http://www.english.uiuc.edu/hove/persamps.

htm

SAMPLE PERSONAL STATEMENTS

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.

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