UCLA statement of purpose (rough)
Any critiques are welcome, in fact, I'm begging you for them.
I started attending the library when I was six months old. Every Saturday, My mother would load me and the stroller into our 1963 Crysler Newport Custom to make the crawling drive down to old San Francisco Main. There, I would sit for an hour with the other children and hear stories, sing songs, and the usual lap-sit story-time affair. For a while I thought the librarians themselves were skilled story-tellers, weaving tales out of their heads, and using the books only as devices of illustration. I soon learned that it was the books themselves that contained the story, and it wasn’t my mother and the librarians who were the sources of this magic.
About the time I learned what a book was, we started to check them out with this thing called a “library card”. They were emerald green, and I thought they were like the jewels from the fairytales I had heard. We would approach the tall circulation desks at the front of the library. I remember feeling very small in comparison to the towering columns and crown moldings of the building, and the desk itself was twice my height. I insisted on handing the card to the librarian myself, even thought I had to stand on tiptoe to reach.
As the years went by, the desks grew shorter, fairy tales turned into Ayn Rand. In the summer of 2005 I was spending my time in southern California, trying to find my first job. I applied to Target, Rite Aid and Starbucks, but with no avail. My heart just wasn’t in retail. My mother had been tipped off that there was a shelving job at the El Sobrante Public Library. I submitted an application and flew myself back to the bay area for the interview. I explained my love of literature and learning to them, how I saw the library as an outreaching web of communication and information that provided the low income community I lived in with a chance to reach beyond the bounds of classroom education into the realm of self-discovery and study. They took my passion with smiling faces, and a few days later I got the job.
After a while working there, I learned about a few integral strands of the web. I observed the importance of catering to a community of diverse backgrounds. Working in west Contra Costa, I have had the opportunity to serve a wide range of socio-economic milieu, minorities and age groups. I remember one account where a mother brought in her child for a weekend outing to the library. The woman asked that I help her daughter find some books to read. I referred her to our reference librarian, at which the child replied “No! I want you to help me. Please?” I quickly realized that this was a matter of great importance and asked someone to cover for me at the circulation desk. At a slow steady pace, we sifted through the Juvenile section. I would read her the first page out of a book to see if she was interested. If she was, I would have her read the next page back to me to see if it was at her reading level. This ritual carried on for three weeks, until the girl assured me with a big smile, “I think I can do it myself this time”.
UCLA’s department of Library Information science program is dedicated to providing the community with a plethora of options, ranging from outreach to minority groups, digital media preservation and a combination of scholarly and professional philosophies. My work in the Contra Costa Library system, as well as my attendance at Mills College in Oakland, has opened my eyes to the possibilities of a dynamic, multicultural, multidisciplinary community, and I wish to focus what I have learned to provide assistance and self-education to a wide range of peoples in my public service as a Librarian and Information Professional. I believe the merging of my personal goals with UCLA’s directives will make me into a professional of high caliber. I plan to work tirelessly to give my community the resources and help it needs. Together we can, and will, improve the educational standards of California and the U.S.
I started attending the library when I was six months old. Every Saturday, My mother would load me and the stroller into our 1963 Crysler Newport Custom to make the crawling drive down to old San Francisco Main. There, I would sit for an hour with the other children and hear stories, sing songs, and the usual lap-sit story-time affair. For a while I thought the librarians themselves were skilled story-tellers, weaving tales out of their heads, and using the books only as devices of illustration. I soon learned that it was the books themselves that contained the story, and it wasn’t my mother and the librarians who were the sources of this magic.
About the time I learned what a book was, we started to check them out with this thing called a “library card”. They were emerald green, and I thought they were like the jewels from the fairytales I had heard. We would approach the tall circulation desks at the front of the library. I remember feeling very small in comparison to the towering columns and crown moldings of the building, and the desk itself was twice my height. I insisted on handing the card to the librarian myself, even thought I had to stand on tiptoe to reach.
As the years went by, the desks grew shorter, fairy tales turned into Ayn Rand. In the summer of 2005 I was spending my time in southern California, trying to find my first job. I applied to Target, Rite Aid and Starbucks, but with no avail. My heart just wasn’t in retail. My mother had been tipped off that there was a shelving job at the El Sobrante Public Library. I submitted an application and flew myself back to the bay area for the interview. I explained my love of literature and learning to them, how I saw the library as an outreaching web of communication and information that provided the low income community I lived in with a chance to reach beyond the bounds of classroom education into the realm of self-discovery and study. They took my passion with smiling faces, and a few days later I got the job.
After a while working there, I learned about a few integral strands of the web. I observed the importance of catering to a community of diverse backgrounds. Working in west Contra Costa, I have had the opportunity to serve a wide range of socio-economic milieu, minorities and age groups. I remember one account where a mother brought in her child for a weekend outing to the library. The woman asked that I help her daughter find some books to read. I referred her to our reference librarian, at which the child replied “No! I want you to help me. Please?” I quickly realized that this was a matter of great importance and asked someone to cover for me at the circulation desk. At a slow steady pace, we sifted through the Juvenile section. I would read her the first page out of a book to see if she was interested. If she was, I would have her read the next page back to me to see if it was at her reading level. This ritual carried on for three weeks, until the girl assured me with a big smile, “I think I can do it myself this time”.
UCLA’s department of Library Information science program is dedicated to providing the community with a plethora of options, ranging from outreach to minority groups, digital media preservation and a combination of scholarly and professional philosophies. My work in the Contra Costa Library system, as well as my attendance at Mills College in Oakland, has opened my eyes to the possibilities of a dynamic, multicultural, multidisciplinary community, and I wish to focus what I have learned to provide assistance and self-education to a wide range of peoples in my public service as a Librarian and Information Professional. I believe the merging of my personal goals with UCLA’s directives will make me into a professional of high caliber. I plan to work tirelessly to give my community the resources and help it needs. Together we can, and will, improve the educational standards of California and the U.S.