Berkeley's Personal History Statement

[oooeee]

I know this has been mentioned before, but is anyone else struggling with this one?

Please describe how your personal background informs yourdecision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include information on how youhave overcome barriers to access opportunities in higher education, evidence ofhow you have come to understand the barriers faced by others, evidence of youracademic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women,racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have beenhistorically underrepresented in higher education, evidence of your researchfocusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality, orevidence of your leadership among such groups.

Why the huge focus on others' access to higher education? I understand you are not expected to address every one of the subquestions, but this prompt is frustratingly specific!

[omega]

i am having the same problem, bro. I will simply igore others' part and focus on myself.

[augustquail]

I'm having a lot of difficulty as well. I've tried several different approaches, and the best one focuses on a hardship that isn't really listed in the prompt. Also, I can't really tie it to why I'm pursuing a ph.d...I mean, there are so many ways to answer the question, 'why do you want to get a ph.d. in ____ field?' and it's difficult to tie them directly to having a hardship in your life. How are you guys coming along with this?

[was1984]

This question is really frustrating to me. I understand that it's really just a diversity statement, and I'm not diverse in the way that it's currently politically correct to be diverse, so I wish I could just ignore it.

That said, I'm planning to discuss how my family brought me up understanding how important education is. I'll talk about how my mom teaches at a Title I (economically disadvantaged) school and how my dad valued his own education so much that he worked full time to pay for it while he attended. I'm also going to mention some of the financial hardships I had in school that caused me to have to work for a large portion of my degree. Beyond this, I don't really know what to say about it. My research topics aren't exactly relevant to improving education for minorities, so I can't go anywhere near that.

[cheshirey]

Yeah I'm having some trouble with this one too. Having a lot of friends that go to Berkeley, I know they really value diversity (I know that's a obvious statement). I'm half Bolivian and half Irish so I will talk about that a little but moreso in terms of how I relate to those around me. I'm applying for Ethnomusicology though so it's VERY important that I talk about the importance of diversity on a school campus.

Try to highlight how you are diverse and what kind of original personality (if not heritage), ideas or attitudes you will bring to the school.

[anonacademic]

I don't have too much to add, but I have to ask whoever gave everyone above me -1, why? (I gave you all +1s, not that it matters, but the negatives simply weren't warranted!)

I assume you all have seen the sample essay posted on the Berkeley website? I'd look into the footnotes and see what that adcomm member liked about her essay - even if you're not in the same situation, the footnotes might give you some hints on how to tackle the question. Good luck!

[dantete]

i thought this was odd too.

i come from a diverse background, and obviously i value it, but what if i were from a very well-off, homogenous background and i'm interested in studying something pretty neutral but am passionate about what i hope to study and plan to teach? does the diversity prompt somehow blend into an issue of morality for the school/adcomm?

also, what kind of academic service would most people have done in terms of advancing "equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education"?

do i mention non-academic activist "activity"? memberships? or just stick to coursework, and a personal "i'm female and white/af-am mixed and needed a ton of financial aid to go to college" story?

thoroughly confused as well.

[dantete]

was1984, i think your approach is great. having barriers to education can come in so many forms, and what you describe above perfectly illustrates that...the discussion of your family's commitment to education has to be a great addition to this section as well.

Edited November 20, 2010 by dantete

[truckbasket]

Hey,

How much are people writing for this thing? I think I hit about 600 words for that Statement of Purpose thing they want and was thinking about doing the same for this.

What I'm not too stoked on re: this prompt is that much of my "model" SOP that I'm using for other places has to get cut out just to talk about background etc.

I have enough diversity stuff I can play up, but still... awkward essay.

T. Basket

[3fast3furious]

bump. i am having a similar difficulty as everyone else. how did you guys end up approaching this essay?