Letter of Intent - MFA Child Culture Design - University of Gothenburg

children and education

Working with children is always be my pleasure. When I was a child, I want to become a kindergarten teacher. When I grew older, I got captivated in architecture and design but never forget my childhood dream. Interior Architecture program as my previous education can't fulfill my interest in children space. So I consider to pursue higher education in MFA Child Culture Design, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

I always interested in topics and issues about education and children. Eventhough I took my major in Interior Architecture, I always find myself to design about children's space or involve in research about educational space. Together with my lecturers, we conducted research about special needs school. From the research, I acknowledge that my country outnumbered of good design for children, especially space for those who have special needs . When I was becoming committee of architecture student organisation, I created interactive workshops about city and environment for children in elementary school. From those experiences, I got to know how to involve children to share their perspective via media of mapping, drawing, and model making.

Actively volunteered in Kelas Inspirasi, an organisation about kids and education, I always learn new things about how children could have important decision to improve their hometown. I learned a lot from the real situations where elementary school children took their class in remote area. From these experiences, I positioned myself in the middle of community and trying to understand the children's desire of their environment in future vision. Some of activities and workshops held to gather the ideas of improvement in their school or their village. I want to study further about method of collecting children's aspiration and together exercising these practice to get them to the next level of participation.

In the future I wanted to take part in program about Child Friendly City that have launched in my country but facing obstacles in the middle of the proccess. Eventhough local NGO's took an action to accomplish children's involvement in shaping friendly neighbourhood for them, we need more real actions. In 2016, I created a community where children could expressing themself in terms of art and culture. Hopefully it will be develop into a space where children could express themself and actively participate in environmental issues. There are not many expertise in children's space design back in my hometown. I rarely found an example of carefully designed space with the aspiration of young children.

In shaping my focus and interest in children's space and their participation method, I hope to be a designer with strong research skills to meet the requirement of design for children. With my previous research experiences, working skills, voluntary activities and network, pursuing my master degree in MFA Child Culture Design will completing my ambition to make child friendly environment especially in my home country.

Ade, first of all, please format this letter of intent properly. It should be formatted as a letter but written as an essay. The opening salutation of the letter should read "Attention Graduate Selection Committee" before you begin your narrative in the body of the letter. The selection committee members tend to be sticklers for policy so make sure that you follow the proper block letter format for the essay to the letter.

In the first paragraph, specify your program of interest and your related background if any to your chosen course. From the looks of it, you are going to have a problem with this because you seem to have a different college major that you graduated from. No worries though, you should just make sure that you have the activity or experience to back up your desire to enroll on this particular course. Your opening statement doesn't really grab the attention of the reader so you might want to work on that. An anecdote might be the best way to open this letter since it will help establish your background in the field of study you wish to enter.

The second paragraph should address the reason why you believe that you should be admitted to the university. Normally, proving that you have experience or accomplishments in this field. It seems like you have the work experience to relate as a part of your extra curricular activities. So just beef up the presentation of that aspect. Improve the content so that it shows how you are inspired to approach this field in an even better manner after your education is completed.

Don't forget that the letter of intent needs to represent the reasons why you feel that no other university can help you get the education that you require in this field. Connect that with your future plans or post study goals so that it will seem like attending this university is the only way that you can reach those plans of yours.

The essay that you wrote has potential but lacks the proper direction to develop into an interesting letter of intent. Hopefully, the instructions I gave you will help you to better achieve that goal. I look forward to helping you finalize this letter.

Thank youu for your review, it help me a lot because this is my first time writing my letter of intent. I need more critics to upgrade my writing

So here it is my revision

"The roots of our understanding of architecture lie in our childhood, in our youth: they lie in our biography" I just realized this quote by Zumthor when I was working on my research in rural area 3 years ago. I was doing research about vernacular architecture, but trying to get the perspective from children there always be my special experience. Children told more interesting views and hopes about their environment. Interior Architecture as my previous education can not fulfill my interest in children space. Therefore, I believe MFA Child Culture Design , University of Gothenburg is the best major where I could meet other specialist to widen my insight about children's perspective in design. (I add the anecdot, but I don't know it is interesting enough or not)

Eventhough I took my undergraduate in Interior Architecture, I always find myself to design about children's space or involve in research about educational space. Together with my lecturers, we conducted research about special needs school. From the research, I acknowledge that my country outnumbered of good design for children, especially space for those who have special needs . When I was becoming committee of architecture student organisation, I created interactive workshops about city and environment for children in elementary school. From those experiences, I got to know how to involve children to share their perspective via media of mapping, drawing, and model making.

Actively volunteered for about 2 years in Kelas Inspirasi, a national scale organisation about kids and education, I always learn new things about how children could have important decision to improve their hometown. I learned a lot from the real situations where elementary school children took their class in remote area. Aside of that, an NGO where I was working for one and half year gave me a lot of valuable moment to involve children and youth to liven up their city. From these situations, I positioned myself in the middle of community and trying to understand the children's desire of their environment in future vision. Some of activities and workshops held to gather the ideas of improvement in their school or their village. I want to study further about method of collecting children's aspiration and together exercising these practice to get them to the next level of participation. (just add my working experience here but overall is the same with my previous writing)

In the future I wanted to take part in program about Child Friendly City that have launched in my country but facing obstacles in the middle of the process. Eventhough local NGO's took an action to accomplish children's involvement in shaping suitable neighbourhood for them, we need more real actions. In 2016, I created a local community where children could expressing themself in terms of art and culture. This community will be my laboratorium to engage more involvement of children to design better environment for them. Hopefully it will be develop into a space where children could express themself and actively participate in environmental issues.

In shaping my focus and interest in children's space and their participation method, I hope to be a designer with strong research skills to meet the requirement of design for children. With my previous research experiences, working skills, voluntary activities and network, pursuing my master degree in MFA Child Culture Design will completing my ambition to make child-friendly neighbourhood especially in my home country.

Ade, try to combine the first and last paragraph of your essay in order to create a more informative opening statement for your letter. The current opening statement doesn't really create a significant impression upon the reviewer because there is too much missing information. If you remove the anecdote and just try to create a connection between your experience and your interest in MFA studies, the first paragraph should become more interesting for the reviewer to read. Try not to use the quote anymore because it doesn't really resonate with the reader. You need to create an impression based upon your own merit in that paragraph.

In the second paragraph, can you create a better foundation for your interest in MFA Child Culture Design using this exposure that you had with your lecturer. Try to further explain how your interest in Child Culture Design was established while working on this project. You don't have to discuss what you did at this point. The letter is all about explaining your intention for enrolling in the course and explaining how your interest developed is an integral part of that.

Unfortunately, the work experience that we are looking for in this essay has to do with your experience in Child Culture design. The data you provide in that paragraph does not really discuss that. Think of your actual work experience in Child Culture Design and discuss it. It does not matter if you only assisted in a project or what. The important thing is that your intentions become clear through your work experience.

There is no need to present your ideas for your future projects. That should be saved for your statement of purpose rather than the letter of intent. I suggest you remove that second to the last paragraph in totality and save it for future use. Please discuss why you chose this particular university and what your intentions are for enrolling there. For example, if they have particular course that you feel will be of significant use to you in the future as a Child Culture Designer, then go ahead and relate that before you present your closing sentence.