K - I Wish I Were an Engineer

I haven’t been writing this week for essentially one reason - I’ve been stuck writing the same fucking thing over and over again. So, in the tradition of this blog, I’m going to tool on the project in question – the personal essay.

We have all had to write that shit. College applications, cover letters for jobs, fellowship proposals…you name it. Everyone wants some kind of personal statement, usually in addition to a more formal and professional statement of purpose. I, for one, am terrible at personal statements. I write critically, not artistically. If I were applying to a fucking MFA program or to be a reporter, yeah, I get it. I should be creative and engaging, I should let the committee or whoever get to know me. Creative and engaging I may be in some venues, but possibility not at the level of…shall we say propriety? they’re looking for. I definitely have neither the patience nor the skill set to do this kind of shit.

I’ve come up with a few different “types” of personal essays. No matter how original organizations think they are with coming up with the stupid questions, they’re not. Every single personal prompt falls into one of a few categories. I came up with three – but mostly because I had to stop writing this in order to do my actual job. The broadly personal essay, the social essay, and the practical essay. I’ll start with one I’ve been struggling with.

“We place great weight on your personal statement. This statement is your opportunity to get the committee interested in you, in your potential as a professional and as a human being.”

I’m sorry, but what the fuck does that even mean? As a human being? I can give you all the evidence of professionalism that you what, but what the fuck does my value as a human being matter? Do you think I can tell you in 500 words anything significant, let alone convincing? Hell the shit I’d say in 500 words about myself is likely to be a lie anyway. Umm…I like poor people and flowers and organic food? (lies right there.) I really passionately enjoy whatever it is the fuck I am telling you I want to be doing? The answer to that is either yes or no, and you both want me to answer yes and tell me explicitly that it doesn’t matter if I answer yes because presumably everybody is answering yes. My value as a human being has nothing to do with why you’d hire/admit me. You have hired/admitted many complete assholes before, and you will do so in the future. You want me because I can do this shit and I can do it well, but you refuse to acknowledge that. Instead, you come up with elaborately useless prompts that probably serve more to deter applications than encourage creative responses. Unfortunately, my value as a human being is going to have to be fabricated.

Another kind is the one places in California just skeet over. The “minority disadvantaged” type. Or social service/service to society one. This is another one I have to answer.

“Please describe how your personal background informs your decision to pursue a graduate degree. Please include information on how you have overcome barriers to access higher education, evidence of how you have come to understand the barriers faced by others, evidence of your academic service to advance equitable access to higher education for women, racial minorities, and individuals from other groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education, evidence of your research focusing on underserved populations or related issues of inequality, or evidence of your leadership among such groups.”

I am not a minority. I do not come from an underprivileged background, nor do I have any kind of racial, sexual, or religious identifier that sets me apart. I had no barriers. I did what I wanted, when I wanted to. I have mostly paid for shit myself, but hey…a lot of people do that. Not anything spectacular. Do I have any intention of focusing on underserved populations? Asshole, if you read my PROFESSIONAL RESPONSE, you would see that I want to get a fucking advanced degree in literature. THEY ARE ALL DEAD. THIS WILL NOT HELP ANYONE. ACADEMIA IS LARGELY CHARACTERIZED BY THE STUDY OF SHIT THAT ONLY VAGUELY HELPS ANYONE, AND ALMOST ALWAYS IS JUST KIND OF COOL. I am ok with building a career on stuff that I think is “kind of cool.” But now I have to make it seem like this somehow correlates to an interest in helping Malaysian children with AIDS express their religious freedom in Kansas. Or some shit like that. Really?

One that M would know more about is actually a prompt that I think comes up more in interviews for the corporate world. It’s the scenario question. It also, however, comes up when you’re interviewing for a writing tutor job – so that’s where I’ve seen it. "If x and y happens, and there are spaghettios on the ceiling and your dog is missing and you’re eating a taco, and it’s raining …how would you sell z product to a client in Malayasia?" My response is again, what the fuck? M has done shit like this before, and is probably good at it.

I suck at it. I’d say something along the lines of… “well the spaghettios represent the commercialization and commodification of the Italian culture, and their presence on the ceiling signifies their rejection of the subjugating culture of Anglo-patriarchy, while the consumption of the taco represents the erasure of femininity through the corruption of the vaginal symbol, as well as the violent oppression of female minorities. And…umm, the dog missing is indicative of the disruption of domestic spaces and the interruption of the ways in which familial bonds are forged through misplaced identification with the non-human in such a fashion as to recreate new boundaries and new ways of living in western society. And…I would not sell z product to Malaysia because that again represents the hegemonic economic culture recursively possessing and repossessing eastern culture in a move that is once blatant Orientalism and a systematic assertion of sexual authority. And the rain is a manifestation of fertility that suggests a hope for renewal and the elision of polluted ideals.”

M would say “Clean the shit off the ceiling, put a call to animal control for the dog, throw out the taco and eat a salad, and convince the bastards they want whatever shit you’re selling because it will make them sexy/skinny/trendy. And who gives a shit if it’s raining? Work from home!”

Constructive versus deconstructive. Guess who wins that one?

Bottom line, a statement about you personally is likely not going to make you stand out unless you hit one of several levels of qualification. All organizations like to set standards for their applicants, with a set list of previous experience and/or qualifications they’d like to see in their potential hires, whether pre-determined by them or by social standard. I’m assuming we’re all out of college, so I’m not going to include things like “playing sports, debate team, and national honors society” because that’s crap no one cares about post-18.

Category 1: Cure a disease/do some kind of absurd precocious genetics work, start a not-for-profit organization benefiting abused women/children/animals, or build a Whole-Foods level organic vegetable business in your mom’s kitchen garden. Category one is the one no one in our age group gets to, and one that 95% of people won’t get to. NO ONE.

Category 2: Write a book, volunteer in the Peace Corps, serve in the military, or pursue some kind of completely different career for a while and have a dramatic and genius change of heart. Category two handles the people with multiple, diverse perspectives, prestigious social service, or people whose acceptance is basically mandated (veterans). People who have either less drive than me or more time on their hands.

Category 3: Volunteer with Teach for America or Americorps, teach English in some random ass Asian country, do some kind of pro-bono work. People who have done the less adventurous and tamer of the social services, or people who have the balls to live in shitty countries and eat grossly unhealthy food for the “experience,” all while doing nothing that any other asshole with a college degree couldn’t do. (I really do feel like Peace Corps has more social capital than the others ones do…maybe because of the risk of death or AIDS.) (Yes, Malaysia and AIDS are our recurring themes for today.)

Category 4: Volunteer in schools, work with charities, donate money, organize benefit events or donation drives. Stuff most people can do if they decide to get off their asses. This is the category I am in. I have done a decent amount of volunteer work and directed some benefit projects. I only donate money to a few causes, but I do so regularly.

I would not get hired. Because anyone can do this shit. This is majorly fucking depressing. I’ve figured out that you need to do the math on this. You can mostly reside in one category, but you need to have at least one thing a category above you. My idea is to print some kind of shitty chapbook on recycled paper of free verse poems and see what happens. So I have mostly Category 4, but something I’m hoping will count as quasi Category 2. I have never written a poem before. Yeah…not gonna happen.

I still haven’t answered the prompt.