Wherever You Live Can Be Boring

My mom frequently says that she wants to live on the water. She thinks that living on a lake, an ocean, or even a pond would somehow change her outlook on life and make her officially happy. Of course, the home she has nearly paid off is situated in a decidedly non-aquatic area. One of the things I must have learned from my mom is this idea that setting can make you happy. My first college tour was at a university 2 1/2 hours away from home, and while the school may have had a great academic reputation and was near a lake and had a great college town just down the street, something about the ugly concrete buildings was unappealing. I decided against the school based primarily on architecture.

The lake where I went to school. It looks beautiful in retrospect, doesn’t it? (Image Credit:http://www.wunderground.com/wximage/WHOASCSI/6?gallery=)

My next college tour, however, went much better. The school, with its ivy-covered brick buildings and lakefront view, was beautiful. My freshman dorm even looked out over the lake, and the sunsets were incredible. The setting could not have been better, and yet I wasn’t constantly inspired by the beauty around me. Along with my friends, I bemoaned the small campus size and the lack of things to do, and I am ashamed to admit that I only swam in that beautiful lake a handful of times. In fact, weeks would go by where I barely even noticed the lake. It may be surprising, then, to hear that for my graduate school, I picked again based mostly on location. This time, my school wasn’t just on a lake–it was near the ocean. The apartment where I currently sit typing this blog entry is only a five-minute drive from the Atlantic, and my bus goes past an ocean inlet every morning and night. I live in a vacation destination, a place where cruise ships frequently stop, and yet I often ignore my surroundings and bemoan my homesickness and the lack of things to do.

The point is, the way my surroundings look seem to have very little to do with my level of happiness or contentment. Attitude is a choice that you have to make each day, and while nice surroundings might help nudge you towards a positive experience, it is by no means a guarantee.

May Day

It isn’t really a secret (to my family, friends, or those who read this blog) that this past year has been difficult for your faithful writer. To be honest, the past few years have been momentous and rewarding but also incredibly challenging and draining. In 2010 I wrote my senior thesis for my undergraduate degree, and the following spring I completed my student teaching. The spring of 2011 was also the first time I started considering what I was going to really do after my degree. Unable to make any real decision, I applied to grad school for a MA in English and was accepted to my first-choice school. In August of 2011 I moved away from home and undertook graduate school and living on my own at the same time.

I haven’t always been successful at these things, and one of my greatest strengths and weaknesses is that I’m very open about my insecurities. Some people manage to exude confidence and poise while still having feelings of uncertainty underneath, but I’m not one of those people. I like to tell people how I’m feeling, which I suppose makes me a bit of an extrovert. However, in the past few months, I’ve realized that being so open with my feelings is often detrimental to the way I want people to view me. When I talk about how I feel inadequate, nervous, or stupid, I don’t want people to give me advice or look down on me–I’m looking for them to empathize. I want the people I share my bad feelings with to share their own bad feelings in return.

Being jealous of Dianas simply means you should focus more on your own development as a person. At least, I think it does. (Image Credit:http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/family/parenting-tips/toddler-pageants-6)

However, not everyone is interested in that kind of reciprocal relationship. I’m learning how to be less of an alarmist and more of an actor. For me, this has meant taking a step back from Facebook. Checking Facebook five or six (or, okay, twenty thousand) times a day wasn’t healthy. First of all, it constantly distracted me from enjoying my free time or being productive during my working hours. More importantly, however, it made me jealous and angry. Why were all my friends sharing good news on Facebook all the time? Why did everyone else have tons of pictures of parties and nights out on the town and fabulous vacations to exotic beaches? Why was I the only one who seemed to be struggling?

What my Facebook addiction ultimately has taught me is that the way people perceive you is often quite dependent on the way you present yourself. Take a girl in my program who everyone has decided is the “smartest.” Now, I say “everyone,” but in the spirit of full disclosure I’ve only heard three people make this assertion. Let’s call this girl Diana. From the first day of classes, Diana sat in the corner with her trendy MacBook (decorated with edgy stickers about feminism and activism), wearing skinny jeans and ironic T-shirts and thick-framed glasses. Diana was cool. Diana only spoke when she knew the answer or had a perfectly-framed question. I, on the other hand, was frequently stuttering out responses and trailing off with “I don’t know if that made sense” or similar apologies. Diana was as chilled as I was high-strung. Pretty soon, as the pecking order of my grad cohort was hammered out, Diana became the cool girl. Diana offered to edit other student’s papers. Diana had book recommendations and music recommendations and restaurant recommendations. Diana made sure to tell everyone that her grades in her undergraduate career had been amazing; she had even won a medal. Everyone seemed to really like Diana.

Of course, I was envious. I never offered to edit anyone else’s paper, because I didn’t think I had anything special to add. I didn’t give out book or restaurant recommendations. Instead, I listened to what other people had to say. When I would complain about how difficult living alone was, I would listen (begrudgingly) to the advice of people who had never lived alone. When I struggled with papers, I would listen to other people tell me what I should be doing even though we received comparable grades on earlier assignments. My behavior wasn’t leading to other people responding the way I wanted them to, and it was making me angry.

