Graduate School Admissions -- Personal

Graduate School Admissions -- Personal Statement

My interest in pursuing a graduate degree in education is the result of several factors in my educational and professional experiences to date. Together, they left me with a desire to work as a professional educator, notwithstanding my undergraduate educational focus on Criminal Justice Administration and Communications.

First, I know, firsthand, the difference that teachers can make in the lives of their students, particularly in terms of their attitude toward school and their interest in learning in an academic environment. In may case, two high school teachers changed my perceptions about education: Mr. Selen who taught English and Mr. Roslund who taught mathematics. Both of them provided encouragement that made learning challenging and rewarding simultaneously; they inspired me to give my best effort and to overcome initial difficulties. Prior to my experience in their respective classes, I had never considered anything about academic courses enjoyable. In my opinion, their style of engaging students and helping them discover their potential abilities should be the foundation of educational methodology in principle.

Second, as an intern for the Stoughton District Courthouse in Massachusetts, I had the experience of working with juvenile offenders and at-risk youths, virtually all of whom had already given up on their formal education. They all expressed similar frustration with their schools and made it quite clear that none of them had ever been inspired by a teacher or encouraged in any meaningful way to discover their natural intellectual interests or potential for achievement. In some respects, my exposure to these juveniles made me even more thankful to my teachers who had inspired me because I shared some of the sentiments of the at-risk juveniles prior to my experiences in Mr. Selen's and Mr. Roslund's high school classes. The internship also convinced me that my academic studies in Communications had allowed me to develop specific skills that could be very useful with respect to establishing a positive and beneficial rapport with students in the same age group as the juveniles with whom I worked at Stoughton.

Third, I have been involved in coaching youth football for years and it is an activity that has always been rewarding on several levels. Only recently did it begin to dawn on me that coaching in the manner that I have been doing somewhat successfully incorporates many aspects of teaching, irrespective of the fact that it is unrelated to academic studies. In principle, it requires the same fundamental ability to conceptualize ideas and communicate them in ways conducive to the meaningful understanding of learners. It eventually occurred to me that teaching the elements of pass route running or reading defensive alignment indicators on a football field requires many of the same skills as teaching in general. Similarly, I realized that the sense of satisfaction that one derives from watching a football player execute plays correctly as a result of my coaching contribution must be similar to that which motivates effective teachers in academics as well.