I originally posted this on Facebook but I thought putting it here would make it easier to find. I also highly recommend reading the tweets from the Q&A Clint Smith and I hosted in fall 2015 about how to apply for grad school.
Alright, y’all. Every year people send me their personal statements to apply for doctoral programs and every year I give the same advice. Trying to make this advice more public so that more people can find it helpful. (And to save myself time, lol.) Feel free to share.
The personal statement is a slightly misleading title for this document. It is not primarily about you holistically in the way your college personal statement was. It serves ONE MAJOR PURPOSE: to demonstrate to a department that you understand how to formulate and pursue a research question, and that there is a good fit between your question and the department.
Your personal statement (for the humanities and social sciences) should follow roughly this outline. (Colleagues– if you think this is bad advice or have anything to add please feel free to comment.)
– Open with a story, anecdote, or scene that draws the reader in and helps us understand who you are and how your present research interest emerged. (In my personal statement, I talked about a scene in my classroom that helped me realize something about black adolescent girls and literature. In Clint Smith’s for example, he talked about being displaced by Katrina and experiencing a huge difference in educational quality.) Close this paragraph by explicitly stating an OBSERVATION, INSIGHT, or QUESTION that you took from this experience, that has guided you since then. So this is not just a random story. It should be a parable or fable explaining something crucial about you and your work.
– Now that we know who you are and what guides you, take us into your past work that has prepared you for grad school. Talk about professional experiences, classes, service opportunities, and so on. These should reflect your observation/insight/question. Close this paragraph with a key PUZZLE or CONUNDRUM or LINGERING QUESTION that emerged from this work. Something along the lines of “through this work I learned ___…. but I began to notice _____… which led me to wonder ____.” Something that keeps you up at night. Something that seems like it’s missing from the field currently.
– Demonstrate that you have made an informed effort to address this puzzle by doing some reading and research. What have other scholars said or done in attempts to get at this puzzle? What research articles and books have been written in this general area? (Google Scholar is your friend here.) Show that you are knowledgable about this topic. Close by making clear WHAT IS STILL MISSING FROM CURRENT RESEARCH. This, of course, is where you are going to direct your talents once you get into the program of your choice.
– Now you explain how this current program will help you answer these extant questions. Think of the program like an item in a video game or a secret weapon– it helps you level up from what you are currently able to do based on your already-impressive professional expertise. What resources does the department have that appeal to you? What faculty do you want to work with and how is their work related to yours? (Name two or three.) How is the program a good fit? (Not the university, not the field, not “graduate school,” but this department or program specifically. So yes, you need to modify this section for every school you apply to.) Reciprocally, what do you think you can add to the department and your peers? What are you bringing with you in terms of knowledge and expertise that makes you feel like this time is going to be really fruitful? THIS SECTION NEEDS TO MAKE SENSE. There needs to be a clear fit between the questions you have and the resources the department has. If not, take this school off your list.
– Now that we understand who you are, what your questions are, how you have approached them so far, and how you are going to approach them wielding the powers of the department, close by saying what you want to do with the degree. Briefly discuss your goals for after the program, then end with something profound (ideally, something that ties back to your opening anecdote or story).
Dassit.
*** Important addendum: if your interests change once you get to grad school and you do not do this exact thing, that is okay. In fact, it will almost certainly happen. (After all, hopefully you are meeting people and learning interesting things in classes that evolve your ideas. Otherwise what are you doing, lol) No one is going to come after you and say “you said here you would do xyz…” The purpose of this exercise is to provide an existence proof that you know how to develop a question, even if you end up pursuing a different question.
You wouldn’t believe the way she looks at me- As if I’m built by constellations and she’s got all night to go star gazing.
I haven’t had a housemate in over 3 years. I’ve only ever had one housemate too. I’ve lived with partners, but that’s different. That’s getting to lounge around naked, and cuddles, and just so so different.
I don’t really know my brother. I know he’s a good person. That I’m proud of him for a lot of his awesome traits. But… he’s probably the sibling I know the least.
