Why I Didn't Get Into Grad School: Exhibit A

My Personal Statement

It may seem familiar, but all similarities between my essay and any other work is purely coincidental and untentional. Written January 15, 2003 (started hours ahead of and finished minutes before the application deadline, of course).

As I pondered, contemplating a better vehicle for stating
My interests, objectives, and what purpose I believe I’m destined for,
Eventually I got to thinking I could keep my attention span from shrinking
If in lieu of prose I did my inking in a form less prone to bore.
“Well at least,” I mused, half joking, “it hasn’t been done before…”
Just a page and nothing more.

Mechanical engineering, the direction I’ve been steering,
Is a quest I love so dearly that at times all else seems but a snore.
Then again, please don’t be fearing that I’m at all afraid of veering
Into disciplines that may be nearing mine; for I’m eager to explore.
As a researcher I’m as giddy as a kid in a candy store
Stocked from ceiling down to floor.

I’m a four-year member of SWE (better ratio than IEEE),
And also joined SHPE and the Mars Society, if you’re keeping score.
Something of an interloper, curious ponderer and high hoper,
A former EPR spectroscoper—I could’ve majored in the core.
Now I seek to make my mark in the annals of post-Newtonian lore
As a scientist and engineer, and maybe something more.

In research that’s still ongoing, I help keep the data flowing
From the modeler to the mesher to the finite element cruncher core.
Fortunately my skill set as a coder exceeds my talents as an oder,
And I’m handy with a motor (something ME72’s good for).
I can plug, chug, and debug and perform other needed chores.
An engineer indeed I know I am—I think—therefore.

My purpose is to reach enlightenment, or if I don’t, to thrive in spite of it
And contribute to the scholarly environment I so ardently adore.
I’ve spent four tough years already drinking from a fire hose a steady
Torrent of aqueous knowledge till my head be thoroughly waterlogged and sore.
A productive academic career thus far, despite a GPA of 2.4.
Consider me anyway please, I implore.

Because I swapped Poe’s dark symbolism for facetious philologism,
An unkindness of wrathful Ravens tried to tap through my chamber door.
Yet I’d an ace up my proverbial sleeve here as my sympathetic sister Beaver,
Having heard a thousand nevermore’s, scrambled over to see if her
Brother’d been devoured by the ungainly fowls and lay writhing on the floor.
She was relieved to find the raving avians had yet to breech my chamber door.

An unparalleled quick thinker, the she-beaver began to tinker,
And ‘fore the prophet-bird-devils knew what had hit ’em had reinforced my chamber door.
She rescued me from this jam by constructing us a dam,
And the Ravens, lacking arms, had neglected to bring a battering ram.
Tho’ my window was wide ajar the birds kept wrapping, tapping, while I them ignored.
Until they starved, and then nevermore.