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.
18 March 2009
15 March 2009
United Nations: 53rd Session of the CSW
I must say, the Rose Reading Room at the New York Public Library is probably the grandest place I’ve ever composed anything and really, it happened by accident. Beginning my second week at the UN Commission on the Status of Women, the session I had planned on attending was canceled, so I headed to the nearest place I know where I can sit, yet don’t have to purchase anything, the library.
It is a majestic oasis here in the city. While most of its surroundings here in midtown are steel buildings reaching far into the clouds, the library seems content existing in its 2 story stone splendor.
But I digress…
As I said, I have spent the last week at the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations. It has truly been an opportunity I feel so amazingly privileged to be a part of. From the moment I stepped inside last Monday it was clear this was going to be an experience unlike any. I was suddenly surrounded by some of the most powerful women in the world. Now these women are not presidents, or secretaries of state or queens, yet they are powerful. They are powerful beyond politics, they are powerful in heart, in spirit, in mind. They are powerful in diversity. They are from all over the globe: Zimbabwe, Taiwan, Norway, Chile, Rwanda and so on. From the first moment I stepped in and joined the company of these women, it was clear how large their shadows, and their impacts are on the world.
The first session I went to was on preventing gender based violence. We listened briefly, and then split up into discussion groups to tackle the first question, “ What is the biggest issue concerning violence against women in your country and what legislation has been enacted to combat it?” Discussion went around the group from the executive director of a Canadian advocacy group to the tribal leader of a village of Nigeria, each with an eloquent statement of the vast challenges of gender based violence and attempts at quelling it. Then it got to me—and I couldn’t string two words together, let alone a sentence, and hell if I know anything about specific gender based violence legislation. I’m a full time volunteer at a Fair Trade organization for God’s sake!!, but I want to learn!! So I sat, listened and tried to take in as much as I could while feeling like an overwhelmed child in the company of so much experience and knowledge.
The week, or more accurately, my self confidence, got better. By Thursday I knew my way around and wasn’t feeling like a wide eyed child anymore. My first session this day was. “Mental Health & Psychosocial Consequences of HIV/AIDS for Women,” put on by the NGO Committee on Mental Health. I sat, listening intently as three highly experienced professional women called for mental health workers in a humanitarian context and an integration of public health and mental health programs. In my head, I am thinking, “this is me! This is what I want to do!!” Now, this is no surprise, this realization, its what I have been working toward for a while now, but the certainty, the passion I felt, for that hour and a half. I knew I was EXACTLY where I belonged. And towards the end of the presentation when a woman sitting across the aisle from me stood up to thank the presenters, tears began to roll down my face. She explained, crying herself, that she is a Ugandan woman who is HIV+ and her 19-year-old daughter is failing out of school due to the mental health consequences of the disease. She told us that her husband had died from the disease in 1994 but that her family has suffered most, not from the physical ailment, but the psychological ones. As she spoke, I cried. This is what I am to do; I am to help alleviate the suffering of those already suffering from so much. That, I can do.
But the day didn’t end there. After a brief break with enough time for lunch a and chat with my mom, I headed over to my next session, “Empowering Women Through Life Choices.” I expected this to be a session helping us, those who work with women, to learn to empower them. In the end, it was more of a motivational speaker. She was a cognitive behavioral therapist, who specialized in addiction and her general opinion was that we as humans can “make the best” out of any circumstances, if we so choose. They key, in her pep talk was the choosing. As she spoke of simple psychology principles, I began to take a closer look at her message (since I do, after all, have a degree in the field.) Now, don’t misunderstand me, I fully support these messages of choice that she was sending, but it seemed to me that something was missing. One anecdote she gave was the story of her 10-year-old daughter. Her daughter wanted to go on a school trip that was going to cost about $200 and after talking it over she and her husband decided that they could not afford this. Their daughter spent and evening baking cookies, the next day filled a wagon and walked the streets of her neighborhood selling cookies, raising the money herself. She was empowered. This is a wonderful anecdote, but what if, when she went home, there had not been the ingredients for cookies, or the money to buy them? What if she had not had a wagon to tote them around or neighbors who could afford to buy them or a safe street to walk on? There are women all over the world who don’t have money to feed their family, let alone bake cookies. There are women living in slums, surrounded by other people as poor as they. There are women and children all over, even here in the US, that couldn’t walk down the street and be safe from violence. How do I empower THOSE women? The ones without resources? Those women did not CHOOSE the circumstances in which they exist. Can we really tell them this is about their CHOICE? When I asked the presenter this, she told me, “Even in the most terrible of circumstances, the concentration camps and in the holocaust there were people who chose to be empowered.”
Hm. Well I am glad she read The Diary of Anne Frank, but I wish she remembered that Anne died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945. I want to try and preserve both body and spirit. And though Anne’s story is the one that we like to hear, there are millions of other stories. I want to know how to empower THEM.
Strangely, the empowering thing to me about he session had less to do with choices and more to do with the critical thinking I was able to engage in. I was thankful that due to the fact I already was familiar with the psychological mumbo jumbo she was rattling off, I could critically look at what she was saying and apply it to a worldview, not just a limited ethnocentric view like she was giving. It was good to know my capabilities.
And the week continued as such, with sessions on post conflict community building and pornography and patriarchy. I met, listened to and mingled with some of the most educated, experienced individuals I’d ever met. I made connections, I assured passions, I opened my eyes and more importantly, my ears to the women and the men of the world. I found what they had to say heartbreaking, painful, powerful, astounding…but mostly, I found it hopeful. I find it hopeful that Rwanda, a country only 15 years removed from one of the most horrific genocides we have seen, leading the world with 56% of its parliament women. I found it hopeful to see so many women coming together and having conversations that 10 years ago, 5 years ago would not have been happening. I saw progress and I was honored to be a part of it.
