The Statement

When you write a statement supporting an application, is it really writing you? Do the reasons you cite crystallize into the only reasons and push all the others into the void, or is it all just powdery words of wishy-washy writing thrown away after you've been accepted or dismissed as a crank? Aren't both of those options kind of wrong?

Writing these statements is a daunting process, and is at times terrifying, so filled with horror that it's surprising that no Hammer or Universal horror movie was ever based on the experience. The whole application process condenses down to writing those words, and all the potentiality rests on whether they work or not, whether you have the stuff to back up what you're trying to do or if it's all just fakery. Two chains of destiny, maybe both good, or both bad, maybe decisive in their effects, or making absolutely no difference in the long run.

It's very hard to make these statements personal, far too easy to rely on clichés and things you write in every single example of the type. What exactly are you motivations for trying to do this or that? Are you genuine? Is it all just meaningless prose to try and fill the space that should never have been needed to be filled? What are all these words, anyway? None of it means anything any more! Oh, the insincerity of the job application procedure! Do they want to know about your liking to read or is it all going to lie unread in favour of your qualification. I know for a fact from several of my interviews that they never read my statements at all!

<pauses to fake calming down from a fake burst of excitement>

It's probable that I think about things far too much, an old failing picked up from thinking too much about thinking about things too much, and that's not an uncommon quality in human beings. It is true, though, that once you put something down on paper it can become a defining statement, an idea you cling to as self-evident and exclusive, when instead of might open your mind to all the possibilities in the world. Remember, something you wrote a year ago - we're not including legal documents here - doesn't bind you to think exactly the same way now or a year from now. All that matters really is that it was true when you wrote it.

Now, I had better get back to this PGCE Primary supporting statement. If nothing else, it's going to be true beyond all barriers!

O.