A friend recently asked me for my expert advice on composing her SoP - Statement of Purpose - for seeking admission to graduate schools. Having been selected by almost more than one university for my own excellently stated purpose, I was abundantly qualified to offer such advice. But mine was a different field, and a different purpose. So I wondered if I could distill the distinct pattern of my statement, and present it independent of the actual purpose itself - an SwP, if you will - a Statement without Purpose. Here's the pattern my own SOP is an implementation of:
- Start with brilliant poem, resplendent with dazzling rays of your phenomenal passion and astounding aptitude for the field. [Or: when inspiration fails to strike, cook up clumsy rhyme with pathetic puns to make awkward opening (to) statement.]
- Break into prose to recount early fascination with subject... the deep inspiration behind the formation of your early goals... finally revealing the moment of realization of your ultimate purpose in life [Or: moving from bad verse - to even worse - insert random childhood story, and sprinkle with buzzwords from the field.]
- Parade past successes showcasing your super-awesome brilliance and enduring genius, ending with story of how you saved the world. [Or: list things you've screwed up... leaving out the part saying you screwed them up.]
- Move on to your discovery of feeling of emptiness in life as it exists... a lurking hunger, an ever-deepening yearning for growth... culminating in the dawning of realization that this university is the sole gateway to manifesting your life's most precious dreams... [Or: flatter, beg, plead, pray to be taken in.]
- End with profound thought, leaving reader awestruck at your immeasurable insight... causing them to reflect on the relativity of the quantum-mechanical nature of reality, taking them into supreme superconscious states.. and experience.... enlightenment! [Or: quote random zen koan.]
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