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My 2003 Admissions Essay to UCLA Urban Planning
I got admitted.
My 2003 statement of purpose to the UCLA Master of Arts in Urban Planning program responded to this prompt: “Give a concise description of past and present educational and employment experiences and of how these experiences have led to the choice of urban planning as a career objective; and a statement describing a specific focus in research interests or practice-oriented goals.”
By this point in life, I’d figured out what I wanted to do. This statement of purpose was my personal call to action. I was then, and still am today, accountable to these words. And over the last two decades, I’ve been doing the work I set out to do here.
An editorial note: this essay was intended for an internal admissions committee. I’ve split the original’s excessively long, academic-style paragraphs and made minor typographical edits to improve readability for a wider readership.
One salient experience comes to mind when I think of how I decided to pursue a career in urban planning: experiencing inequality as an undergraduate student at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-arc). In January 1998, I transferred from East Los Angeles College to SCI-arc, the first student from the Eastside community…
