Another go at it.....
So friend of friends, can you stand to read this one more time?
Personal Statement:
Application for Archeology for Screen Media, University of Bristol
I was supposed to be taking notes on the monkeys’ proximity to the figs. While my pen recorded the distance, my brain was elsewhere, composing poetry to the towering bibosi tree or story boarding the documentary of our work there in the Bolivian Amazon. Perhaps I should not admit in my graduate school personal statement to being scattered. But this experience is an example of how my studies and interests have been all over the educational map. For the last eight years I have vacillated between the realm of science and that of creative communication. In school, I was romanced by Mendel’s bean plants and seduced by Greek tragedy. My poetry is about bones; my research paper on ice age mammals was written to entertain. I just can’t help it; I am torn between two worlds.
Historically, science and the arts have occupied separate universities. With the rise of liberal arts in the United States, science and the arts came to share a campus but not a building. At my alma mater, trekking from building to building was encouraged but few actually took the opportunity. As a lone voice for biological determinism in drama class I was hissed at and as an advocate for aestheticism in a laboratory I got eye rolling. But do art and science need to be so polarized? Truth and beauty don’t need to cancel each other out. Skillful documentaries certainly make poetry of their subjects and artful writers infuse their prose with glorious descriptions of scientific discovery. There are plenty of examples of those who live in the nexus of the science and arts. They chose a path where the beauty and influence of communication and the empirical rigor of science converge. Far from being “scattered” their broad interests give them a solid base to present information. This is the path I have followed all along but have only recently begun to see it as a potential career.
Science fascinates me. Sharing this enthusiasm with others is my greatest contribution to the field. I hope to communicate that enthusiasm through modern and traditional forms of media to a larger audience. My year in the Bolivian Amazon assisting with a primate study, gave me such admiration for the individuals who practice pure science. But at the end of a 13-hour day, when I crawled back into my tent, scratched and muddy, my mind still raced. It was hard to rest until I could put pen to paper and describe our discoveries in my journal or a letter. My place is watching scientists with a trained eye and then translating their findings in clear language to educate and entertain the public.
I had the chance to do this with the West Michigan Environmental Action Council, a small but influential environmental non-profit. Soon after I returned from Bolivia I was hired as an administrative assistant. I found an empty niche in the organization’s marketing and communications sector. The dedicated staff had put heart and soul into their work on environmental policy, education and monitoring, but were virtually unknown outside the environmental community. Over the last two years I have edited our bi-monthly publication and turned it from a black and white pamphlet to a 12-page full color magazine with a wider circulation. I taught myself how to use publishing and design software and redesigned all our marketing materials. The organization has emerged as a regional name and been featured in Metropolis a national magazine.
Popular culture in the United States does not currently hold science in very high regard. With an Administration that regularly shrugs off fact as “just science” and educated people dismissing global warming and evolution as “another theory”, science is threatened. I think this is partly because it hasn't been presented well. I felt that with my diverse skills I could work towards improving this. When I began researching graduate schools I often found many of their Museum Studies programs marginalized and underfunded and Anthropology too insular, circulating knowledge between experts. The Archeology for Screen Media program at Bristol stands out as a unique program that is exactly what I need gain more technical skill to educate a wide audience about their cultural and biological heritage. I want to share with them the fruits of science and get them as interested in giant sloths and monkey skulls as I am. At the University of Bristol I hope to join a community of people who feel that media is aided by empiricism and that science deserves eloquence.
Personal Statement:
Application for Archeology for Screen Media, University of Bristol
I was supposed to be taking notes on the monkeys’ proximity to the figs. While my pen recorded the distance, my brain was elsewhere, composing poetry to the towering bibosi tree or story boarding the documentary of our work there in the Bolivian Amazon. Perhaps I should not admit in my graduate school personal statement to being scattered. But this experience is an example of how my studies and interests have been all over the educational map. For the last eight years I have vacillated between the realm of science and that of creative communication. In school, I was romanced by Mendel’s bean plants and seduced by Greek tragedy. My poetry is about bones; my research paper on ice age mammals was written to entertain. I just can’t help it; I am torn between two worlds.
Historically, science and the arts have occupied separate universities. With the rise of liberal arts in the United States, science and the arts came to share a campus but not a building. At my alma mater, trekking from building to building was encouraged but few actually took the opportunity. As a lone voice for biological determinism in drama class I was hissed at and as an advocate for aestheticism in a laboratory I got eye rolling. But do art and science need to be so polarized? Truth and beauty don’t need to cancel each other out. Skillful documentaries certainly make poetry of their subjects and artful writers infuse their prose with glorious descriptions of scientific discovery. There are plenty of examples of those who live in the nexus of the science and arts. They chose a path where the beauty and influence of communication and the empirical rigor of science converge. Far from being “scattered” their broad interests give them a solid base to present information. This is the path I have followed all along but have only recently begun to see it as a potential career.
Science fascinates me. Sharing this enthusiasm with others is my greatest contribution to the field. I hope to communicate that enthusiasm through modern and traditional forms of media to a larger audience. My year in the Bolivian Amazon assisting with a primate study, gave me such admiration for the individuals who practice pure science. But at the end of a 13-hour day, when I crawled back into my tent, scratched and muddy, my mind still raced. It was hard to rest until I could put pen to paper and describe our discoveries in my journal or a letter. My place is watching scientists with a trained eye and then translating their findings in clear language to educate and entertain the public.
I had the chance to do this with the West Michigan Environmental Action Council, a small but influential environmental non-profit. Soon after I returned from Bolivia I was hired as an administrative assistant. I found an empty niche in the organization’s marketing and communications sector. The dedicated staff had put heart and soul into their work on environmental policy, education and monitoring, but were virtually unknown outside the environmental community. Over the last two years I have edited our bi-monthly publication and turned it from a black and white pamphlet to a 12-page full color magazine with a wider circulation. I taught myself how to use publishing and design software and redesigned all our marketing materials. The organization has emerged as a regional name and been featured in Metropolis a national magazine.
Popular culture in the United States does not currently hold science in very high regard. With an Administration that regularly shrugs off fact as “just science” and educated people dismissing global warming and evolution as “another theory”, science is threatened. I think this is partly because it hasn't been presented well. I felt that with my diverse skills I could work towards improving this. When I began researching graduate schools I often found many of their Museum Studies programs marginalized and underfunded and Anthropology too insular, circulating knowledge between experts. The Archeology for Screen Media program at Bristol stands out as a unique program that is exactly what I need gain more technical skill to educate a wide audience about their cultural and biological heritage. I want to share with them the fruits of science and get them as interested in giant sloths and monkey skulls as I am. At the University of Bristol I hope to join a community of people who feel that media is aided by empiricism and that science deserves eloquence.