14 February 2021: Just got done offering some feedback to a recent graduate who is working on a statement of purpose for a graduate program. Every time I get asked to do one of these, I say, "You know I haven't done one of these since 1998..." And because of how time works, every year 1998 is further away.
Yet I always end up recycling some of the advice my advisor gave me back in 1998: give us your voice, find the little stories you can tell in a phrase or an example, make us see you. It's not easy to do--to blend the academic and the personal, argue a thesis that is about you. But when you can do it, it works really well.
Anyway, no doubt because I am currently reading Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch, my thoughts went back to my "hook" for my own statement--the story of finding myself going down an internet rabbit hole to learn everything I could about Christina Rossetti. It's kind of funny now. In 1998, after all, the internet was still a bit "new" for many of us. Clear as day, I can see my advisor telling me he liked it a lot, but I wanted to be careful not to come off as some "cyber-punk." He had even written "cyber-punk?" in the margin. You know, I didn't want to scare off professors by seeming too obsessed with this internet thing. Ha. Very 1998.
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