It is a majestic oasis here in the city. While most of its surroundings here in midtown are steel buildings reaching far into the clouds, the library seems content existing in its 2 story stone splendor.
But I digress…
As I said, I have spent the last week at the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations. It has truly been an opportunity I feel so amazingly privileged to be a part of. From the moment I stepped inside last Monday it was clear this was going to be an experience unlike any. I was suddenly surrounded by some of the most powerful women in the world. Now these women are not presidents, or secretaries of state or queens, yet they are powerful. They are powerful beyond politics, they are powerful in heart, in spirit, in mind. They are powerful in diversity. They are from all over the globe: Zimbabwe, Taiwan, Norway, Chile, Rwanda and so on. From the first moment I stepped in and joined the company of these women, it was clear how large their shadows, and their impacts are on the world.
The first session I went to was on preventing gender based violence. We listened briefly, and then split up into discussion groups to tackle the first question, “ What is the biggest issue concerning violence against women in your country and what legislation has been enacted to combat it?” Discussion went around the group from the executive director of a Canadian advocacy group to the tribal leader of a village of Nigeria, each with an eloquent statement of the vast challenges of gender based violence and attempts at quelling it. Then it got to me—and I couldn’t string two words together, let alone a sentence, and hell if I know anything about specific gender based violence legislation. I’m a full time volunteer at a Fair Trade organization for God’s sake!!, but I want to learn!! So I sat, listened and tried to take in as much as I could while feeling like an overwhelmed child in the company of so much experience and knowledge.
The week, or more accurately, my self confidence, got better. By Thursday I knew my way around and wasn’t feeling like a wide eyed child anymore. My first session this day was. “Mental Health & Psychosocial Consequences of HIV/AIDS for Women,” put on by the NGO Committee on Mental Health. I sat, listening intently as three highly experienced professional women called for mental health workers in a humanitarian context and an integration of public health and mental health programs. In my head, I am thinking, “this is me! This is what I want to do!!” Now, this is no surprise, this realization, its what I have been working toward for a while now, but the certainty, the passion I felt, for that hour and a half. I knew I was EXACTLY where I belonged. And towards the end of the presentation when a woman sitting across the aisle from me stood up to thank the presenters, tears began to roll down my face. She explained, crying herself, that she is a Ugandan woman who is HIV+ and her 19-year-old daughter is failing out of school due to the mental health consequences of the disease. She told us that her husband had died from the disease in 1994 but that her family has suffered most, not from the physical ailment, but the psychological ones. As she spoke, I cried. This is what I am to do; I am to help alleviate the suffering of those already suffering from so much. That, I can do.
But the day didn’t end there. After a brief break with enough time for lunch a and chat with my mom, I headed over to my next session, “Empowering Women Through Life Choices.” I expected this to be a session helping us, those who work with women, to learn to empower them. In the end, it was more of a motivational speaker. She was a cognitive behavioral therapist, who specialized in addiction and her general opinion was that we as humans can “make the best” out of any circumstances, if we so choose. They key, in her pep talk was the choosing. As she spoke of simple psychology principles, I began to take a closer look at her message (since I do, after all, have a degree in the field.) Now, don’t misunderstand me, I fully support these messages of choice that she was sending, but it seemed to me that something was missing. One anecdote she gave was the story of her 10-year-old daughter. Her daughter wanted to go on a school trip that was going to cost about $200 and after talking it over she and her husband decided that they could not afford this. Their daughter spent and evening baking cookies, the next day filled a wagon and walked the streets of her neighborhood selling cookies, raising the money herself. She was empowered. This is a wonderful anecdote, but what if, when she went home, there had not been the ingredients for cookies, or the money to buy them? What if she had not had a wagon to tote them around or neighbors who could afford to buy them or a safe street to walk on? There are women all over the world who don’t have money to feed their family, let alone bake cookies. There are women living in slums, surrounded by other people as poor as they. There are women and children all over, even here in the US, that couldn’t walk down the street and be safe from violence. How do I empower THOSE women? The ones without resources? Those women did not CHOOSE the circumstances in which they exist. Can we really tell them this is about their CHOICE? When I asked the presenter this, she told me, “Even in the most terrible of circumstances, the concentration camps and in the holocaust there were people who chose to be empowered.”
Hm. Well I am glad she read The Diary of Anne Frank, but I wish she remembered that Anne died in Bergen-Belsen in 1945. I want to try and preserve both body and spirit. And though Anne’s story is the one that we like to hear, there are millions of other stories. I want to know how to empower THEM.
Strangely, the empowering thing to me about he session had less to do with choices and more to do with the critical thinking I was able to engage in. I was thankful that due to the fact I already was familiar with the psychological mumbo jumbo she was rattling off, I could critically look at what she was saying and apply it to a worldview, not just a limited ethnocentric view like she was giving. It was good to know my capabilities.
And the week continued as such, with sessions on post conflict community building and pornography and patriarchy. I met, listened to and mingled with some of the most educated, experienced individuals I’d ever met. I made connections, I assured passions, I opened my eyes and more importantly, my ears to the women and the men of the world. I found what they had to say heartbreaking, painful, powerful, astounding…but mostly, I found it hopeful. I find it hopeful that Rwanda, a country only 15 years removed from one of the most horrific genocides we have seen, leading the world with 56% of its parliament women. I found it hopeful to see so many women coming together and having conversations that 10 years ago, 5 years ago would not have been happening. I saw progress and I was honored to be a part of it.
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