PERSOnal STATEMENT #1

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What is your intended major? Discuss how your interest in the subject developed and describe any experience you have had in the field — such as volunteer work, internships and employment, participation in student organizations and activities — and what you have gained from your involvement.

I used to be a Music major.

This was my logic at the time (i.e. straight out of high school):

1) I enjoy listening and playing experimental music

2) I want to compose experimental music

3) I want the capital-P public to listen to it

4) Therefore, I must major in music and acquire this degree from a musically distinguished university.

My first semester consisted of taking lots of music classes and I was determined to get this degree (as I was completely confident that my musical melodies and ideas could shake the world, if only just a little bit). My first semester went real good and I was soon signing up for a few Honors courses plus a couple music courses for the following spring semester (i.e. the semester when I finally learned how to think critically).

This Is What Happened:

(Alt. title: How I Swallowed Logic)

One of the Honors courses I took my first year was a second semester of English (i.e. “Critical Thinking, Composition, and Literature”). My teacher taught me how to think critically, and eventually I wrote a paper entitled, “The Immortality of Writers: A Study of Ethos in Charles Bukowski’s “the hatred for Hemingway”,” where I argued that ethos should have no part in justifying how great or insignificant a particular author is because it literally will attach “blinders” to our own interpretations and our judgments of quality; that ethos can literally make authors like Ernest Hemingway immortal where culture just sort of shrugs and says, “Yeah man… Hemingway is good” as if it were the 11^th Commandment.

Reality Check:

(Alt. title: How Pride and Newly Swallowed Logic/Critical Thinking Were Able to Hang)

(Alt. title: How the Icy Waves of Reality Woke Me From My Drunken Haze)

(Alt. title: Fug, So This Is What Cognitive Dissonance Feels Like?)

I condemned the exploited use of ethos in literature and at the same time, I wanted to exploit ethos in a way that would get my experimental music to the capital-P public’s ears. But not really. What I really wanted was the capital-P public to pseudo-listen to my music, look at my music degree from – insert musically distinguished university – , and just sort of shrug and say, “Yeah man… This guy is good.”

At this point, it was very clear and obvious that I needed to rid myself of this frightfully embarrassing hypocrisy and this is what happened: I swallowed my pride, and denounced music as my major.

I am an Agriculture major.

This is my logic:

            1) I want to learn how to farm.