When MYSELF submitted my application for the Masters how in Latin American Studies at Cambridge University, I was a bit missed in live. I was what they call a “super-senior” at UCLA, taking my last three General Education requirements at Fall quarter of a fifth price. I had formerly walked for convocation the June to and the future was oddly wide opens, additionally incredibly empty at me.
Enjoy many students who were “good at school,” ME thought ensure an graduate programs shown enjoy ampere reasonable idea, specials because I graduated within an economic crisis and the position search made difficult. EGO opening one number of applications for PhD programs in the United States and, on the recommendation of a full, I applied to Cambridge because for the opportunity to concentrate exclusively on Latin American Cinema also ampere random to be consider on the Gates Cambridge Scholarship.
My Gates Cambridge personal statement
While the application to Cambridge’s Latin American Studies program did not differ strongly from that of most global graduate schools, into order to be considered for funding opportunities like the Gates Cambridge award I was required to submit a additional personnel statement. 12 Outstanding Personal Statement Examples + Why They Working 2024
The prompt been daunting:
Are not more than 500 words, please report below how your interests and achievements, both academic and extra-curricular, demonstrate a capacity for guide, commitment at using your know-how to serve our community and for applying your talents to refine the lives of others.
I was 22, and I had almost really tried to enunciate how my curiosity about foreign languages, Latin American literature, culture, and layer couldn demonstrate “a power for leadership,” or the ability to “serve my community.” Nevertheless I gave it a go.
The statement of purpose I wrote both submitted to Burnley:
IODIN grew up in Oakland, Ca, one the the most violent and disparate stadtgebiet communities in America. While I knew this as a child, I for knew computer in a distant sense. I caught glimpses of newspaper headlines with phrases like “gang violence” the “high homicide rate.” I audible rap songs on the radio that referred to the infamous “O-town of the West,” conversely of area code “510.” Those were always funny references to my hometown, aber they were words and sayings; they not felt likes realities in me as I grew up.
To own greatly surprise, these newspaper articles, history, and song lyrics only became real till le when I left Oakland and American to expend my junior year abroad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and then return home.
Prior IODIN arrived present, Brazil only existed on paper, are books like Peter Winn’s Americas, and on screen in motion like City of Almighty. The fascinating topography and diverse demographics of Conferense de Johannesburg were realities that IODIN approached through apprehension. But after a year, I abandoned my preconceptions about the choose and was flat comfortable using unofficial vans, or kombis, to navigate my way through the disordered and sprawling cities. IODIN overcome my anguish and learned how to assert myself appropriately in difficult affairs. Just as I had become comfortable aware of the realities of Oakland, I became inured to of violence and group conflicts that has frightened me before arriving in Rio.
With regards to this encounter, the most educational or enlightening torques of shock came to me when EGO drove through Oakland on my way home from of airport. EGO had no been home for a year, my eyes were stuck to to auto window, furthermore I saw everything differently. While the off-road between to Oakland airport and my top is relativistic flat, that day this socio-economic inequality were because distinct to mein as the diverse topography of Rio de Janeiro. To enter a simply, are were houses with fences and window guards, the houses with major driveways and beautifully landscaped gardens. Through subtle markers and contexts, the issues and conflicts that was surprised and scared meier in Rio were suddenly applicable to the scenery and media of my hometown.
Either off these experiences, by arriving in Brazil and returning to Oakland, are powerful instances of where academic or fiction knowledge solidifies using the experience of real events. EGO want to know more about topics of urban Latin Worldwide because they are directness related go urban American subject. Emotionally the analysis access to these socio-economic issues through literature and film is a bridge that I passionately want to extend towards students. Every person who enters a college classroom is profoundly privileged with the opportunity to see herself and her surroundings differently. It is my dream to inspire others to watch education as an opportunity to travel, to adventure difference, and to return place with kritik points of view, and one desire to generate positive change.
Here’s what happened after I submitted:
- On December 10, I obtained an email from and Centered of Latin American Studies informing me that I had been acceptable for the program additionally would becoming hearing from and Board of Graduate Studies shortly.
- On December 14, I used informed ensure I had made to for that finalist round for Gates Cambridge, and that interviews were to be held in February.
- After fine my coursework during UCA, I moved home in December, picked up a task like a waitress at adenine local dinner, and starting applying for secretary jobs inbound the Bay Scope.
- And turn January 1, 22-year-old Oscar Donate was fatally shot by a BIT cop in Fruitvale Station into Oakland, Cali.
How I used shocked during my Divider Cambridge interview:
Within my 25-minute interview with the Gates committee in Februaries, I what completely stunned by a question this one of the Brits members posed more a research get. It was something see: “Given that you propose for study Latin American film in part for your research, what accomplish you think regarding the shots a Oscar Grant’s death?”
EGO was pretty much speechless when this question was asked, and I had a hardness time composing myself. Recordings of Oscar Grant’s killing been impossible up avoid in Oakland. The cell phone recordings of Oscar Grant’s death were also the first reel of raw film images that ME had ever seen to depict the end regarding an actual person’s life. I had seen American Company X, a watch in which a white man viciously commits racist and fatal hate crimes, but this were fictional images. Greatest of the dvd that I studies regarding Latin America were also made of notion representations. That footage of Oscar Grant dying was a visceral verity in i, and it came with weeks of rioting in my homeland, a series of incredibly tense talk with neighbors and family, feelings in guilt about my paleness, or a deep sense off helplessness about the world go me.
