So, I have officially turned in my application to Penn State Harrisburg's Master's Program in Community Psychology and Social Change....
Exhale.
Now, I have to a) figure out if that's what I want to do. b) find out if I get in
I figure, I spent a lot of time and effort putting this admissions essay together and someone should see it other than the admissions officers at Penn State....so here it is.
Knock yourself out.
Please take two to six double-spaced pages to answer the following question: C. Wright Mills wrote, "The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals....The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. That is its task and its promise. To recognize this task and this promise is the mark of the classic social analyst...."
Discuss the intersection of your biography with history and society. How have the society and the times in which you live helped to shape who you are? What do you hope to accomplish in life? How do you think our graduate program will help you to reach your goals.
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There is a village in the Andes Mountains where the Quechua people have lived for thousands of years. Due to elevation, they struggle to find food that nourishes their bodies and don’t have access to many of the things that we consider necessary for everyday life. - There is a community at the base of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines that was destroyed in 1991 when the volcano erupted. Any livelihood that the people had was stripped from them with the deposit of tons of ash on their homes, their crops and their entire community. - There is a slum outside of Nairobi, Kenya, where there are children who are raising their siblings after their parent’s deaths. Often times, these women find it difficult to feed their families and they struggle with the harsh living conditions of the slums. In each of these places life exists in some of the direst of circumstances, but life does exist. And in each of these places, new life is constantly being brought forth, and these villages continue to raise their children.
I have been raised by many villages. As I look back on the twists and turns of the journey I have made thus far, I see dozens of people from each of my villages, still urging me onward. From my family- my brothers, parents, and precious little sister- to the people who endured my coming of age as an adolescent, to those who taught me what it was like to be a role model, and to those who opened my eyes to villages and cities unknown to me before. I see them and I know that it is their villages that have prepared me for the big city I am in now and any village I can help foster in the future.
From the day I was born I have been part of a magnificent village. As I greeted my sister in to the world, or argued my way through adolescence with my brothers, this village was magnificent. I am the third of four children. My parents first put down the roots of our family in the same place they themselves had always been rooted, Illinois. We lived a simple, yet privileged life as white, middle class Americans. I lived in a home, in a safe neighborhood surrounded by the best playmates a girl could ask for. Our family always had one car, which meant we didn’t go on extravagant adventures while my dad was at work. Instead, we stayed in the neighborhood, creating our own extravagant adventures from our imaginations. When I was 8, this village was uprooted and moved to Colorado.
With this move, a new village was thrust upon me. Coming from the Chicago suburbs, this new village looked different to me. This village was made of people who were all of the same color and my new friends in this village lived in houses more than twice the size of my family’s home. With time, I put down roots. As an adolescent, I especially rooted myself in a group of friends from church. These friends quickly became everything to me. As crushes, friendships, first kisses and first loves flourished, this village stood strong. Then, as life quickly moved on from the extravagant adventures of my childhood, entering a time when death, loss and heartbreak abounded, these villagers stood near.
As I packed up my things to head to college, this community had begun to crumble under stress and grief. My second year of college I became a Resident Assistant in the hope of finding a community to be a part of on campus. Yet it was not until a group of women arrived that I found what I was looking for. My second year as an RA I was placed on an all women’s floor and from the beginning it was clear to me that I was not there to simply be a part of this community; I was needed to cultivate it. Through the year these women battled conflict, death, trips to the hospital, eating disorders, self mutilation, sexual assault and bi-polar disorder. And I, as their fortunate leader, had the privilege to support them and empower them.
Taking my own next step forward, September 2007 I left for Prague, Czech Republic for a semester abroad. Suddenly I was far from what had been familiar to me, learning new culture and customs. While abroad, I was able to see what villages in Poland, Hungary, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands looked like. From my history and government classes at school and each of the people I met, I learned of new foreign villages and how they differed from my own. I took in every experience and tried integrate it into myself, creating a person who has understanding for the way different villages operate and how their villagers feel about that.
