Ancient Worlds (Archaeology and Classics) (Online Learning) MSc postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

Last spring a retired surveyor left a cardboard box at the library where I work. Inside were typed excavation reports from the 1970s, a few photocopied site plans and a folder of his own notes on a Roman fort a few miles from town. My job was to decide what could go into the local studies collection and how to describe it so someone could find it. I spent several lunch breaks reading the reports properly, matching his hand-drawn trench numbers to the published plans and writing catalogue entries that said what each document actually contained. That small task reminded me how much I enjoy the slow work of connecting physical evidence with written record. I want to return to it in a more sustained way, and I am applying for postgraduate study in archaeology and classics online because I need to keep working while I study.

My undergraduate degree was in Archaeology, and my dissertation looked at Roman stone reused in a medieval church in Northumberland. I recorded visible reused blocks, compared tooling marks and inscriptions with published catalogues of Roman inscribed stone from Britain, and tried to judge whether the builders had chosen pieces deliberately or simply taken what was nearest. My conclusion was cautious: most blocks looked like convenient building material, but the placement of one inscribed fragment near the doorway suggested it may have been meant to be seen. I was pleased with the fieldwork recording, though I came away aware that my Latin was not strong enough to work with inscriptions without leaning heavily on translations. Since graduating I have worked through an introductory Latin course in my own time and can now read simple funerary inscriptions with a dictionary. Improving this is one of my main reasons for wanting a programme that brings classical texts and material evidence together rather than treating them separately.

My reading has followed the same interest. Mary Beard's SPQR made me think about how much of what we "know" about early Rome depends on later writers telling stories about their own past. I have also been reading about the Vindolanda writing tablets, which interest me because they show ordinary military and household life through documents that survived by accident. I would like to explore how far everyday texts like these can be set beside excavated objects to describe the lives of people who were not senators or generals.

I have worked in the library for four years, first part-time during my degree and now full-time. Much of the role is practical: helping people use the computers, running a weekly reading group for older adults and dealing with enquiries about family and local history. Answering those questions has taught me to explain sources plainly and to be honest when the evidence runs out. At weekends I help care for my father, who has Parkinson's disease, so I have become well organised about protecting set hours for study. Online learning suits that pattern, and I have already shown myself that I can keep up regular independent work, finishing the Latin course alongside my job.

Outside work I sing alto in a community choir. It has nothing to do with archaeology, but rehearsing a part alone and then fitting it into the whole is not unlike the way I like to work: careful preparation, then listening to how it sits with everything else.

I would bring to postgraduate study a solid grounding in archaeological recording, experience of handling and describing documents for other people, and a clear sense of what I need to strengthen, especially ancient languages and wider reading in classical literature. I hope to finish the degree able to use texts and material evidence together with confidence, and perhaps eventually to work in heritage interpretation or museum collections, where those skills would be used every day.