Statement of Purpose
I’m in love with learning. Like an addict, I simply cannot give it up. Every time that I open a book, I’m filled with an internal high, this rush of knowledge. I drink in the words on the page and let them sink into my bloodstream. Praying that their wisdom will somehow transform me.
Compared to the thousands, no millions, of words written on the pages I am small. I am but one voice floating in a sea of thousands. All these voices, blotted in black and white ink—connect us through time and space. Holding the key to knowledge.
We’re all people, books prove that—something essentially connects us you can prove it by reading The Epic of Gilgamesh to, Great Expectations, The Great Gatsby, Written on the Body, and The God of Small Things. Yet, as time advances we continually place dividers between one another. Us vs. the other, creating tension and isolation. It is in between the words on the pages that we are able to break down these barriers and binaries we find that we have much more in common than things that separate us. In my state of uncertainty, I turned to literature and theory--and for the first time I felt at peace.
I want to understand this, as an ambassador of English, and hopefully a teacher I want to teach my students that though the world tries to tear us apart, to turn us on our fellow brother and sister—we'll always have one thing in common. We are all storytellers, we all have stories. This is how we create identity, culture, and it can be how we cause change and enact restoration.
While we might all interpret this world, slightly differently, there are common threads that link us all together. As people, we all feel emotion. Our stories are wrought with love, loss, triumph, and failure. The essentialist claim would be that we all have something that makes us uniquely human. I strive to understand what this is. Is it the capacity to love?
I truly believe that one of the only ways for reconciliation to occur is by attempting to find and form this human connection in a way that only literature can provide. Rather than approaching one another stating these are our differences, this is what divides us, what if we came at it with a lens of understanding. Noting that of course, one cannot truly understand someone’s lived experience but that as people who are trying to better themselves and the world around them--that is what we are trying to do. Tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine. Let me connect with you on this inexplicable human level. Let me carry some of your burdens. Share your story, you don’t have to stay silent. Let your voice be heard! I want to understand our differences so I can be more mindful. So I can better know what struggles you have to face. So I can be an alley and stand by you when the battle breaks out. Educate me, educate the world. Without education, how are we supposed to even begin to attempt reconciliation? You can’t it’s impossible. One cannot remain willfully ignorant and hope to see changes in the world around them.
You have access to all the knowledge to the words. They give you power. How will you wield that power? Will you go on to share it? Educate others, produce a better society? Attempt to understand those around you more? Or will you be selfish and hide up somewhere unwilling to share your knowledge with the world. Knowledge is a gift. And as a member of this program and future teacher my goal is to soak up all the knowledge I can so I can become a better person, so I can better my students. Even if I make the smallest difference in the world I will have done something that matters. And to think that all of this simply starts with the courage to crack open a book.
