Master of... Disguise?

Without a doubt, the best perk of my new job is the part where you get to take classes for free. But more than taking classes, I wanted to be enrolled in one of the schools, and pursue a masters degree. So I applied... and recently got accepted.



Below is the statement of purpose essay I wrote for the application. I thought I'd share.

The purpose of my life dates back to MCMXCVII. It was The Year of the Spice Girls. My circle of best friends and I spent recess-time singing and dancing in emulation of the British pop sensation… and I was secretly hot with jealousy of my fellow eleven-year-old band mates.

A group of five girls all growing up together in a hot Californian town, I should have fit right in, but I felt excluded. Why? Every other one of them grew up perfectly bilingual, and they would laugh as they translated “Spice Up Your Life” into Vietnamese, and Polish, and Romanian, and Spanish. I lied and said I spoke Irish Gaelic and spewed out complete gibberish that all centered around the phrase “Erin go Braugh.” It never left my consciousness or view of my own self-worth that I was nothing but an English speaker. The value of language took hold in my subconscious, and to this day I continue to research the science of languages, and pick up the most uncommon phrasebooks (Maltese, anyone?) to compensate for my lowly feelings as a monolingual and outcast Spice Girl.

Despite this traumatic time, it wasn’t until I was graduating from university and repeatedly asked why I had pursued linguistics that I made the connection between my childhood friends and my chosen scholastic path. Language drove me from the first times I heard the syllables of a Vietnamese rendition of “Wannabe” and was told that these sounds actually contain grammatical and lexical content. Just like when I heard “2 Become 1” sung in a slurry of Polish consonant clusters and learned it meant the same thing that I heard in English. It fascinated me and I wanted to swallow up every bit of every language that I possibly could, to get to the root of mankind’s abilities, comprehensions and uses of language entirely. I was consumed by the fact that something that sounded like onomatopoeias to me was actually a sophisticated and intelligent combination of phonemes and morphemes that communicated complex ideas and imagery to those who could decode it with their knowledge of their mother tongue. I declared my major to the department in my freshman year.

Since attaining my bachelor’s degree, I have happily found a career within Higher Education, and am more than thrilled to be on staff with Columbia University, with a wide range of academia doors all around me. And still that linguist and that scholar in me is waiting to be used, to learn more and more about languages and linguistics, because I know there is much more beyond what I know. I am determined to continue learning, and continue researching. In a perfect world I will master historical- comparative linguistics and field research, perhaps even becoming a world renowned literary translator… but I will still translate a Spice Girl song or two for good measure, because you never forget where you came from, and why your life began.

Honestly, being a student again intimidates me. But considering I work full time so I can only really take evening classes, so it will be a slow process... but a free one. If nothing else, I'm excited to be learning again.