Applications

If it seems like I've dropped off the end of the earth, never to be seen again, I have. I'm currently dwelling in the limbo of grad-school application madness. I am consumed by my application essay (which I must create 11 different drafts of - one for each school). It is supposed to be a statement of purpose describing why I want to study philosophy, what preparation I have had for this (none), why I want to study at each specific school, and perhaps what I intend to do with my degree. Trying to write it is unpleasant, but at least it did spawn this much more true-to-me and quite accurate account, which I will not send to a single place I am applying. This is for those of you who want to know the real reason I'm applying to graduate schools in philosophy:

I plaster myself to windows in the winter when it snows, transfixed by the falling lightness. A snowflake weighs .000001 gram. But they can fall by the millions, and they do. It takes time, though - the slow and steady buildup of lightness that lends itself to heaviness when taken as a whole. Time is the master-builder.

In time, snow seeps into the gritty winter earth, providing groundwater for spring. The bursting forth of spring has its foundation in the winter's steady snow.

I see in snowflakes the pattern of my thoughts. I pride myself on my rationality and my painstaking analysis of life, events, and relationships - it is my source of sanity. But there are times when certainty wells up slowly from within me, rather than being motivated by a single external stimulus or event. Thoughts, feelings, and desires fall into place like snowflakes, and gather themselves into a purpose.

The philosophy of religion class I took in my junior year of college revolutionized my view of schoolwork. I couldn't get back to my dorm room fast enough to plunge into the works of great thinkers, pick them apart, shove the pieces under the microscope, and then write about what I saw. Never did I gain such pleasure from my science labs. No other subject so incited me to initiate riotous dinner conversations with my friends. But, it was spring of my junior year, and changing majors then would have resulted in an undergraduate career of more than four years. My pride would not allow that, and neither would my scholarship. So I dropped the idea of pursuing philosophy. Not enough snow had fallen.

My senior year, I filled an open slot in my schedule with an introduction to philosophy course - to get an overview. I figured it couldn't hurt. More snow fell.

The deepest snowfall has been in my previous year teaching environmental education to 3-5 year olds. Any mother knows that the moments of greatest clarity and decision in life often come when faced with small screaming children. All levity aside, my desire to pursue a graduate degree in philosophy is deeply tied to my drive to teach.

A true teacher does not inundate students with facts, figures, theories and formulas. Rather, she aides in opening the mind, equipping the student with tools to make sense of his/her world and experience - the tools that allow him/her to solve problems and arrive at inventive solutions. The most important skills a student can develop are the capacity for reason and the ability to communicate effectively.

Philosophy focuses on just these skills. It provides a synthesis of all of the seemingly fragmented disciplines, because it gets to the heart of the question - mankind's struggle to understand the world. By teaching philosophy, I would enable students to further develop their capacity to question deeply, analyze thoroughly, spot flaws in arguments, and write in a decisive, lucid, and convincing manner.