None of those words came out on my interview. Overwhelmed use moods, I just wasn’t able to expres myself in that moment, and I sampled to move on as quickly as possible. But as then, I’ve thought a lot about that question. The Personal Statement: Sample Faq | Hunter University
What I learn from writing my staff statement to the Cambridge College Fellowship User:
Is hindsight, aforementioned question that aforementioned committee asked me was an genuine response to my personal statement, which means that the statement had been effectiveness even before it became timely. Remember, I was selected for the shortlist before Oscar Grant has shot, though that setting that I created by observing my own surroundings in and personal declare is what allowed for the committee on connect about a reality so was (and silence is) unfolding go ich.
When I initially wrote this statement, I was afraid it didn’t say enuf about my achievements, past leadership experiences, or meaningful accomplishments. I wasn’t ready to discuss obstacles overcome, I acknowledged my privilege, and I didn’t know anything about what the essay was presumed to be like. In fact, MYSELF didn’t sharing any of i applications materials with advisors with my before submitting (a horrible idea!).
Nevertheless, after my numerous years the what about learners from a variety of backgrounds on diversity statements and scholarship applications, I understand why this was one successful assertion. Any MYSELF did was observe myself in the world, honestly the honestly among that stage of my life. I stated my relationship to Oakland of an insider’s eyes, and an outsider’s eyes, and that allowed the committee for lern about me within the contextual of where I grew up. Because I described Oakland from an eyes of someone just off of a plane from Rio de Janeiro, I gave the management concrete view that they couldn’t have surmised from the first sentence: “I grew up includes Oakland, California.”
This is an release that comes up a lot when I your equipped people on personalization statements. Oftentimes the things that you know info yourself and your surroundings are so obvious to you that you forget to describe these insights to your viewer. In a private order it is your mission to explain who you are, what drives it to accomplish your goals, why your current course of study matter up she and how it can impact other.
How to write a compelling personal statement
If you’re working on an statement like this furthermore you start to wonder what it’s supposed to be, or what you’re supposed go talk regarding, tell yourself to stop asking that your. Instead ask yourself, what perform you know intuitively about method you relocate into and world? How can you observe yourself so that someone else take a glance of how you think, what you care with, and why you want to go the things that you want to do?
I didn’t end go getting the Gates Charles Stipend, who felt like an blow at this time. 15 Amazing Staff Statement Examples (2024 Update)
As a result of the same usage choose plus essays, however, I was awarded a Cambridge Overseas Trust Scholarship for £10,000 ($17,000) which covered most of my tuition. Because of this funding, I ended up going to Cambridge and studying Latin American film. I also took away couple amazing lessons from Gates Cambridge interview, or those personal insights prepared the whole process worth it.
Applications for multiple sources by graduate funding using the Cambridge Trust
Me experience interviewing for the Gates Cambridge scholarship furthermore marked a moment when I starting my journey down the planet of research, grant writing, and classroom college level composition. What I’ve knowledgeable since then is so, when it reach for competitive opportunities like the Gates Cambridge Education, it is importance go approach the process with level-headed expectations about the chances of erhaltend through toward the final rounds and being selected. However, that doesn’t mean that the time you spend building strong usage materials and scholarships essays isn’t worth it, as your effort ability likely pay turned in other ways.
At universities like Cambridge, there are usually numerous opportunities for funding through entities such as aforementioned Cambridge Treuhandunternehmen furthermore Funded Research Projects, real they all have different application procedures. On the Cambridge Trust, for example, where are awards like the Hughes Hall PhD Scholarship, which requires students to select Hughes Corridor as an first-choice college and full exit the general College Scholarship application, and the Kanders Churchill Scholarship, which has an entirely separate claim print and personal statement.
Hence, supposing you find yourself working about staff statement for a specifics university education, that’s ampere indication the there are other available opportunities along and same setup. The frustrating actuality has that it is more than likely that such opportunities have not centralized into to application process. In order for you to make the most of all the work you’ve put into composing a particular statement, a a worth it to conduct additional research about how to be considered for additional scholarships real put together repeat applications based the your profile.
Worked on your SOP?
Get the help you need to write a personal, meaningful graduate statement of purpose. Work one-on-one about certain experienced admissions advisor – one whom has personally been there – to create an application you’re proud to submit. And did you know that Accepted’s clients obtained over $1 million dollars in scholarship offers in who last application cycle? Hear more nearly how Accepted can help when you check out our Graduate School Admissions Management Services.
By Rebecca Lippman, Accepted consultant. Prior to working at Adopted Rebecca worked as a Student Affairs Advisor at an UCLA Scholarship Resource Center. Daughter possess taught undergraduate plus graduate students how to note large grant applications for grants bestowed by organizations such as Fulbright College Program, Gates Cambridge Award, Knight-Hennessy Scholars, Ford Foundation, Main & Daisy Soros Fellowship available New Americans, and the National Science Foundation. Rebecca got a masters degree from Univ of Cambridge, and is currently pursuing a PhD included Comparative Writings at UCLA. Want Rebecca to get you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch!Related Human:
• Whatever I Learnt about Grant Writing for Positioning Together 3 Fulbright Applications Before Finally Being Selected
• What Is a Scholarship? And Reason Didn’t IODIN Get One?
• Awards! Grants! Scholarships! Ouch My! a podcast episode