Hello all,
Ill be blunt, in addition to a Statement of Purpose I am also required to write a personal history and diversity statement. I like how my SOP is turning out but have no clue how to write the diversity statement. Ill include the prompt. Looking for advice on the content. I am in a minority group for Graduate studies so do have some things to talk about.
Prompt: The University of California Davis, a public institution, is committed to supporting the diversity of the graduate student body and promoting equal opportunity in higher education. This commitment furthers the educational mission to serve the increasingly diverse population and educational needs of California and the nation. Both the Vice Provost of Graduate Education/Dean of Graduate Studies and the University of California affirm that diversity is critical to promoting lively intellectual exchange and the variety of ideas and perspectives essential to advancing higher education and research. Our graduate students contribute to the global pool of future scholars and academic leaders, thus high value is placed on achieving a diverse graduate student body to support the University of California’s academic excellence. We invite you to include in this statement how you may contribute to the diversification of graduate education and the UC Davis community.
The purpose of this essay is to get to know you as an individual and potential graduate student. Please describe how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. You may include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, community service, outreach activities, residency and citizenship, first-generation college status, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how your life experiences contribute to the social, intellectual, or cultural diversity within a campus community and your chosen field; or how you might serve educationally underrepresented and underserved segments of society with your graduate education.
This essay should complement but not duplicate the content in the Statement of Purpose.
Essay:
Personal History and Diversity Statement
Growing up in a sheltered Salvadoran household, I wasn’t aware of the civil war that caused my family to move to the USA until my teenage years. It was never talked about from my parents and I didn’t learn much detail about it until I took a few elective Latin American courses during my undergraduate degree at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB). It was a way to be more in tune with my family and cultural background. The civil war in the 80’s brought the creation of the MS-13 gang which has given El Salvador (ES) a reputation of violence, danger, and murder capital of the world a few times. Nowadays ES seems to be gaining international recognition as being the first country to adopt bitcoin as a legal currency and the topic of bitcoin has become a staple conversation topic in my Spanish speaking home. At first it was a bit strange as bitcoin and crypto has historically been popular by technology and Silicon Valley type groups, and to see it now casually be talked about amongst my rural Central American parents and family has been a unique experience.
I was the first to go to college in pursuit of higher education despite being the youngest and only boy in a family 4, having age gaps of 9, 14, and 17 between my older sisters. As a first-generation college student, I set out my college career at Santa Monica College (SMC) due to community college being more affordable and less of a burden financially for me and my family. I originally set out to study Economics and Accounting. It wasn’t until my last semester at SMC that I took my first course in statistics as part of a transfer agreement between CA community colleges and the UC System. Once I transferred to UC Santa Barbara, I once again took an upper division course in statistics aimed for Economics majors and again finished very strong in the course. After my first full quarter at UCSB and getting a true sense of Economics and Accounting, I decided to switch officially to Statistics as it was something, I had developed a passion for.
During my undergrad, in order to feel more connected to my background, I joined a student organization “The Latino Business Association” which worked to promote the Latino student community across professional, community, and social events. One of the many community service events I attended was tutoring students in Mathematics in middle school that had a high population of minority groups. This event in particular provided a sense of cultural inclusion.
The UCSB Latino Business Association was affiliated with the Santa Barbara Hispanic Chamber of commerce and gave me the chance to also attend professional events and conferences. I participated in many professional events, fundraising, community services, and social events which eventually helped to build my professional network.
My Motivation for pursuing graduate school for better career opportunities was inspired by my upbringing. I remember my mother taking me with her when she went to work when I was young. She worked as a housekeeper for the same family for over 15 years, and they had known her as Carmen during that time. Her name wasn’t Carmen, her real name was Maria and at the time she was undocumented and feared deportation until she finally became a US Citizen in the late 90’s.
My summers where spent in Malibu, California sitting in a very nice living room overlooking the ocean watching cartoons while my mother worked cleaning the house. I would say that many years later, I still look back to this experience as inspiration for being able to improve myself and my family by moving up in the socio-economic ladder.
I didn’t fully understand the depth of this experience until later in life as I was able to see with my own eyes the stark contrast between how people lived from a multimillion house in a Malibu hill, to then riding in the Los Angeles metro system and looking out the window. And often times be able to tune into two different worlds as a bilingual in Spanish and English
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