What do YOU think?: a very rough draft
Personal Statement:
Application for Archeology for Screen Media, University of Bristol
Perhaps some would suggest that admitting one is “wishy washy” in ones graduate school application is unwise. Perhaps they are right. But I am the first to admit that my career has been “wishy washy”. For at least the last 8 years I have vacillated between the realm of science and that of communication. I was romanced by Mendel’s bean plants and seduced by Greek tragedy. I was lured high into the trees to examine the behavior of ateles chamek (black-faced spider monkeys) and pulled to my computer to create an environmental magazine that inspires my region to advocate for the earth. My poetry is about bones; my research in ice age mammals was written to entertain. I can’t help it, I am torn between to seemingly different worlds.
Traditionally science and the arts occupied separated universities. With the rise of Liberal arts education in the United States they shared a campus but not a building. At many of these schools, especially my Alma Mater, trekking from building to building was encouraged but few take the opportunity. A lone voice for biological determinism in a drama class meets with hissing (I have experience it) and advocating for aestheticism in a laboratory incites eye rolling. But do they need to be so polarized? David Attenburough certainly gives poetry to the flight of the albatross and beautiful writers such as Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Brautigan infuse their fiction with glorious descriptions of moth pheromones and human dissections.
There is a path where the beauty and influence of communication and the empirical rigor of science coexist, I just needed to stop trying to decided which one to choose in order to see that I can do both.
I believe that my greatest asset to help further the enterprise of science, is my utter fascination with it. I hope to communicate that enthusiasm though modern and traditional forms of media to a larger and equally rapt audience. My experience as a team member on a professional study in primatology, gave me such admiration for the individuals who practice science. But in the Amazon, at the end of a 13-hour day, when I crawled back into my tent scratched and muddy, all I could think about was writing that letter to my friends and family about our discoveries. My place is to watch these teams with a trained and experience eye and then translate their findings to the public.
One step towards that end has been my work with a small but influential environmental non-profit. Hired as a secretary, I soon found an empty niche in the organization’s marketing and communications sector. The dedicated staff had put so much heart and soul into their work on environmental policy, education and monitoring but were virtually unknown outside the environmental circle. Over the last two years I have been driven to transform our communication methods. I was given editorship of our bi-monthly publication and turned it from a black and white pamphlet to a full color magazine, widely circulated. I taught myself how to use publishing and design programs to redesign all our marketing materials. The organization has emerged as a regional name and even been featured in a national magazine.
Popular culture in the United State does not currently hold science in very high regard. Because of this I often found many museum studies programs marginalized and Anthropology to insular. The Archeology for screen media program at Bristol stands out as uniquely sharing my values to educate a wide audience about their cultural and biological heritage and share with them the fruits of science. I hope to join a community of people who do not feel that one must hop the divide between the two subjects but inhabit the border they share.
Application for Archeology for Screen Media, University of Bristol
Perhaps some would suggest that admitting one is “wishy washy” in ones graduate school application is unwise. Perhaps they are right. But I am the first to admit that my career has been “wishy washy”. For at least the last 8 years I have vacillated between the realm of science and that of communication. I was romanced by Mendel’s bean plants and seduced by Greek tragedy. I was lured high into the trees to examine the behavior of ateles chamek (black-faced spider monkeys) and pulled to my computer to create an environmental magazine that inspires my region to advocate for the earth. My poetry is about bones; my research in ice age mammals was written to entertain. I can’t help it, I am torn between to seemingly different worlds.
Traditionally science and the arts occupied separated universities. With the rise of Liberal arts education in the United States they shared a campus but not a building. At many of these schools, especially my Alma Mater, trekking from building to building was encouraged but few take the opportunity. A lone voice for biological determinism in a drama class meets with hissing (I have experience it) and advocating for aestheticism in a laboratory incites eye rolling. But do they need to be so polarized? David Attenburough certainly gives poetry to the flight of the albatross and beautiful writers such as Barbara Kingsolver and Richard Brautigan infuse their fiction with glorious descriptions of moth pheromones and human dissections.
There is a path where the beauty and influence of communication and the empirical rigor of science coexist, I just needed to stop trying to decided which one to choose in order to see that I can do both.
I believe that my greatest asset to help further the enterprise of science, is my utter fascination with it. I hope to communicate that enthusiasm though modern and traditional forms of media to a larger and equally rapt audience. My experience as a team member on a professional study in primatology, gave me such admiration for the individuals who practice science. But in the Amazon, at the end of a 13-hour day, when I crawled back into my tent scratched and muddy, all I could think about was writing that letter to my friends and family about our discoveries. My place is to watch these teams with a trained and experience eye and then translate their findings to the public.
One step towards that end has been my work with a small but influential environmental non-profit. Hired as a secretary, I soon found an empty niche in the organization’s marketing and communications sector. The dedicated staff had put so much heart and soul into their work on environmental policy, education and monitoring but were virtually unknown outside the environmental circle. Over the last two years I have been driven to transform our communication methods. I was given editorship of our bi-monthly publication and turned it from a black and white pamphlet to a full color magazine, widely circulated. I taught myself how to use publishing and design programs to redesign all our marketing materials. The organization has emerged as a regional name and even been featured in a national magazine.
Popular culture in the United State does not currently hold science in very high regard. Because of this I often found many museum studies programs marginalized and Anthropology to insular. The Archeology for screen media program at Bristol stands out as uniquely sharing my values to educate a wide audience about their cultural and biological heritage and share with them the fruits of science. I hope to join a community of people who do not feel that one must hop the divide between the two subjects but inhabit the border they share.