For my entire adult life, I have maintained a conceptual continuity in my service to the community, an unswerving path to aiding the poor, sick, and needy through dedicated nursing. Providing compassionate care is as intrinsic to me as breathing. Yet, as a mature professional, I have found that I want to affect more meaningful change in the lives of others, and on a grander scale than ever before, in a systemic fashion. I give all I am to my career in terms of my energy, time, and love.
There is no doubt about the enhancement of my career, and I do not take this next step to achieve a larger paycheck. While I do not feel I have exhausted every path of opportunity or challenge, I have seen distinct and growing needs within my community and extended community for addressing specific social issues that I cannot adequately address as a nurse.
Earning my doctoral degree in Sociology will enable me to address these issues directly and participate in creating sustainable change. Serving as a nurse in a public hospital has brought me into direct and socially intimate contact with patients facing many critical issues that have directly or indirectly affected their medical conditions. Environmental issues such as discrimination based on race, sex, class, and conditions such as socioeconomic depression truly add to medical difficulties if not generating them. I want to actively participate in providing healthcare assistance to underserved sectors of our society.
I seek to become a highly qualified, relevant, and contemporary researcher in aging, with particular concern for those seniors facing acute poverty. My research would focus on socio-economically challenged elderly women and their biomedical and pharmacological issues considering their long-term needs
Having cared for myriad, diverse patients as a nurse, I have gone out of my way to attend to elderly women with few resources, often women of color facing chronic health issues. I understand the desperate realities faced by many elderly poor women of color with health issues. I want to help them learn about the tools that are available for a better tomorrow. As I see it, no more excellent investment in our humanity could we make than helping the underserved within our community, our neighbors, and those with whom we have shared our lives.
Earning my Ph.D. in Sociology will enable me to bring my central goals, ambitions, and dreams to fruition. Post-graduation, I envision contributing and participating in the extended research community, helping to provide a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves, are simply not heard, or are blatantly ignored. By working with or within a non-profit, NGO, or similar agency, I will have access to the resources that will bring relevance to my research and the vehicle to implement change. Moreover, I want to help ensure the future of the field of Sociology by teaching tomorrow’s researchers, bringing real-world practical examples and the benefit of decades of experience in the field to life for new generations of students.
Having a solid academic foundation in biology, physiology, nursing, and health policy, coupled with direct-patient healthcare experiences, I will be able to bring valuable insights to the field of Sociology. The multifaceted issues we are facing in today’s healthcare crisis, combined with the consistent influx of diverse patients into the US healthcare system require such a foundation and maturity of understanding. This is what I bring, and I am eager to engage with an accomplished student body and benchmark-setting faculty involved in critically important research.
I bring my humility and full embrace of my need to refine my current grasp and research skills. Having recently completed graduate work with UCSF, I am entirely confident in the ability of the faculty that I will get the optimal guidance to empower me as a creative researcher.
Earning my Ph.D. will enable me to assume a unique role in my community as a trusted role model, which I take with the greatest seriousness. To this end, I have already been an active participant and volunteer, helping the poor and homeless in my area through food banks, distribution, and soup kitchens. I am frequently reminded of what I saw years ago when I went on a 6-month tour of China, India, Sri Lanka, and Japan. While my worldview of cultures was forever changed, the issues of crushing poverty remain, sadly, global and I know that I will never forget what I witnessed.
UXXX has been my sole choice for academic development since 2006, and I have been impressed repeatedly by the professors, friendly staff, and welcoming student body. Having taken many Sociology courses, not only as a part of the health policy program but as electives and as an auditor, I am confident that your program has the professors from whom I want to learn. I look forward to my continued academic relationship with UXXX with great eagerness.
Thank you for your time and kind consideration.