Diversity Statements: Are you leaving optional statements empty?

[leonm]

Dear everyone,

 

I am not used to writing diversity statements for applications; honestly, writing them makes me feel slightly dirty. It seems to be required for certain universities (e.g. Berkeley) - fine, if everybody has to embarrass themselves, so can I. But what is the deal with other universities (e.g. Stanford), where this statement is optional - did the cisgender-male-straight-white-middleclass people among you leave these empty or did you write something just in case? If so, does anybody have an example what kind of stuff you could write about? This whole experience is very strange to me.

 

Thank you so much for your help!

 

Best,

 

leonm

Edited October 1, 2015 by leonm

[Food4Thought]

Now that the sweat thread is up, this should probably go there.

 

I am going to fill out mine, just because I think it is a good exercise. Although I am said cisgender-mail-straight-white-middleclass you refer to, I can still talk about times I overcame adversity. In my case, I am going to talk about how I am the first person in my family to try to pursue a PhD. As a result, growing up, I didn't have really any guidance as to how to go about preparing for graduate school; I had to learn everything by myself.

[chateauheart]

I left the optional ones blank. They don't matter, and I'd have felt dirty writing them as well.

[mathman22]

I left the optional ones blank as well. In my view, they are optional for a reason. If they were going to make their decision based on them it would be required.

[leonm]

Thanks for the feedback guys, sounds like I should leave them blank then!.