Hi,
I am applying for Social Work PHD programs and struggling to figure out how to best present my statement of purpose. Each school's directions are somewhat different but generally, these are the instructions:
Prepare a narrative statement about your background and professional experiences as they relate to your interest in doctoral study. Include a description of specific professional experiences, which have contributed to your interest in research and teaching in social work. Include in the statement your career interests and goals, and identify specific areas of interest which you would expect to pursue within the doctoral program.
I started my essay but am struggling with how to focus it. I would appreciate any feedback on the content and clarity of what I have so far. For the remainder of the essay, I plan to further discuss my research interests, my research experience and qualifications and how my interests relate to faculty. However, I would love to get some input on the direction I have taken my essay so far before I continue.
Thank You!
Here is the start of my essay:
Sticking my toe into the calm waters of the Rio Grande, also known as the Rio Bravo, along the Texas-Mexico border, I was struck by how incongruous the shallow water and narrow breadth of the river was with a name that translated as the great or wild river. Plagued by drought, the river had lost what mightiness it once boasted. What the river lacked in physical prowess, however, it certainly made up for in political and symbolic significance. It stood as a harsh line drawn between the developed and the developing world; between great wealth and great poverty; between access and limitation; and between power and humility. While unimpressive as a physical barrier, the river held immense power in defining the destinies of the inhabitants on each respective side of the Texas-Mexico border.
As I peered across the river to the other side, my eyes met those of a middle aged Mexican man who fished along the banks. He wore the look of a life of struggle and hard work: leathered skin; ragged clothing; bare feet. While the distance separating us was just a tad beyond the reach of a thrown pebble, this close physical proximity served only to further amplify the significance of the real divide between us. Despite the increasingly porous nature of the border, the national attitude towards immigration from Mexico was running counter to the acts of Mother Nature. Border patrol efforts were being ramped up to make crossing the border more difficult and consequently, more deadly. The air around the river felt heavy with the weight of the lamentations of those who had risked and lost their dreams and even their lives in a futile effort to get to the other side.
While moving to the border was a fortuitous event brought forth by the admissions
committee of Teach for America, it was a pivotal period of my life that expanded my
understanding of inequality, oppression and poverty in intangible ways. During these years
living along the border and subsequently, in Mexico and Austin, Texas, the motives and
challenges of migration became clearer to me as I listened to the stories of migrants and their
families on both sides of the border. I listened to the tears of a normally stoic 15 year old man
after his father was deported; I comforted a 6 year old who amidst the atmosphere of fear
following the passage of SB1070 in Arizona, trembled in trepidation that the police
might come take her papa away in the night; I sipped coffee with an elderly woman in
a small Mexican town whose acute loneliness shone in the resignation of her eyes as she passed
her days alone while her sons worked in California so that she may eat. Narratives of struggle,
of transformation, of hope, while markedly personal, so often seemed to represent much more
than just the life of the narrator. The experiences of many melded into one voice as common
stories of immense poverty, lack of opportunity, longing for family and for homeland emerged.
These stories, so often absent from the political dialogue around immigration, remind us that this
is foremost, a human story, and one that is strikingly common and similar across oceans,
continents and cultures as the world's poor and oppressed collectively migrate to lands of plenty
in search of survival.
These stories, along with many others, inform and inspire my work as a social worker
serving a predominantly Latin American immigrant population and my desire to conduct
research that will promote policies and programs that improve the social and economic condition
of immigrant communities. Specifically, I am interested in the impact of migration on the
family unit. A core cultural value of Latin American cultures is familismo or family unity and
loyalty. The long separations, changing family roles, and cultural adjustments inherent to
migration can place a real strain on this nucleus of the culture. What is the impact of long
separations between a migrating mother and children in her home country on parent-child attachment? When mother and child are reunited, sometimes years later, what are the challenges and protective factors to the development of a strong parent-child bond? With an increasingly anti-immigrant sentiment permeating the country and the passage of more draconian policies such as SB 1040, how is this increased stress impacting the mental health of immigrant families, and specifically children? How does the deportation of a parent affect children's mental and emotional health as well as school achievement? Schools are in a strong position to provide support to immigrant children through these stressful times. What programs and practices can schools and other service providers put in place to encourage resiliency in immigrant youth?
Use a hyphen: ...stoic 15 year-old
To improve clarity, you can add a sentence after "Texas-Mexico border" at the end of that first paragraph. That great sentence that is currently the last sentence of the paragraph will not lose any of its impact if you add another sentence after it. In fact, the impact will be strengthened.
Write a sentence that succinctly tells what you are all about... in a single sentence... and add it to that first paragraph.
That prompt essentially asks what you are all about. What are your interests, what have you done and learned, what are your plans...
But as you expound the answers to those questions, try to be able to capture your personal theme in a single paragraph, sentence or word. Make a deep, lasting impression on the reader by constantly going back to your main theme, the idea you want the reader to associate with you.
You are doing very well! Do not forget to cite some scholars whose writings have contributed to understanding in your area of interest.
