Blast from the past
Sep. 16th, 2009 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prosodicI'm going through old floppy disks.
I wrote this personal statement as part of the application packet to get into the M.A. English program at Miami University. It obviously worked, because I was accepted. Reading it now, I have no freaking idea what on Earth I was even talking about. I was an entirely different person then (and I kind of miss her). But, if you want an example of what graduate English programs look for in potential students, here you go.
I have always loved literature because it is much more than just words on a page. It is also human history. The historical aspect of literature excites me and inspires me to make it my life’s work. I am primarily interested in how literature influences, and is influenced by, ideas of class, gender, race, and culture. It is this interest that has been reflected in most of my undergraduate work and my graduate work to date at Ohio State University. For example, in my paper, Sexualizing Elizabeth: Representations of the Queen in Renaissance Texts, I discuss how Elizabethan iconography influenced both Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Renaissance physician Simon Forman, who wrote of the Queen in his journals. I hope to further these types of studies in a M.A. program.
I first became interested in these aspects of literature during my study abroad program in the summer of 1999. I was chosen along with about twenty-four other undergraduates in English to participate in Ohio State's Summer Program in English Literature at Bath Spa University College in Bath, England. Our curriculum was varied: we studied Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as modern British and Irish literature. This included everything from Ben Jonson's Volpone to Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. We experimented with various ways of interpreting text, from modernizing and enacting scenes from Volpone, to writing poems in response to excerpts from Wide Sargasso Sea. Included in the program were class excursions to London to see Shakespeare in performance at the Globe Theatre, and to watch the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-Upon-Avon. A few weeks later, we explored James Joyce’s Dublin on a long weekend in Ireland. I did not just leave England after those six weeks with 15 credit hours under my belt, I left with a life-altering experience, as well as a new-found understanding and a renewed respect for literature. That experience is what made me realize that I did not want to end my studies of literature with a bachelor's degree.
In autumn of the following year, I had the opportunity to take my first graduate course at Ohio State University to gain some experience to enter a master's degree program. The seminar topic was Sex, Gender and the Body in Early Modern England, taught by Dr. Caroline Bicks. In addition to the literary texts covered, the class discussions were supplemented by Early Modern anatomy and midwifery texts, as well as scholarly essays that offered new historicist and Lacanian approaches on such topics as the female body, images of motherhood, and homosexuality. Because of this class, I could finally see how society shapes literature and how literature shapes society. It struck me that it is not just the works of literature themselves that are important, but the scholarship that has been written about them as well. It is these ongoing debates that breathe new life into the works that are being studied. I had little experience with literary scholarship until that class, and discovering it helped me to think about literature in ways that had never previously occurred to me. But most importantly, I learned much more about human history, and about myself, than I ever thought could be possible in a literature class. The seminar was a daunting challenge from the onset, but I rose to that challenge, and it has given me the confidence that I will be successful in a graduate program.
In the summer of 2000, I began my volunteer work at Thurber House, which is another important experience that I want to bring into graduate school. I initially began this work to make connections with people in the field of literature. That has only been a small part of my experience, however. Despite my earlier interests in Romantic and Victorian British literature, I am finding myself increasingly interested in James Thurber’s brand of American humor. I have had the opportunity to share this interest with the Thurber House visitors, and I once even acted as a tour guide for a group of children that were participating in a writing workshop. I really enjoy this interaction with the public, and I hope to possibly carry this into a teaching career.
I have found that my current knowledge in the field of English has already served me well in other aspects of life. I am a better writer, a better communicator, and above all, I have had some incredible experiences that have enhanced my life in an infinite number of ways. I feel that Miami's graduate English program is very well-suited to my goals because of the historical emphasis that is placed on literary study, and I know that I would feel very much at home on campus. Should I be accepted into your graduate program, I hope to add to my experiences through the intense study of texts and scholarship, as well as professional activities such as conference attendance and publication. I also hope to get an assistantship, either in research or teaching, that can prepare me for a career in the field of literature. I am currently a senior editorial analysis assistant for Chemical Abstracts Service, and through this job experience, I have learned that I am interested in editing, but I would like to see if I would enjoy teaching at a college level as well. If I find that I do enjoy teaching, then I will definitely pursue my Ph.D.
