Hi,
I am graduating in November and I’ve decided to go to grad school. I am/was an English student and I’ve decided to look into Communications and Media.
The problem is I’ve never taken a single course in Communications or Media at the undergrad level, and I have no idea what to write on the statement of interest for my application for grad school. I was wondering if there was a way to get past syllabi for SMC219 or an introductory course in Media so I could cast my eye over a first year textbook. Could you help? I’ve looked under all the sofas on the internet to no avail.
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You’re applying to graduate school and you can’t find enough information on the internet to fake a statement of interest for your application?! This does not sound good.
Ignoring the obvious (Harold Innis, Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media), I think sifting around the departments of Book and Media Studies and the course website of famous media studies programs (such as at the New School), should yield some basic tenets of study. But if you’re already fudging your statement of interest from half assed syallbi name dropping, I’d say you’re already in trouble. Don’t you have an academic adviser or professor who can write you a letter of recommendation? I’d plan a sit down with them so you can talk about basic media theory which will give you some perspective on what’s of interest to you about the field of study. Your statement of interest is just that – a personal essay about why you want to study media and communications at the graduate level. Is there some particular facet that you would like to examine further? What can you say about your background in academics that will make you a desirable candidate? Sometimes quoting Adorno just doesn’t cut it.
Please reconsider your approach and begin again.
xoxo, Askastudent