Looking for someone to check my personal statement to LSE

Hello Everyone!

I am an English teacher who has decided to hit the books again and needed a second pair of eyes to look over my personal statement and give me any feedback. I am a native speaker so there shouldn't be any tedious amount of language mistakes. What I'm really looking for is advice on writing style, cohesion, conciseness, and overall readibility. I would greatly appreciate anyone taking the time to look over it and would be willing to return the favour at any time. Thanks!!

After having majored summa cum laude in International Organization and having established myself as a successful University language teacher, I would now like to further my academic ambitions in the social sciences for which I have developed a true calling and a mature sense of commitment. Due to its reputed specialization in the field, I have chosen the London School of Economics as my top destination for higher learning. It is with great aspiration that I aim to undertake, in order of preference, the MSc in Social and Cultural Psychology or the MSc in Social Anthropology.

It has been nearly a year since I first visited the University and collected a graduate prospectus. Ever since, I have been captivated by the questions asked in the dossiers of both programs and have been determined to join and contribute to a truly global debate. The enquiries into the interaction of mental states, social paradigms and anthropological approaches began resounding evermore suggestively in my conscience during a revelatory volunteering experience in Nicaragua this past summer. Working within a deeply impoverished community made me realize that my good will and critical thinking, despite having done more good than harm, had in my opinion fallen short of optimizing the time spent on the plight of the disadvantaged precisely because they lacked sound answers to the social and mental complexities of the people I was trying to aid. This sense of delimited helpfulness was the strongest motivating factor in desiring to seek ways of providing solutions from a position of leadership and through empirical and analytical research.

The second factor that lured me into the fields of Social Psychology and Anthropology was constituted by my profession as a teacher. Teaching English and Italian as a foreign language to university students of different national backgrounds exposed me to the complexities of the social and psychological makeup of my pupils. By observing the field of foreign language teaching I noticed that in today’s multicultural classroom, expertise in the subject is not enough if one desires to genuinely tap into the potential of the individual student. By gaining knowledge in Social Psychology and Social Anthropology I believe I would go a long way in becoming a more extensible and cognizant teacher.

A primary reason for choosing the LSE is the institution’s reputation as a truly global venue whose philosophy and student body are ideally suitable to my transnational background. Being of Italian, American and Iranian descent and having lived in the United Stated and Europe, I evolved as what sociologists would call a TCK or Third Culture Kid. This, combined with my extensive travels, have rendered me a person devoid of ethnocentrism and nationalistic bias who frames issues from a global mindset and a far-reaching sense of compassion and solidarity. These are qualities that I will surely share with members of the student body. This is particularly enticing when considering the intense debate that rages within LSE spanning disciplines, degrees and cultures. I stridently share the University’s message of idea and opinion exchange and I intend to join the student union in order to vigorously participate in campus life.

One of the virtues that makes me a viable candidate for both Master’s programs, is the pliability with which I have been able to excel in a broad variety of academic disciplines. I hold a well-rounded undergraduate degree from a prestigious liberal-arts university at which I earned the highest grades in the diverse fields of business, international politics, history, philosophy, languages and cultural studies. When I later took up a Master’s degree in language pedagogy, I managed to distinguish myself academically in previously uninvestigated fields such as linguistics, language history and foreign language teaching. Thus, despite not holding any formal titles in either social psychology or anthropology, my recent Master’s degree represents definite evidence of how I have already been able to adapt and excel at graduate studies in a new discipline.

I am fully aware that my enthusiastic disposition and successful academic history alone may not suffice for selection into such highly-sought programs, hence, I have dedicated all of my intellectual efforts to establishing a precursory body of knowledge in both fields. In the field of social psychology I have been chiefly engaged in the areas of social cognition and self-concept. To be more specific, I have worked hard to achieve an admittedly pedestrian understanding of the theories of cognitive dissonance and social networking. Knowledge of these theories helped me, among other things, to better grasp the behaviour of many Nicaraguans whom I observed during my volunteer experience as subjects of a convoluted interplay between actual behaviour and individual and social beliefs. In the realm of Social Anthropology I have concentrated my initial efforts on the ethnography of specific countries such as Italy and Nicaragua while also following the macro issue of globalisation and its effects on local communities. Through the employment of various mediums such as books, journals and video lectures and talks, I continue to further my preliminary learning trajectory in both social psychology and anthropology. Eventually, I see the two disciplines as inextricably interdependent and am keen to pursue both disciplines to a greater or lesser extent depending on which program I am accepted into.

My short term objective is to develop excellent research and analytical skills and to discern potential areas of interest for a future PhD. My long term objectives are to apply knowledge in social psychology and anthropology to the field of international development. I expect to fulfil my long-term goals both directly and indirectly. My direct efforts would be devoted to creating a non-profit educational organization in a developing Latin-American region. As I have already experienced how such an entity can misappropriate good intention through lack of empirically based groundwork, I feel that expertise in Social Psychology and Social Anthropology would grant the methodology needed to enlighten my judgment and action potential. Through perseverance in academia, I would also strive to make an indirect impact by devoting myself whole-heartedly to improving the current state of inter-cultural communication and the development of multicultural communities.

I bring with me great zeal and enthusiasm and envisage a career of innovative work and continuous retribution to my field of study. I shall consider myself most fortunate to be given a chance to fulfil my aspirations at your university and I want to thank you for consideration of my application.