Meta's+personal+statement

Personal statement

I come from a family that really valued reading and education. However, I always did so well in school that my family started to take it for granted that I would be "good," and always get straight A's. I remember in junior year I received 3rd place statewide for a paper that I wrote on Jane Addams for my AP American lit/American history class. Neither of my parents were able to come with me to the award ceremony because they were both working. For that paper I had visited Fairfield University's central library to do my research, and I think that the recognition that I received for that paper might have been the seed which later grew into an idea for me to become a college professor.

My first year in college, 1986, when Ronald Reagan was still president, I read the Autobiography of Malcolm X on my own. I don't remember who or what inspired me to pick up that particular book, but it changed my life. Malcolm's X voice is crystal clear in the autobiography, and his militancy and charisma shine through in a powerful way. Sonia Sanchez says in Orlando Bagwell's documentary on Malcolm that he was like the sun coming through the window. Even if the blinds close again, you always remember those rays of sun coming through, and you wait for that sun to come again.