Each one of these villages I have been a part of has taught me much and has created the person I am today. But there is more to be considered of these villages than just their existence; their context is a vital part of their influence on my life. I grew up as a white, middle class American, which means my life came laced with privilege. I always attended public schools, in districts that consistently scored high on standardized tests. I was born in the 1980s, and the America remembered from my childhood was a stable one. Though, if there was anything more stable it was my family. Through the span of my life my family has stayed intact, and my parents have always had a loving, supportive relationship. The context in which I grew up gave me many opportunities that I may not have had otherwise.
Growing up Catholic was a crucial part of my development as well. During adolescence, such a critical developmental stage, my church community was there for me. From this context, I learned the respect for the dignity of fellow humans and I gained a passion for social justice. Since, service and outreach have been a part of the life that I learned to live. I went on my first service trip when I was 16, leading me to where I am now, a full time volunteer in New York City working at a Fair Trade organization.
In college, being an RA took me places I never dreamt it would. I was challenged far beyond what I thought were my limitations. I learned that I was capable of cultivating community and helping others to build healthy relationships. My community in Residence Life, by teaching me to be more aware of diversity and privilege, broadened my horizons.
Then, there was my semester abroad- I worked very hard to make this semester happen, both financially and academically. While in Prague, I worked hard to comprehend the culture I existed in. I was living in a post-communist nation, which had social implications unlike I had ever observed before. The people I met in my travels and the classes I took taught me about worlds and about contexts that I never knew existed before. To each person, each city, each country I visited I learned there was a context, a community.
During my undergraduate career, I chose to be a part of a Bachelor of Science psychology program. This was a difficult decision for me to make, knowing that I was not naturally a science inclined person. I struggled through classes such as Physiology and Statistics for Behavioral Sciences, yet I learned much. Most of my psychology and many of the political sciences classes I took were based on an application of what I had learned; while science based classes were rote memorization. My grades, nonetheless, do not reflect my interest and attempt at a new learning style. During my struggles in these classes I found that though I was not accustomed to learning in this way, the material was interesting. Often, I still find myself applying it in my life. Looking back, I am happy with my decision to participate in a Bachelors of Science psychology program. I have found that it gave me a rounded education and helped me to develop skills I wouldn’t have naturally developed.
To me, life is not only about enjoying this world, but ensuring that others are able to do the same. I feel a strong sense of responsibility toward the world’s marginalized populations, but my goal is simple. My goal is to give a voice to those who have been rendered voiceless- to empower them. What I am going to do, and what this Community Psychology and Social Change program could help me do, is to work with these villages, learning together how to create a context where people can thrive. I hope to work in a humanitarian setting, emphasizing the importance for mental health care in our world’s communities. The time has passed when we can make separate attempts at solving our world’s problems by only addressing physical health or economic conditions. Many within the United Nations and associated NGOs are calling for the integration of mental health into humanitarian and post-conflict development plans. I hope to work within this cause of integrating mental health into a public health setting, to care for our people more effectively. I come from a science based psychology background. Now, I want to incorporate this background, gaining the necessary further education to work towards my goal. This Community Psychology and Social Change program is ideal for that. I have not applied to other graduate programs, not because I have not explored them, but because from what I have found, they would not serve me in the way this program would. By learning to assess problems at the level of communities, I will be more prepared to collaborate with community members to understand, reduce and one day, prevent the vast social problems enabling poverty, violence, cultural conflict and infectious disease. It may sound ambitious of me, but I am going to change the world, if only through they eyes of one village.
To the women in the Andes Mountains, to the families in the Philippines, and to the orphaned children living in the slums of Nairobi, there is a context, a community, a village. It is their villages that have enabled and created them, just as it is the communities I have been a part of that have enabled and created me. The sociological imagination that C. Wright Mills speaks of truly allows us to look at each of these communities and situations, relating the history and the individual together, rather than as separate entities entirely. The proverbial “village” is not only what raises us, but what gives us our context, our understanding and our opportunities. From the communities I have come from, and the community I hope to create within this program, I will be able to take this understanding and apply it, giving others the opportunities they deserve.
