Graduate School Personal Statement

Oh the agony of trying to fit all the reasons why I want to be a librarian into only 750-1000 words.

There are so many stories to tell, so many books to quote, so many heart felt pleadings I want to include.

I'm not sure if my first attempt at graduate school application will work, but I almost want to put in somewhere that if they don't let me in on the first time around, I will apply each and every year 3 times until they see fit to see my enthusiasm for information and library science.

In reading almost all of the required textbooks for the first 4 classes I have learned that most applicants are just like me.... late to the game. Apparently being a librarian is not something people think of right off the bat after graduating from college. They meander around, raise a few kids up to kindergarten age and then figure out that what they love most is books. I should have that to my advantage in getting in.

Again I can't say how excited I am to have finally found what I want to be when I grow up. It seems so obvious after all those years of searching and checking out hundreds of library books and buying hundreds from Amazon that what I loved most was the search for the information the books that could lead me to a career and there all the time were the very books that I loved. There was the information that I craved. It was the book all along, not the writing, not the careers I was investigating, but the book itself.

Now I know I've had revelations like this in the past and thought I knew for sure what I was talking about when I found my new "career" ideas, but this sums it up perfectly........

"Books are the immortality of the race, the father and mother of most that is worth while cherishing in our hearts. To spread good books about, to sow them on fertile minds, to propagate understanding and a carefulness of life and beauty, isn't that high enough mission for a man?" From The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley.