Thompson), but the areas into which this approach
leads are still largely unexplored and promise to be fruitful areas for study.
Example 12
Applicant: Patricia Smith
Program: Ph.D. in English
After a year and a half of graduate study in English, I am certain that I want to continue
studying toward a Ph.D. in English and eventually teach literature at the college level. I have
decided to continue studying and researching within the discipline of literary criticism
because I consider it an especially fruitful one in which to work, allowing as it does for
supplemental study in any number of other disciplines like anthropology, film, history,
linguistics, and psychology, to name a few. I plan to specialize in American fiction written
since World War II, because the "postmodern" period and its historical context interest me the
most and because I find the epistemological, ethical, and critical questions raised by the more
experimental fictions of this period especially worthy of critical analysis. I would also like
to focus on critical theory, because I believe that a thorough knowledge of contemporary
critical debate and its pedagogical implications is indispensable to anyone who intends to
teach literature, particularly contemporary literature.
At this point, my background consists of three years of undergraduate study and a year and a
half of graduate study of the major historical periods and figures of English and American
literature, from Old English to modernism. Although I have not yet formally studied
contemporary American fiction, I have read much or all of the work of such novelists as Don
DeLillo, William Gaddis, Joseph Heller, Vladimir Nabokov, and Thomas Pynchon, as well as much
of the secondary criticism on DeLillo and Gaddis. In addition, I have an introductory knowledge
of most of the major critical movements of the twentieth century, from Russian formalism to
postcolonial theory. Finally, I have studied Latin, German, French, and, less extensively,
Italian, and would be prepared to fulfill the departmental foreign language requirements within
the first year of admission to the program.
In regard to occupational experience, for the last year and a half have taught freshman
composition at the University of Mahomet. In addition, this last fall I assisted Professor Jean
Saltzguber, the Director of the Writing Fellows Program at the University of Mahomet, in
supervising undergraduate honors students whose job it was to edit preliminary drafts of papers
written for honors courses. This coming spring, I will continue to teach freshman composition.
In conclusion, I would like to pursue graduate study at the University of Springfield because
of the reputation of the Department of English and because I believe the size of both the
University and the Department of English would be ideal for the kind of interdisciplinary work
with which I would like to supplement my study of literature (perhaps through the Program for
Cultural Studies). I am particularly attracted to the Department of English at the University
of Springlfield because it offers plenty of opportunities for teaching.
URL: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/hove/persamps.htm
--
Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name.
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