jigsawyouth

Just wanted to let people know that my friend received an acceptance to Berkeley for the Medical Anthro track yesterday. Not sure if Medical tends to be earlier, but it shows that decisions have been / are being made at UCB. To my knowledge they were not interviewed.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, great advice all round! I'm currently hoping that I'll be able to pull off the 'well-rounded' angle well enough to mention it briefly, but you've definitely encouraged me to resist making it a substantial feature. Weaving teaching into my research interest certainly seems like the best way to approach it.

Hi All, Long-time lurker here, will be applying for Fall 2015 PhD entry in SocioCult Anthro. I'm currently trying to pin down exactly how best to approach the cursed SOP, and haven't been able to find much info about mentioning one's desire to teach in the all important 'Why a PhD?' part. If I were to be purely and uncynically self-representative in my SOP, a large part would state that I mainly want to pursue a PhD in order to teach at the university level (I've been compiling syllabi for dreamy speculative classes since I was in high school). Having had tutoring and mentoring jobs in the past, I already know that I love to teach, and am extremely excited to find a home in a department that puts emphasis on grad teacher training, TAships and pedagogical methods. From my reading so far, however, it's clear that most departments are primarily looking for exciting researchers, people who will go on to do big things in the field and draw positive attention back to the department they graduated from, and for this reason I'm slightly reticent to devote too much attention to the pedagogical aspect of my future graduate training. So I'd love to hear your opinion, do you think that situating teaching as a primary drive to pursue a PhD could weaken my appearance as a strong and committed researcher? Could it put adcomms off my application if it seems like I might be Devoted, Exciting and Excellent Teacher first, and Profound, Pioneering and Money-making Researcher second?