Architectural History and Archaeology MA (Hons) personal statement example

Why do you want to study this course or subject?

On the walk to my sister's primary school we pass a sandstone tenement with a window filled in with brick that doesn't match. For months I only noticed it because she liked counting the bricks. Then I started wondering when it was blocked and why. Looking it up on Canmore, I learned about the window tax and why later blocked windows often have other explanations, such as a new stair or a changed room layout. Neither answer could be proved from a pavement, and that interested me more than a neat story would have. A building records decisions by people who rarely wrote them down, and reading those changes means combining what is physically there with documents, maps and comparison. I want to study architectural history alongside archaeology because the two approaches check each other. One asks what a structure meant and how it was designed. The other asks what the surviving fabric and ground actually show. I would like to learn the methods properly rather than guessing from the street.

How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare?

My Advanced Higher History project examines how the first neighbourhoods of Glenrothes were planned in the 1950s and how residents responded to them. I used digitised Development Corporation reports, Ordnance Survey maps from before and after construction, and local newspaper letters held in the library archive. Comparing the maps showed how old field boundaries survived as paths and back-garden lines, which the reports barely mention. I am arguing that the town's layout reflects both planning ideals and the land it was built on, and I have had to judge how far official sources describe intentions rather than results. Higher Art has given me practice in observational drawing, and my folio includes measured studies of a farm steading, which taught me to look at junctions and repairs rather than just facades. Geography introduced me to reading landscapes and using GIS. Outside class I have been reading Matthew Johnson's Archaeological Theory: An Introduction slowly, and the Buildings of Scotland volume covering Fife, checking its entries against buildings I can visit. The project made me cautious about treating a surviving boundary as evidence of a single intention. Its position can be measured, but explaining why it remained needs other sources. Likewise, an official plan shows what was proposed rather than everything that was built. I want to learn how architectural history and archaeological recording can test those different kinds of claim together.

What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?

For the last two years I have walked my sister to school most mornings and done my grandad's weekly shopping since his hip operation. Neither is connected to buildings, but both have made me organised about my time, and talking with my grandad has become useful in an unexpected way: he worked at a linoleum factory and remembers which mills stood where, so he now checks my sketches of the waterfront against his memory, and he is often more precise than I expected. I work Saturday evenings in a chip shop, where speed, calm and dealing politely with tired customers matter more than anything I learned in school. I also keep a sketchbook of local buildings, noting dates, materials and alterations, and I have filled three so far. Last summer I spent two days at a community test-pit weekend run by a local heritage group, sieving soil and recording finds, mostly clay pipe and pottery. It was slow, careful work, and I enjoyed it. I would bring patience and steady work habits to the course, along with a habit of looking closely and asking questions about what I see.