Now, as I’m nearly at the end of this program and looking forward to a 40-hour per week job that begins in August, I’m starting to realize that even though I struggled throughout this year and the two years prior, I’ve learned a lot about myself, and I’m working on becoming the kind of person I want to be. There will always be people like Diana. In high school, I had other Dianas. In my future career, I’m sure I’ll meet more Dianas. I may never be a Diana, and I may never even really want to be a Diana, deep down inside. What I can be is the person I want to be, though, and that person doesn’t have to listen to Diana or even like Diana all that much.

 

Undeclared?

One of the things I would do differently if I could do college over again is wait before deciding definitively on a major and minor. I went into my BA knowing that I wanted to be an English literature major and a secondary education minor, and that left me little room for changing my mind. After all, I had course quotas to fill. I got so wrapped up in getting ahead on the necessary courses that I missed out on taking a lot of other courses that I had initially been interested in, like pottery or political science. There were certainly signs along the way that indicated I might have made a hasty decision. The first was that I didn’t do so well in my English 100 level course. The second was that I didn’t particularly enjoy my English course, although I enjoyed the instructor and still liked reading fiction. The third was that I really enjoyed courses outside of my discipline, like a logic course I took my sophomore year to fulfill a math requirement, the political science course I took just for fun my senior year, and the sociology of education course I had to take as part of my education minor in my last semester before student teaching. If I had taken time to make a decision and really thought about what I was doing and where I wanted to go, I might have realized that while I enjoyed and would always enjoy reading fiction, I did not enjoy analyzing it. I should also have realized that while I seemed to be good at writing papers, I didn’t enjoy writing papers.

Of course, I didn’t connect the dots until after I had already applied to and been accepted to graduate school in, you guessed it, English literature. The feelings of doubt I had managed to put off for four years came back to haunt me over my year-long MA program. As I drifted listlessly through courses on Blake and Stoker, I realized that I was frantic to get out of academia all together.

The point of this cautionary tale? Don’t be blind like I was. College isn’t a race to the finish, and you certainly have time in your first year to explore your options. Maybe you’ll require an extra semester if you decide to major in a certain field, but ultimately I’ve decided that a little extra money is nothing compared to having a degree in a subject area you don’t particularly enjoy. While I’m certainly glad to have my BA (and, in a few months, my MA), I do have some feelings of wistfulness and dare I say regret when I look back at my academic career. And in hindsight, I certainly wouldn’t have dismissed those undeclared majors so hastily. After all, maybe they’re the ones who actually know what’s going on.

Writing a Statement of Purpose

To gain admission into some programs, you need to write a statement of purpose. I’ve had to write three–one when I wanted to study abroad, another when I applied to Teach for America, and the third when I applied to graduate school. What’s the point of a statement of purpose? To make you stand out. The statement of purpose can often be your only opportunity to let an admissions committee or hiring committee see your personality. Grades don’t necessarily communicate anything about you as a person other than how you performed academically. A statement of purpose that’s well-crafted can help support your already outstanding grades or can help make up for grades that are less than impressive.

So what should you put in your statement of purpose? Well, the first thing you should do is make sure that your statement of purpose is finely crafted towards whatever your end goal is. If you’re applying to grad school, you want to show them that you have the traits necessary to excel in their program. If you want to explain that you overcame difficulties in your undergrad, then do so. However, you have to relate whatever you say about yourself to your goal. Don’t just tell the committee that your aunt had breast cancer in the hopes of gaining pity points. Graduate committees and hiring committees aren’t interested in pity. What they are interested in is what makes you a good candidate. So go less for pity and more for overcoming obstacles.

Be positive and upbeat in your writing, and your statement of purpose will really stand out! (Image Credit: http://www.grantwritingonlinecourse.com/blog/)

In the same vein, make sure that your statement of purpose is upbeat. Show your reader that you are positive, that you thrive on challenges and that you are excited to have new opportunities. While nobody is positive all the time, when you’re in an application process you certainly want people to think that you’re positive at least most of the time. Be enthusiastic about your past experiences and the benefits that you’ve received from them, and be excited about whatever it is your applying to. Make some specific reference to whatever it is your applying to. For example, say, “I appreciate that your department is small and will allow me to foster strong relationships with the professors and the rest of my cohort.” Show them that you’ve done research and have made a thoughtful decision to apply.

Although this may be a given, you definitely want to make sure that your statement of purpose is error-free. Even if you have a 4.0 GPA in your undergrad and were involved in tons of extra-curriculars, if your statement of purpose is lackluster and full of errors, your chances of getting in diminish significantly. Remember, the statement of purpose is all about how you present yourself, and if it isn’t polished then you’re showing your reader that you aren’t particularly concerned about performing well or that you don’t take pride in your work.

Finally, be specific. Rather than giving a total overview of your entire life, try focusing in on one or two major experiences that have made you a good candidate for the position. When applying to grad school, I focused on three different ways that my study abroad experience made me a good candidate for grad school. Finding one experience that has multiple benefits can be a helpful organizational tool, and if the experience is something that helps you stand out all the better. Your experience doesn’t have to be volunteering at an African orphanage; it can be something as simple as babysitting your next-door neighbor who has autism or taking a hiking trip. It’s all about the presentation.

What are some other tips you have for writing a statement of purpose?