My Personal Statement for Graduate School

¶ … Personal Statement Grad School

Statement of purpose essay -- why graduate study, why now?

One of the unique attractions of Ohio State University for a graduate student is its simultaneous melding of the personal and the professional elements of the graduate educational experience. It is a huge, spirited institution that strives to prepare all of its graduate students for the cutthroat elements of what is termed 'the real world,' whether this real world cumulates in the cutthroat life of academia, or the 'real' world of business life. Yet it also offers a highly competitive academic environment, in which all students may thrive in an atmosphere of scholarship.

The decision to embark upon a path in graduate education has been a difficult one for me. Like many undergraduates, when I initially embarked upon my undergraduate program of study, I was somewhat unfocused in my interests, pursuits, and my academic purpose or telos in life. However, now I feel that I have matured enough as an individual and as a scholar to present myself to Ohio State as a credible candidate and an asset to the campus.

When a school selects a student for undergraduate study, I am well aware of the fact that the campus expects someone to be relatively rough and unformed as a person. However, much like an individual attempting to present him or herself as a candidate for employment, a prospective graduate student must attempt not so much to show the school what he or she can become as a human being, but what he or she can do for the campus and the program he or she is about to become a part of. Where I am 'now' as a person, I believe, makes me an asset to the campus and to the classroom.

A graduate program of study makes a commitment to a graduate student in the time and effort of its faculty members, and also often in the form of a financial commitment as well, in exchange for the assurance of the maturity of that individual, and the seriousness of that individual's pursuit of scholarship. As my academic and professional record currently stands, I believe I will be worthy of such an investiture.

If I am accepted, I hope to constantly prove myself worthy of the institution's commitment to myself as human being and as a scholar.

I hope that my personal experiences will be instructive to my fellow graduate students and the undergraduate students I encounter over the course of my tenure at the school, both in my participation in classroom discussions but also in the life I hope to embark upon outside of the confines of the classroom. One of the most exciting aspects of being a graduate student at a large university, in a bustling environment, located in a larger community, is that an individual is allowed to expand his or her own personal education, as a student and a human being, in the world outside of his or her immediate sphere of study.