My personal statement

Here's the personal statement that I recently used to apply to grad school.

All of my life, I’ve been telling stories. As a small child those stories were largely fictional. The lines between reality and fantasy faded away as I weaved tales that were believable to most adults. Places I had been, people I had met, things I had done – all were described with the greatest of detail. Holding audiences captive and sharing my “experiences” were two of my greatest ambitions. However, as I grew older, I put away childish ways and my fiction turned to fact. Welling up inside of me was a new and unusual passion to learn other people’s true stories. And once I learned them, I longed to share them and retell those stories. In short summary, that’s who I really am – a storyteller.

Obviously, one cannot have history without the word “story.” Throughout time, many mechanisms have been used to retell stories, both fact and fiction. One needn’t think long to recall tapestries like the Bayeux of the eleventh century, or even the cave markings of primal peoples. Incans used knots tied on ropes to retell their stories. From epic poetry and lyric song, to lithographs, woodcarvings, photographs, and even tattoos, men and women have long used many devices to retell stories. Even nature and the Divine tell us stories through the rings of a tree, soil deposits, and the stratification of rock. To me, none of these means is as strong as the written and spoken Word.

What a joy it is to invite a reader or listener in and hope they are equally intrigued by “other people’s stories.” It’s not the study of period philosophies, political movements, scientific discoveries, theological debates, or even military maneuvers that drives me in the context of history. Rather, it is how all of these forces (and many other motivating factors) work together to influence individuals. Such incidences form whom an individual really is – why they eat what they eat, leisure how they leisure, teach what they teach, and even believe what they believe. To me, this is history. The history of an individual, while it does not fill in every blank of an era, speaks volumes for society.

And so, the time has come in which I can no longer ignore the passion that burns within me to tell stories. I feel to better equip myself in such a process of “telling and retelling,” I need to seek out a Masters in History. I long to learn, research, further and develop my passion in order to make unknown voices heard and history come alive for other learners. My ultimate desire would be for those learners to become storytellers themselves, or, at bare minimum, to be let into another’s world to more greatly understand and empathize with an individual’s plight. I recognize the need to further hone my writing skills and have a desire to one day publish written works. Specifically, I wish to use my master’s degree to help me begin to narrow the vast field of choices available to one who holds such a degree and has a passion for teaching others of history. I also have a desire to pursue a Ph. D. in this field. I would take great pleasure in teaching on a collegiate level if the doors open allowing me to do so; however, even the mere personal accomplishment of study would be gratifying to me.

My story is what makes me who I am. Pursuing a master’s degree allows me to understand other people and who they are through learning and retelling their stories.