Here is an example personal statement of an applicant whose career aspiration is to become a teacher of literature. Variations of this personal statement got accepted at American University and University of South Florida. Read this essay to understand what a top personal statement for an aspiring teacher should look like.

Personal Statement Example of an Aspiring Teacher

John Lennon once said, “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.” I look back at my life and could not agree more with Lennon. 

I was lucky to have been born into a learned family of medical doctors. As much as I enjoyed being raised in the company of extraordinary ‘brains’, I carried a burden of expectations that one day I would also make my way into the medical profession. I was told that I could study a non-science subject as a minor but in no way as a major. On the other hand, my earliest memories of fun are standing on a sofa, pretending to be a poet, reading poetry out loud, which I did not even understand then. It is not that I did not enjoy studying science, but I had a greater inclination towards literature and poetry.

I passed high school but could not qualify for medical college. It was a disaster for my family. To rescue my career, I was suggested a range of alternate subjects, including pharmacy, business, economics, and commerce. My life took a turn when I, instead, opted for a very different degree: Literature and Linguistics. People around me kept giving me this stereotypical advice that arts is not as prestigious as science is. But I stuck to my guns, for I knew that I was there because I was meant to be.

Studying poems opened doors to a whole new world for me. I began to develop perspectives about life. For instance, Rhonda Byrne’s “The Secret” and Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist” opened a thorough gateway into my life. These books made me believe that the moment you put your heart and soul into achieving something, the whole universe helps you achieve it. As a result, I became an avid reader. I have always tried to feel writers’ emotions, envision their thoughts, and live their world with them. From Bard of Avon (William Shakespeare) of British Literature to Edgar Allen Poe of American Literature, literature and poetry piqued my inside to question the cloaked realities behind the fictitious words of the text. 

A deep love for reading eventually stirred me to write. A breakthrough in my academic career was the moment I started professional writing. I wrote poetry and short stories that my peers and teachers admired. My first e-magazine article published in “New York Times” received a wide readership and heaps of praise. Over time, writing became my primary mode of expression. To improve my creative writing, I took online poetry workshops. I remember one of my favourite prompts was chopping a block from a famous poem and writing my poem over it. By the end of my undergrad, I was known in my circles as somebody whose writings would stir discussions. 

My love for reading and writing helped me in growing as a researcher. In the last semester of my undergrad, I published a peer-reviewed study on how social media affected university students’ perception of environmental issues. This was a significant milestone in my academic career.

My goal in life is to join academia and teach Literature and creative writing to ESL students in Mexico. One of my elder sisters teaches in a school. I have been assisting her in designing lectures and quizzes and preparing outlines of the curriculum to gain experience in teaching methodology. Also, I have been teaching creative writing on my YouTube channel to the audience for whom English is not the first language and who can’t afford to pay for expensive MOOCs. 

If provided an opportunity, I would use the opportunity to get a master’s in the US to improve my knowledge and skills as a creative writer and an ‘English as Second Language (ESL) teacher. I believe that, to the world, I owe the responsibility of serving through teaching. After completing my master’s, I want to serve in academia. My foremost goal is to introduce methods to instil creative writing skills in Mexican students. I believe I am working hard in the right direction, and one day soon, I shall reach the destination I am destined to reach.