Berkeley's Personal History Statement

[pip]

I see two different personal history statement prompts for Berkeley, one on the department website and the other on the online application. The grad admin hasn't gotten back to me about which to use.

#1, from the dept website:

In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree.

or #2, from the application:

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

The difference for me would be between focusing on "experiences that made my academic journey unconventional" and "experiences that helped me understand barriers faced by others." Has anyone else run into this?

[jacib]

I see two different personal history statement prompts for Berkeley, one on the department website and the other on the online application. The grad admin hasn't gotten back to me about which to use.

#1, from the dept website:

In an essay, discuss how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities relevant to your academic journey; how you might contribute to social or cultural diversity within your chosen field; and/or how you might serve educationally underrepresented segments of society with your degree.

or #2, from the application:

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

The difference for me would be between focusing on "experiences that made my academic journey unconventional" and "experiences that helped me understand barriers faced by others." Has anyone else run into this?

I know! I had a similar question here which wasn't super-well answered in Berkeley lists an example of what they want here, which makes it seem like this is entirely about diversity (check out the offensively patronizing comments on the essay). I'd be curious to know if the department says anything to you. I wrote my Santa Barbara diversity question (where you checked boxes about your eight possible kinds of diversity) about living in (to use their ridiculously term) "bicultural communities" by having had temporary legal residency in several countries.

I don't know, I've actually gotten quite worked about this. It seems like they emphasize any diversity you were born with. I've been working on it in light of reading "The Disadvantages of an Ivy League Education" [discussed so its been tempting to compare it with my life experiences (growing up in a small town, working on a farm where I was the only "college type", punk rock shows as the only places I've seen where high-school drop-outs and people with graduate degrees interact on equal terms) even though none of those have anything to do with my research project.

In your situation, I'd guess unconventional academic journey emphasis with perhaps brief, well-integrated mentions of understanding the struggles others as part of your personal development, mainly because it's supposed to be about you. That is my impression, not some written-in-stone truth.

Edited December 12, 2009 by jacib

[pip]

I know! I had a similar question here which wasn't super-well answered in Berkeley lists an example of what they want here, which makes it seem like this is entirely about diversity (check out the offensively patronizing comments on the essay). I'd be curious to know if the department says anything to you. I wrote my Santa Barbara diversity question (where you checked boxes about your eight possible kinds of diversity) about living in (to use their ridiculously term) "bicultural communities" by having had temporary legal residency in several countries.

I don't know, I've actually gotten quite worked about this. It seems like they emphasize any diversity you were born with. I've been working on it in light of reading "The Disadvantages of an Ivy League Education" [discussed so its been tempting to compare it with my life experiences (growing up in a small town, working on a farm where I was the only "college type", punk rock shows as the only places I've seen where high-school drop-outs and people with graduate degrees interact on equal terms) even though none of those have anything to do with my research project.

In your situation, I'd guess unconventional academic journey emphasis with perhaps brief, well-integrated mentions of understanding the struggles others as part of your personal development, mainly because it's supposed to be about you. That is my impression, not some written-in-stone truth.

I've just read the thread over in the other forum, and it sounds like we're on the same page. I'm writing about my experience of moving frequently with my family across geography and class boundaries, and how it shaped my sense myself as an observer. The whole narrative arc is that going from overstuffed, underfunded public schools in South Central L.A. to all-white private schools later in life gave me an acute awareness of constructions of whiteness and my own privilege, eventually leading me to sociology and to my specific research topic.

What I'm still not sure about is whether this is the place to explain gaps in my transcripts. I gloss over the inconsistencies in my education in my SoP nicely, but I'm dealing with a ten year undergraduate career here, so I was hoping to use the PHS to explain inconsistencies more fully. If using the first essay prompt, they do seem appropriate to discuss; with the second, not so much. So I'm back to your question about how these essays are used by the adcoms. If they are just used for funding decisions based on underrepresentation or recognition of inequality, I don't want to spend much time on the medical issues that kept me in and out of school for years.

Edited to clarify: Any opinions on whether the PHS is the right place to discuss personal challenges (ie: illness), or just challenges based in social/gender/some other inequality?

Edited December 14, 2009 by pip

[jacib]

I've just read the thread over in the other forum, and it sounds like we're on the same page. I'm writing about my experience of moving frequently with my family across geography and class boundaries, and how it shaped my sense myself as an observer. The whole narrative arc is that going from overstuffed, underfunded public schools in South Central L.A. to all-white private schools later in life gave me an acute awareness of constructions of whiteness and my own privilege, eventually leading me to sociology and to my specific research topic.

What I'm still not sure about is whether this is the place to explain gaps in my transcripts. I gloss over the inconsistencies in my education in my SoP nicely, but I'm dealing with a ten year undergraduate career here, so I was hoping to use the PHS to explain inconsistencies more fully. If using the first essay prompt, they do seem appropriate to discuss; with the second, not so much. So I'm back to your question about how these essays are used by the adcoms. If they are just used for funding decisions based on underrepresentation or recognition of inequality, I don't want to spend much time on the medical issues that kept me in and out of school for years.

Edited to clarify: Any opinions on whether the PHS is the right place to discuss personal challenges (ie: illness), or just challenges based in social/gender/some other inequality?

...if you want to do medical sociology or sociology of disability this would be a great place to talk about it!

Seriously I think they want to see challenges and illness is certainly a challenge.

I like the sound of your first essay, it sounds similar to mine... but more interesting. I would say, ten year undergraduate sounds like it ought to be mentioned, and it sounds like there were definitely struggles and obstacles to overcome... but they want to hear about you overcoming, not making excuses, I would say. You could say, "additionally as I teacher, I hope I can work on retaining students in otherwise challenging circumstances. My undergraduate experience was (affected, I wish it was affected) by quality teachers & administrators who encouraged me to stay in." and then talk about that? Again, though, I'm as in the wilderness as you are. But I don't think it would be inappropriate to use this space to talk about all challenges in your life. Emphasize the overcoming, not the challenges though I'd reiterate again. My old man (a sociology professor) went through my SoP and marked all the places I had negative things and told me to restate them positively (mainly about why I switched from religious studies to sociology). I think this is the right place for it, but keep it positive.