Motivation letter for Erasmus Mundus Euroculture: Society, Politics and Culture in a Global Context

Motivation letter for Erasmus Mundus Euroculture:

Society, Politics and Culture in a Global Context

Please help me improve my draft. Thank you very much.

Dear Admissions Committee,

I am xxxxx xxxxxx, an aspiring Filipino anthropologist studying European culture, politics, and society. I am writing to apply for the Euroculture master's programme because it will help me achieve my goal of becoming involved in European affairs for the benefit of my fellow Filipinos.

I graduated with a bachelor's degree in anthropology, during which I developed my qualitative research skills through extensive field research experience. I also authored and co-authored several research papers on various aspects of culture with a specialisation in religion. At the same time, I took extra language classes in French, Italian, Spanish to pursue my growing passion for European studies. Dr Sabine Henry, a visiting professor from the University of Namur in Belgium, conducted a public lecture on migration that sparked my research interest in migration. This experience motivated me to apply for Euroculture after my graduation in 2019.

I was not given the scholarship so I continued working as a volunteer church worker in an international religious organization, the Church of Christ, which has dozens of local congregations in Europe. Working for this church for more than 10 years, I have been long interested in the role of religion in migration and integration of Filipinos into European society and vice versa. Being part of the youth community of the church involved me in international charity and missionary work. But during the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become more apparent the problem of social integration of religious Filipino communities into the rapidly secularising European society, which I discussed with fellow members worldwide. Because of the struggles of this unseen community, I intend to research interethnic and interreligious relations within multicultural societies in Europe. Through Euroculture's research-oriented track I could develop my social research skills and study the role of this transnational church and European migration policies in the integration or non-integration of religious migrants in Europe.

I am currently taking online courses in European studies to better prepare myself for Euroculture. I also applied for internship positions at the European Commission and European Parliament to gain more experience in European affairs. I expect that Euroculture would equip me with the skills necessary in migration policy development and implementation. Upon graduation, I intend to become a foreign service officer representing the Philippines in Europe. I also want to produce further research that could be used for evidence-based policy-making of human rights institutions that would help the integration of religious migrants into European society. The European Union continues to combat racism, xenophobia, social exclusion, and discrimination. I aim to participate in this action through my research work and become part of this advocacy effort.

Thank you very much for reading, and I look forward to contributing to this programme.

You write "my goal of becoming involved in European affairs for the benefit of my fellow Filipinos". It is better for you to describe why you have to involved in European affair in next paragraph.

You write "I was not given the scholarship". I suggest you to change with "I have not been awarded any scholarship".

You have a confused sentences here "Being part of ...". You may remake with "Being a part of youth community of the church, I was involved into more international charity and missionary work".

I see that you are obsessed to work in European or related to European affairs. I don't know how much it can help you to take the attention of the Admission Committee.

You write "I intend to research interethnic and interreligious relations within multicultural societies in Europe". Nowadays, Europe has a serious problem with inter-religious and multicultural case, such as islamophobia and anti-immigrant emerging issues. Is it true the path you took in Europe?

What is missing from your motivation letter are the specifics about how EM can help you as a student and eventually, as a professional. Your motivation seems to be more based upon the needs of your church to propagate rather than on a general intention to study religious migration. The EM is a global scholarship that does not focus on supporting a single cause, religion, or community. Therefore, the reference to the Church of Christ and your heavy focus on this particular religious network in paragraph 3 might work against your motivation interests. You can mention the Church of Christ, but only in passing. There must instead be a general interest in religious migration, regardless of your religious affiliation. As an anthropologist, you are not supposed to have a focus on a specific religion, unless the study of an ancient religion or deity.

How you are preparing yourself for studies in Europe are irrelevant to the motivation discussion. You can skip that part. You should also remove the sentence that mentions an unnamed scholarship that you did not receive. The motivation should only be focused on religious studies in relation to anthropology, your future career plans, and other information here are not relevant. Stick only to the motivation discussion. You may include the other information in related essay responses later on.

The motivation does not really explain why you have focused on Europe for your masters studies. What motivated that? The talk that you mentioned, by the professor, it does not relate to your interest in religious migration via Europe or Euroculture. So these 2 highly important aspects need to be better represented in the essay as these will be the focus points of the reviewer.

@Huzaifah

Thank you for your input

@Holt

Thank you for your help. Your comments are very insightful.