Most everyone is familiar with writing personal statements either for trying to get into undergraduate or graduate school. I am currently working on one for a Masters in Library Science. If I had my druthers, I would just send them this one just as is:
I need a more education. It is as simple as that. I can not get a job at a bookstore, I am close to going to grocery store. Heck, why did I ever leave the Super Duper in Penn Yan, which is pretty much the best that I can hope for. I can�t get a job in Boston that affords me the income to let me live in the Metro area. I am not perpetually moving forward and improving myself, so society is trying to drop me by the wayside. I don�t have the right name on the top of my diploma and my parents don�t know the right people to get me a job. So I need more diplomas.
To be a student I must be indoctrinated with the nonsense of the academic world, and �make a significant contribution to the academic study of (insert academic field name here).� No. To be a teacher, I must be certified and prep children to take standardized test to determine the path of the rest of their lives. I refuse. To take up most professional degrees I must settle into the box and then learn everything that is in said medical or legal box. Maybe law school for fun, later.
David Taus once said something about the oxymoronic condition of the word �student-teacher,� I however, believe in the word. However, I aspire to be not the graduate student in the back that performs lesson plans on Tuesday�s and Thursday�s, but to be a perpetual learner of anything and then being able to assist others in learning. There is some good that can be garnered from the term, �student-teacher.�
I want to be able to help people to learn for themselves. Too much of the world is having to suck it up and deal with things other people shove down your throat. Everyone has to want something, otherwise there is no reason not to just go jump off a bridge and be down with it. Even if all you want is the latest, newest, biggest, and greatest whatever, you would be best served by reading Consumer Reports to find out which is in fact the current retainer of all of those superlatives. Librarians can help you to find such information.
There is more. If, later on in life I want to cave or specialize, I can get masters, JDs and Phds as I choose in various fields and then go work in and manner of special libraries. So maybe I am just hedging my bets until I can get a steady job that does not drive me towards perpetual drinking and depression.
I want to be a librarian.
Maybe I should just move home and take up the wine making trade.
Better yet. France.
Peet
Reading: Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
The Mackerel Plaza by Peter DeVries
Mr. Secretary Walsingham by Conyers Read