Statement of Purpose

I just thought of posting it. I am honestly not so sure if I got it right, but hopefully I did. =)

When I was filling up my application form for UP some years ago, just like most high school students, I couldn’t decide which course to take. I was in front of the television that time watching the news, and I suddenly thought I wanted to be a newscaster. I wrote the following courses as my choices: BA Broadcast Communication and BA Speech Communication; BA Development Communication and BA Communication Arts. I honestly didn’t have any clear idea of what Speech Comm and Dev Comm were. I just wrote them down because they were communication courses. I didn’t know where my interest on communication came from that time especially that I knew that during my younger years what I wanted was to be a teacher. I ended up taking BA Speech Communication as my undergraduate program. During the first semester, it still wasn’t clear to me of what Speech Comm really was. When I took my first major subject in Communication, I learned how broad my chosen program was. It was like a little of everything about communication. Many think that communication is just about “talking” and that there is not so much about it that should be or could be studied. I often received comments like “Anong pinag-aaralan nyo dun? Anong trabaho nyo after?”  Because of these, my interest in the study of communication got deeper. I thought that as a communication student, I should seek answers to these questions. I was able to look at the deeper sense of communication, not just the speaker-message-receiver concept. I was able to see and examine the complexity of its process. Towards the end of my college years, when I was asked the same questions again, I answered, “Madami. We study the relationship and importance of communication in arts, science, psychology, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, economics, history, management, and politics and vice versa. We can be teachers, managers, writers, call center agents, newscasters, and many more.” The answer might be broad and superficial for some, but this is what I got from studying communication.

My desire and love for teaching still didn’t get suppressed. I thought of shifting to an Education course but I thought it was too late. Besides, I knew that I could still fulfill my dream of becoming a teacher even if my degree was in the field of communication. In fact, I thought that being a communication student would be a great help for me as a teacher soon, and it really is of great help in my current job as a college instructor, at the same time, it also helps me cope with the new job I am assigned to do – as Human Resource Personnel. My knowledge in interpersonal communication, intercultural communication and organizational communication has helped me in performing my job as an HR personnel well.

As an Instructor, I want to be of help in elevating our people from poverty through education and I believe that my knowledge in communication and other related fields can be of great help in the fulfillment of this dream. The use of communication effectively for the development of our society and country as a whole is something that is worth focusing on. This is why I want to enroll in Master of Development Communication. I strongly believe that through this program, I can gain more knowledge and understanding, at the same time more skills in using communication as a tool for development. I would want to focus on the use of communication in education as well as the educational system of our country. It would be worthy to look at the role of communication in the betterment of our current educational system.

I believe that the University of the Philippines Open University is an ideal place for me to continue my education. The promotion of distance education as an innovative way of learning helps in receiving quality education despite the distance.

After completion of my Master’s degree, I plan to pursue a Doctoral degree. Because I am currently in the academe, my eventual goal is to be a professor where I can continue doing researches on communication, and at the same time help my institution in delivering quality education to students.