It’s always been weird to be the most broken of my siblings, given that I’m the oldest. I always felt like the oldest had to be the most put together. The strongest. But it’s always been my siblings looking after me. I am not good at that. I’ve never been good at looking after others.
poc isn’t an adjective – i’m not a “people of colour blogger”, i’m a blogger of colour
don’t say poc if you mean a specific group of people. black lives matter isn’t about all poc. it’s about black people
you don’t need to tell us about every instance of racism you see. if someone’s said something racist about us & we weren’t there, sure, we probably do want to know. but if it’s along the lines of “can you believe this person was racist”? yeah. we can. we don’t need you to remind us
if you have a friend of colour, please don’t expect them to give you the rundown on every racialised issue you see. i’m black. that doesn’t mean i’m automatically an expert on how the modern beauty industry is influenced by india’s colonial history. i don’t speak for all poc – ask someone who’s affected by it
remember that talking about race is tiring. wanting to be more aware of it is great, but discussing exactly how white supremacy affects our lives is frankly depressing. please respect that we don’t always want to do that
if you ever say you’ve “got an [ethnicity] friend” so you can’t be racist to try and sidestep being genuinely called out for racism, i’m stealing your friend. you’re tokenising & they deserve better
poc aren’t a monolith & individual ethnicities can trivialise the racism they don’t face. just because you’ve heard a brown person say the n word or a black person be anti-asian doesn’t mean it’s suddenly okay
talking about our relationship with whiteness ≠ “making everything about race” & anyone who says that from now on owes me £150
this is okay to reblog even (especially) if you’re white
the point of this post is not to be a performative ally and act as if you as a white person have to endorse it for it to be worth reblogging. i do not need your commentary about how you, someone who will never be affected by racism, think this is important. i know damn well it is! adding things like this:
is incredibly patronising – and this is just a small example of the nonsense i’ve had in tags, responses, and my inbox. if you don’t think a black person telling you something about racialisation is believable or important without your saying so, you are part of the problem, and you need to self-reflect before you start trying to contribute to the conversation.
i scrolled past this an hour ago and thats when the winston/hanzo drama started happening so im obligated to reblog this to dispense with the bad energy. sorry
So it seems that I might have a sex drive. It’s just really, really hard to access.
And again, feels a bit broken.
It seems that in order for me to experience lust and genuine arousal, my brain needs to be shut off. And that’s a hard place to be in. Because I don’t truly know what shuts the brain down. Because it’s also not about overstimulating.
But I’ve noticed heavy breathplay seems to get me there. A certain kind of pain gets me there. A certain kind of degradation gets me there.
I talked to M about this a few weeks ago, and he said “yeah, but you were aroused with me” and I had to sheepishly confess… actually… I wasn’t. I lied. I lied, because I knew it was what you wanted.
And then I realised… I kind of… lie a lot. I give the reactions that I *think* the other person wants. Not all the time. But often enough for me to realise that this is an issue that I’ve got to work on. But am not quite sure how to work on it.
And then I’ve realised… All the play I do… is about others. And that’s a hard, and fucked up thing to realise too. Because I bet most of those tops think they’re doing me a favour. And they’re trying to give me what *I* want. But… really, I’m just perpetually feeling guilt of others playing with me, and so I try to give them what *they* want, and is it this big endless loop where NEITHER party is getting what they want??? AND NOW I JUST FEEL LIKE THIS MONSTER WHO HAS FAILED EVERY TOP EVER BECAUSE THEY WERE TRYING TO GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND I SOMETIMES HAVE FAKED IT TO TRY AND GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT.
And this realisation came when the other night, I was trying to have sex. And instead of enjoying the sex, I was thinking “point your toes to make your legs look nice, now run your hands up his back, yes, make a breathy sound here, and bite his neck now” and after I just burst into tears because… even though I’d enjoyed it, I couldn’t shut off the brain.
I’ve talked to my psychs about this in the past. They’ve encouraged mindfulness. Told me to become aware of everything. How the sheets feel. What can I smell. What can I hear. BUT THAT’S A PROBLEM. I get overstimulated super easily, and everything smells wrong, and the feelings are wrong, and the sounds are hard. [in other news, this week we discovered that if I wear earplugs in every day life, my feelings of sensitivity just… ease. I didn’t get irritable, I didn’t feel as anxious. Just simply cutting out the basic sounds such as the aircon, my computer running the whisper of feet crossing the carpet… with all of those gone… I felt like I could breathe easier somehow]. I digress: mindfulness is the OPPOSITE of what I need.
I need to get out of my head.
And the thing is, I know I can. This week, through heavy choking I experienced arousal, and peace in my mind for the first time in a while. Last year when I was in Melbourne, I did three amazing rope scenes over the course of a weekend, that had me 110% in the moment, and it was so beautiful, and…
I just feel like the more I explore my mind, my sexuality, my peace… the more broken and lost and confused I feel.
hannahbelleeeebackup 