Dear College of My Consideration:
You asked me to write a letter of intent. This is something I’ve done a few times since getting my BA, but not something I’ve really ever felt like I’ve done well enough. I wrote letters for the last few programs I thought I’d enjoy, and even my lackluster enthusiasm got me past the gatekeepers and to a point where I had to decide that a) communications and b) full time on campus programs were not going to work. I don’t want this letter to be like that, because for the first time, I feel REAL enthusiasm. The makings of a definite plan, even.
If you would have asked me what letters like this sounded like when I was first applying for school I wouldn’t have an answer. I honestly don’t know. I thought I wanted to be an English teacher. When I got to school and started taking classes I went from an English major to International Studies to Philosophy, where I found my niche. Kind of. I was on the periphery of all the programs, never quite taking the same classes as everyone else. Never thinking of my education as part of some long-term goal that I had set up before I started. That evolved later, after I had gone to England and come home again. That’s when I realized that if I was going to teach the things I had been learning it would have to be in college. I wouldn’t be able to certify to teach high school as philosophy or religion major. But it still didn’t feel quite right. I had done well in school, really well. But I still wasn’t sure what my INTENTS were. I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I decided on grad school and just tried to get my BA finished. I did finish it, but I also got married and had a son in the meantime.
I always remember people saying, “You can be whatever you want to be.” And that’s true, for a certain amount of time in your life. There is a time that you can achieve whatever you want to because all you have to focus on is you. You are your only consideration, you are your only liability. You can do whatever you focus on, you can become whatever you are willing to work hard enough to be. But then there comes a time in life when other people begin to depend on you. You get married, you have a child. And then it’s less about what you WANT to be and more about what you HAVE to be. It requires some sacrifice. But then, all good things do, I think.
I have to be a good wife and mother, and to me, that includes staying at home with my kiddo where possible.
I have to be productive.
I have to be thinking.
I have to be ready to earn a living wage, although my husband is willing to support my fervent desire to stay at home with our children, I have to be ready to help should we need it.
I have to have something to do when kindergarten starts or God forbid…when I have a teenager who needs me to have my own life so that I don’t haunt his.
I have to have people to focus on and help other than myself and my family.
I have to have a place to go where people expect something of me that I don’t always want to give.
I have to work, for sanity and for…er…our bank account.
This program would allow me to stay at home with my son while earning a master’s degree from a real University, one I respect and admire and wish I could wake up every day and go to. It would help me prepare for and take exams that would place me in a good position to teach History (after a few pre-reqs are satisfied, of course. Thank goodness for my undergraduate meanderings. I have tons of History credits.) To have all of those things I mentioned above. I know that I can do this, and that I will become a teacher. I may never make a million dollars, but my family and I will be ok. I will be able to take some of the burden off my husband someday. I will contribute.
So yes. These are my new and decided-upon intentions.
Now to make this into a more comprehensible and professional letter.
Sincerely,
Erin Hattaway