This week, I was able to cross something off my to-do list that had been there since the beginning of the school year. I finally sat down and hammered out my statement of purpose.
I had been dreading this part of my application to graduate school for so long, that there was some sort of cathartic release when it was finally finished. I had already sent in the vast majority of my application weeks before, and even then I was only hesitating submitting the actual application because of how much I was dreading the statement.
I worked, or slaved really, over it for an entire day. I had been spending the last few weeks mulling over what I wanted to talk about within the confines of my statement; I just couldn’t seem to get the words on the page.
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I knew the major points I needed to hit to make myself appealing to those who would look over my applications, I just couldn’t do it. I had to overcome setback after setback trying to complete this thing, I can’t believe it took me as long as it did. It’s the kind of thing I would start and put off until the last possible second. Instead, I did it with months to spare.
The largest problem that I had to overcome was figuring out what it was I needed to put in the statement. I don’t really mean that in a metaphoric sense, more in the literal sense. There was literally a half-paragraph statement describing what it was that the statement was nothing more. It didn’t really go into detail about how long it should be, what things you should mention, or even how to format the page itself.
I was at a loss as to what should exactly be my statement. I had to spend a few days Googling examples of statements and of what exactly a good statement should consist of. I had never been given such a vague idea of what something was supposed to be on which there was so much riding. This was not some piece of homework; it was really one of the major factors that would decide my future, namely my acceptance into this particular university- the only one to which I am applying.
After getting over the initial shock of what exactly a statement of purpose was and how one goes about writing one, I could finally sit down and write. I needed to write out what exactly it is that makes me so awesome that one of the best public administration schools on the country wants me in its program.
As any regular reader will know, I tend to think pretty highly of myself in an intellectual and academic sense, so really this should have been no big deal.
Despite my roommate’s insistence that I “do so much stuff and have too many meetings,” my resume wasn’t exactly filled with public administration-related activities. Not to mention the fact that I had finished my political science degree a semester ago and haven’t touched a government-related subject since then.
You can see my struggle: how do I tie in my new found interest in journalism with my love of government? How do I make my paltry list of government-related activities seem like I really and truly want to work in government (which I do)? How do I make these two things make sense in a way that emphasizes government and minimizes my interest in journalism?
The answer is, you really can’t. I managed to come up with something resembling the truth as to why I became interested in journalism after government.
Trying to finish (or accept) the statement and submit it was a rather large hurdle over which to jump. I spent far too much time reading and rereading it, having my family look it over, sharing it with friends to look over. I worried about which words were appropriate, which sentences sounded like I was an evil villain set on taking over the government, and everything else that you can imagine about the actual words on the page.
When I said it was “good enough” and ready to mail, I sat there obsessing over the address on the label, the envelope, the mailing process itself, and even the order of the papers. No amount of preparation could make me overcome the intense feeling of “oh my god it’s not good enough.” The moment that envelope was handed to the woman at the post office I wanted to rip it right out of her hands and rewrite it then and there.
Even now I’m sitting here plagued with the idea that I should have been more academic in my statement, or more conversational, perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned one thing, or I should have mentioned another. There was no way I could ever be fully satisfied with what I wrote, it’s just not in my nature; I just wish I could accept what I wrote already.
The final hurdle was one I wasn’t anticipating and it happened by accident. As a joke I sent a picture of the envelope lying in the backseat of the car on the way to the post office to my good friend.
This friend had talked me off a couple of cliffs when it came to actually writing this thing and since she’s handy with words helped me with a few phrases. I sent the picture with the tag line “Now I (or we really) wait.”
Those three little words had a greater impact on me than the entire process of writing that statement of purpose. I had almost forgotten that it wasn’t only me who would be waiting on the response from the graduate school, it would not only be this friend, it would be my entire family and every one of my friends. It was the first time I’d really met with the realization that while I don’t have many friends, if I left, I’d be giving every single one of them up.
They’ll be waiting on a response just as much as I am, and I hope they want the same answer I do.
Chelsea Mellin can be contacted at
cmellin@ksc.mailcruiser.com