Hello everyone,
I need some advice/suggestions. I am applying for Masters/Ph.D. programs in History. I have everything done except for the statement of purpose (I wrote what the website says about it below), and I honestly have no idea where to even begin to write this. I already have a master’s degree in social work, and although social work is a great profession, it is not for me. I am not sure how to talk about that. Is it worth hiring someone to help me with the statement? To be honest I am freaking out because I want to get in someone, but it all feels very overwhelming and unreachable right now. Any advice/help would be great. I have read sample statements, but I still don’t even know how to set it up.
Here is what the website wrote about what to include in the statement of purpose:
The Statement of Purpose explains your reasons for graduate study. This 2-3 page document is the hardest part of the application to write. While it will likely include some autobiographical information, its primary purpose is to acquaint us with how your mind works. We want to know, for example, what kinds of intellectual problems and issues interest you, whose stories intrigue you, what sorts of analytical or narrative approaches you like to pursue, which historical writings you admire—and your reasons for these various preferences. Please help us understand your decision to enter the historical profession and how you see your own role in it.
Don’t hire anyone to help you with the statement of purpose; it’s unlikely they’re going to say anything that you can’t get with free help - on the Internet, or through the advice of a close professor or advisor.
Generally speaking, the statement of purpose for a doctoral program is structured like this:
Give a little bit of backstory about how you got interested in a PhD in history and some indication of your preparation for doctoral study in the field, including some things about you that might make you uniquely qualified for this program. Here is where you might begin to give hints about the intellectual problems and issues that interest you and the historical writings you admire, through a short discussion of the classes you took and enjoyed and why you did so. The idea is to make it look like your college career was a neat progression to the interests you have now, even if that isn’t true.
Discuss your current scholarly interests, the work you want to do as a doctoral student and beyond. Here is the meat - this is where you will answer those questions in the statement. This part is easy and hard. It’s easy because you obviously have some kind of passion for a historical period or subject or approach (or all three), because if you didn’t you wouldn’t be applying to spend 8 years making less than $30K per year to read books and do research for 60 hours a week (right?) It’s hard mostly because you want to get the wording right and get the section to a reasonable length. Luckily you don’t have to worry about that in your first draft.
Relate your current interests and approaches to the department - also called the “tailoring” section. This is where you tell the department exactly why you want to attend Department X but also why they should accept you. It’s because your interest in Subject B is exactly aligned with Professor B’s interests, but you could also learn from Professors A and C; because the University of Awesome has Archive U that’s really relevant to your research; because the university has great resources in Indic languages which is necessary for your research…whatever the case may be. Here you show that you’ve done some background research on the university and the department and where you demonstrate your fit with the department. Make them want you.
This section is a brief statement of the kind of work you’d want to do in the future with your PhD in history. For history for a lot of programs the only acceptable answer is as a university professor, but you can be a little more specific and outline the kind of work you want to do and the impact you want it to have on the field. This section should be short.
Generally #2 and #3 will be the longest sections, with #1 being a bit shorter and #4 being very short (like a paragraph).
If you have no idea where to start, the first thing you need to do is freewrite. Spend a couple minutes taking some deep breaths; do whatever’s necessary to release some inhibitions (go for a run, work out, have a beverage, whatever). Then Just Write. Pay no attention to form or function or length or even to spelling and grammar - let your mind run free and write exactly why you love history, what you love about it, what you would study in your dreams, what you want in a university, aspects of what about the different programs you’re applying to call out to you - basically, anything, as long as you’re focused on the scholarly aspects of it. If you feel yourself starting to think too hard or edit or rearrrange sections, stop, take some more deep breaths and dive in again. This is best done all in one session of writing, but if you have to come back to it again later make sure that you leave yourself some notes about where you were the last time so you can pick up where you left off (park on the downhill slope, if you will).
After you’ve got those raw thoughts out on paper, then you can edit and revise to turn the statement from an uncollected mess of thoughts into something resembling a statement with a structure, and then into your final statement. It will take several iterations. But don’t think you’re just going to jump into this and write a perfect sparkling statement with one run-through and a couple minor edits - that’s not how this works (and that’s not how it will work from here on out if you get into a PhD program! :D) You have to start somewhere.
Also, I am compelled to warn you that the academic job market in history is TERRIBLE, there are not many tenure-track jobs, and odds are you will end up doing something else entirely with your PhD in history. If you haven’t already, do an Internet search, or I can explain more here if you want (but I have mentioned this before if you search the forums).