My NYU Gallatin Master’s Statement of Purpose
(Accepted!)
With the hopes that the 2020 chaos would subside, at the turn of the year, my mind was not focused on grad school. I knew that I wanted to apply for a master’s but my list at the time contained only one program in Vienna. Then Gallatin popped into my mind. The school that I couldn’t believe existed when I first heard about it a few years ago, frustrated even that I didn’t know about it when I was applying for undergrad programs. It is essentially a corner of NYU for people like me, who have too many interests and can’t pick one, or those whose combined interests don’t exist anywhere else. So in the first two weeks of the year, I pulled together my application so that I could also be considered for a scholarship.
Around mid-February, I received an email informing me that an update had been posted on my application. Despite the foreboding subject of the email, I got in!! But… I wouldn’t know about my scholarship status until one month later, so the wait continued. The final decision arrived in my inbox this afternoon, although I wasn’t awarded the practically full scholarship I applied for, I did receive a scholarship for my previous academic achievements for about half the amount. I couldn’t be more grateful and excited to take what I see as the first meaningful step in my career, a career that I have always dreamed of. But the news is also bittersweet because it cuts my second time in Berlin unexpectedly short and I am not looking forward to separating from the community that I have built here.
I wanted to post my statement of purpose here because the internet is baren of examples and inspirations. Thanks for reading!
Strawberries. This is what surprised my mother the most when she arrived in the US from the USSR 30 years ago. That you could buy these sweet summer berries 365 days a year was to her equally magical and absurd. It has almost always been clear to me that my brother and I grew up incredibly fortunate perhaps because we also grew up with stories of food rationing, of long lines, and of scarcity. My parents provided for us everything they could not have in their own childhoods. Despite this, food was not particularly valued in our home. Eating healthy, homemade meals was important, but the processes of cooking, of gathering, were not. Yet somehow, at a young age, food became my way of expressing myself, of combining elements of the subjects which directed my school years: science, creativity, and community.
Throughout the past few years, as I opened my home to friends and visitors, I began to understand food as a powerful medium for storytelling and education as well as a representation of our cultural and migratory histories. Food has an ability to comfort us, to evoke nostalgia and joy, and most importantly to bring people together. But the food industry is multi-dimensional, behind this emotive façade lie immense inequality, waste, and environmental destruction. Yet this perspective on what is at its core a basic life necessity comes inherently from a place of access, of privilege, and of plenty.
Despite my chosen major, my four years at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) were largely defined by my immersion in Providence’s food and agriculture community. This started with my involvement in Brown Market Shares, a subsidized farmer’s market run by Brown University students. I was the first ever RISD student on the program’s coordinating team and I used my ‘title’ to wiggle my way into various food conferences across the state, even once being asked to speak about the program at Rhode Island’s FoodX summit. I interned at a local food magazine and worked at a well-known Mexican restaurant in the city because of my respect for the values of the head chef. At the peak of my activity and involvement, I decided I needed to take a step away from that enriching yet exhausting environment and so I found a half-year internship at a social business in a city halfway across the world. My first time in Berlin transformed me in many ways, but how this experience was to alter my view on design was perhaps the most unexpected. The design students and professionals whom I met approached their work much more critically than was the norm at RISD. I began to realize the voice that design had in society and that I could combine my design classes with my dedication to learning and speaking about the nation’s food system.
When I came back to RISD for my senior year I struggled to continue working within a furniture design framework. In the fall semester, I supplemented this by developing a research project entitled, Defining American Food Culture: an analysis of how socially unjust and environmentally unsustainable food systems in the United States result in culinary culture loss, ( attached as my writing sample). I was determined to make this research a central part of my furniture design thesis project, but I continued to feel stuck within the framework of the discipline. This was about the time of the first COVID-19 wave in the US. I may be one of the few college students to say this, but for finding clarity within my creative work, the first lockdown was a small blessing. Back at my parent’s house, I had few obligations, no car, no distractions. As a furniture design major, the expectation to make full-scale physical objects flew out the window and the framework that constricted me was gone. I worked endlessly to figure out what I wanted my final words as a RISD student to be. My thesis ended up in the format of a book with the title, Empathies of Consumption. This book along with my other creative work can be seen on my website (linked in the application).
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Alyssa Gerasimoff Gallatin M.A. Statement of Purpose
Through both of these projects I rediscovered an ease to express myself through writing, I solidified my layout and graphic design skills and also started brainstorming where this work could lead me next. Throughout my research process, I discovered surprising nuances of the food system such as the fact that many low-income families struggle putting healthy foods on the table equally due to a lack of time as financial resource and that food and nutrition education is present almost exclusively in public schools in primarily white and higher income communities. I wondered about the limitations of the content I was reading, why I had never heard about these issues before, and also about the accessibility of food awareness to all people.
A master’s at Gallatin would give me the opportunity to piece my interests together. Through a combination of Steinhardt’s Food Studies Department and the School of Professional Studies’ Publishing department I want to develop new strategies for designing, writing, and editing food publications, with the goal to make them and their content more accessible.
Although there is seemingly endless knowledge available online, there remain fundamental differences between the quality and value of digital and printed content. It is a shame that thoughtfully edited and curated cookbooks have risen to the level of luxury goods, with average prices between $30 and $50, and often calling for expensive kitchen appliances, tools, and ingredients. At this price point, food and cooking education remain largely exclusive to middle- and upper-class consumers. At Gallatin, I will be encouraged to apply the design thinking principles I have learned at RISD rather than push them aside. I don’t need to pick between my past education and my future one but rather I can utilize all of my interests in order to create my own direction. The curriculum that I have created allows me to develop writing and editing skills in a tailored way while simultaneously learning about food policy and building relevant entrepreneurial skills.
Apart from the unique educational experience that Gallatin provides, NYU is also situated in the perfect city to use as a case study for the issues which drive me. New York City is, unfortunately, seeded with food system inequality and it is also the publishing hub of the world. Consequently, during my two years at Gallatin, I would aim to complete two work experiences. The first at a non-profit organization that battles food insecurity in the city, such as the FoodCorps or Just Food. The second at a large publishing company or food magazine such as Hachette Book Group or Bon Appétit. Both experiences would allow me to discover the potential challenges and plausible solutions to increasing access to food and food system awareness.
After my Gallatin experience, my goal is to establish a non-profit publishing company on a subsidized financial model which develops equally beautiful and accessible printed material. I also have the ambition to teach in higher education or pursue a PhD in communications design. I am confident that the courses at NYU as well as the guidance at Gallatin will set me on a path to success in achieving these goals.
Thank you for your time in getting to know me through this statement, I sincerely hope that you will consider me as a candidate for a master’s at Gallatin.