I wrote this personal statement as part of the application packet to get into the M.A. English program at Miami University. It obviously worked, because I was accepted. Reading it now, I have no freaking idea what on Earth I was even talking about. I was an entirely different person then (and I kind of miss her). But, if you want an example of what graduate English programs look for in potential students, here you go.
I have always loved literature because it is much more than just words on a page. It is also human history. The historical aspect of literature excites me and inspires me to make it my life’s work. I am primarily interested in how literature influences, and is influenced by, ideas of class, gender, race, and culture. It is this interest that has been reflected in most of my undergraduate work and my graduate work to date at Ohio State University. For example, in my paper, Sexualizing Elizabeth: Representations of the Queen in Renaissance Texts, I discuss how Elizabethan iconography influenced both Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Renaissance physician Simon Forman, who wrote of the Queen in his journals. I hope to further these types of studies in a M.A. program.
I first became interested in these aspects of literature during my study abroad program in the summer of 1999. I was chosen along with about twenty-four other undergraduates in English to participate in Ohio State's Summer Program in English Literature at Bath Spa University College in Bath, England. Our curriculum was varied: we studied Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as modern British and Irish literature. This included everything from Ben Jonson's Volpone to Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. We experimented with various ways of interpreting text, from modernizing and enacting scenes from Volpone, to writing poems in response to excerpts from Wide Sargasso Sea. Included in the program were class excursions to London to see Shakespeare in performance at the Globe Theatre, and to watch the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-Upon-Avon. A few weeks later, we explored James Joyce’s Dublin on a long weekend in Ireland. I did not just leave England after those six weeks with 15 credit hours under my belt, I left with a life-altering experience, as well as a new-found understanding and a renewed respect for literature. That experience is what made me realize that I did not want to end my studies of literature with a bachelor's degree.
In autumn of the following year, I had the opportunity to take my first graduate course at Ohio State University to gain some experience to enter a master's degree program. The seminar topic was Sex, Gender and the Body in Early Modern England, taught by Dr. Caroline Bicks. In addition to the literary texts covered, the class discussions were supplemented by Early Modern anatomy and midwifery texts, as well as scholarly essays that offered new historicist and Lacanian approaches on such topics as the female body, images of motherhood, and homosexuality. Because of this class, I could finally see how society shapes literature and how literature shapes society. It struck me that it is not just the works of literature themselves that are important, but the scholarship that has been written about them as well. It is these ongoing debates that breathe new life into the works that are being studied. I had little experience with literary scholarship until that class, and discovering it helped me to think about literature in ways that had never previously occurred to me. But most importantly, I learned much more about human history, and about myself, than I ever thought could be possible in a literature class. The seminar was a daunting challenge from the onset, but I rose to that challenge, and it has given me the confidence that I will be successful in a graduate program.
In the summer of 2000, I began my volunteer work at Thurber House, which is another important experience that I want to bring into graduate school. I initially began this work to make connections with people in the field of literature. That has only been a small part of my experience, however. Despite my earlier interests in Romantic and Victorian British literature, I am finding myself increasingly interested in James Thurber’s brand of American humor. I have had the opportunity to share this interest with the Thurber House visitors, and I once even acted as a tour guide for a group of children that were participating in a writing workshop. I really enjoy this interaction with the public, and I hope to possibly carry this into a teaching career.
I have found that my current knowledge in the field of English has already served me well in other aspects of life. I am a better writer, a better communicator, and above all, I have had some incredible experiences that have enhanced my life in an infinite number of ways. I feel that Miami's graduate English program is very well-suited to my goals because of the historical emphasis that is placed on literary study, and I know that I would feel very much at home on campus. Should I be accepted into your graduate program, I hope to add to my experiences through the intense study of texts and scholarship, as well as professional activities such as conference attendance and publication. I also hope to get an assistantship, either in research or teaching, that can prepare me for a career in the field of literature. I am currently a senior editorial analysis assistant for Chemical Abstracts Service, and through this job experience, I have learned that I am interested in editing, but I would like to see if I would enjoy teaching at a college level as well. If I find that I do enjoy teaching, then I will definitely pursue my Ph.D.
