Graduate / ANTHROPOLOGY graduate admissions statement of purpose (California Santa Cruz) [7]

a concise, well-written essay about your background and your reasons for pursuing graduate study in the field you have chosen. Selection committees place particular importance on the statement of purpose. It exhibits your ability to present ideas in clear, coherent language. Your statement of purpose should indicate:

How knowledgeable you are in the desired field of study
How your undergraduate studies and other experiences (work, community involvement, and so forth) serve as a foundation for graduate study
How and why you intend to build on this foundation of knowledge and apply your graduate training to social or theoretical problems
The Emerging Worlds Initiative in the Anthropology Department at XXX is the apotheosis (or quintessence?) of what I firmly believe the field of Cultural Anthropology must strive for. I believe Cultural Anthropology is in the unique position to be placed in the service of helping the communities that comprise our contemporary world. I am applying to the PhD program at XXX because I feel the faculty and aims/objectives of your department will not only be integral but essential to my own development as an Anthropologist and as a community member of San Francisco and the extended Bay Area.

As a prospective graduate student of the Anthropology department at the University of XXX, my aims are two-fold. First, I hope to examine first-hand the social construct of psychological experiences, and particularly the differences in the concepts of psychosis and mental health treatment in Latino-American communities. My personal commitment to social equity has propelled my desire to understand why certain (e.g. Latino) populations are less likely to seek out or receive viable mental health services, and why stigma regarding mental health persists in certain populations over others. Arriving at an understanding of the central issues surrounding the disparity in receiving counseling and psychological services, I hope, will help to provide communities with greatly needed health services in a manner that is culturally relevant and therefore more well-received than they are currently.

Second, as a more analytical undertaking, I hope to gain from the expertise of faculty members as Dr. XXX and Dr. XXX to further my theoretical knowledge of religion, ritual, and religious experiences as they relate to the larger social sphere. My objective will be to examine analytically the function of religion, spiritual experiences, and ritual in contemporary small-scale societies in North America and Mexico. Because religion is such a rich and integral component to North American and Latino communities (as well as others), I believe religious values and rituals may be, and perhaps must be, used as a backdrop of understanding these communities on a larger social scale.

I am confident that both my theoretical and research aspirations can be met and succeeded with the help of the exemplary faculty members at University of XXX. It would be a true honor to work with Dr. XXX of the Anthropology faculty at XXX, who, through her work on cross-cultural mental health has inspired much of my own desire for inquiry into Latino mental health services. In addition, I am drawn to UC XXX particularly because of the department's openness and encouragement for students to work in collaboration with faculty members in other disciplines. I hope to utilize this invaluable resource, for I feel the collaboration with such faculty members as Dr. Patricia Zavella who has expertise in Chicano Studies and ethnographic research methods, will help materialize my current research goals.

Although my involvement in academic research began in 2004, my most recent engagements have been a propelling force in my interest to pursue Cultural Anthropology at the University XXX. Currently, I am a part of two community-based projects which aim to promote social justice and health and education equity. Most longstanding, the past 18 months I have worked collaboratively as a co-principal investigator with three different colleges on a multi-disciplinary participatory action research project. The project aims for educational equity for women in math and science and has integrated the participation of undergraduate and graduate students at San Francisco State University, City College of San Francisco, and California Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo. My research team, inclusive of myself, Dr Avi Ben-Zeev of the Psychology department of San Francisco State University, and Jay Ledbetter, has collected qualitative data from focus groups at these colleges in order to provide a more complete understanding of a phenomenon known as "stereotype threat". In the future, we hope to use the collected data to create an effective and accessible intervention for women and underrepresented populations to combat the effects of stereotype threat.

In addition, I am currently collaborating with Dr. Mariana Ferreira of the Anthropology program at San Francisco State University and several other students to collect ethnographic research which will eventually be culminated in a health-equity themed mural in the Mission district of San Francisco. My personal involvement has included electronic mapping (via Google Maps) of current San Francisco Bay Area murals, extensive personal interviews with community members, and analyses of qualitative data collected. The ultimate goal of the research team is to create a mural which represents and reflects the opinions, hopes, and desires of the local community in order to bring awareness to the current disparities in health care coverage and health concerns of minorities in San Francisco.

Based on my past, present, and future research goals, and my personal commitment to the Emerging Worlds Initiative, and community based research trajectories, I am confident that I will both immensely learn from and contribute to the greater academic atmosphere of the University of California Santa Cruz.