Is this too risky for a personal statement Forum

[RUM]

edit: thanks

[RUM]

Any body?

[paratactical]

If by "is this too risky" you mean "is it a bad idea to write in multiple, disjointed tenses", the answer is yes. It's incredibly difficult to write about an event that is clearly in the past in present tense and it does not work here.

[Saltqjibo]

You hit some serious check marks on my douche-o-meter. Most notably the hipster journalist stereotype.

That being said, of course you can write about this subject if you do it properly. I do think you are going to be treading a fine line though. As much as ethnomusicology (or whatever its called) is a serious subject, since you are writing about a music festival you are going to have to struggle to convince the commitee you the neccesary academic chops.

[RUM]

Thanks a lot for the comments, definitely what i expected to hear, unfortunately I'm just out of ideas of what to write about.

Paratactical- the tenses piss me off too, should i just stick to one? basically skip the first person at the festival stuff and just put it in the past tense like it actually is?

Saltqjibo- It's not so much that i want to make ethnomusicology seem difficult but rather seem interesting because i pursued what enjoyed. Does that come across at all? Also, glad to make your douche-o-meter, but no tight jeans here, but definitely some cliches in the essay.

thanks again, anyone else?

[paratactical]

Thanks a lot for the comments, definitely what i expected to hear, unfortunately I'm just out of ideas of what to write about.

Paratactical- the tenses piss me off too, should i just stick to one? basically skip the first person at the festival stuff and just put it in the past tense like it actually is?

I think you need a new intro and you need to rewrite with everything in the past tense. From there, you should be able to weed out the issues that are setting off douche-meters, however, it doesn't make sense to fine-tune sentences when the whole thing needs a thorough rewrite. Find a new, past tense intro and write from there.

[Saltqjibo]

I think maybe what would help it for me, is if you devoted less time to the background behind why you are studying the festival, and more time to what you thought/wrote about the festival.

Showing that you have an interestest and talent for journalism and ethnomusicology is probably better than telling (they can look at your resume as well)

[RUM]

cool thanks for the advice guys, time to try and work it into the essay