Applying for Political Theory Masters as English Literature Graduate

............

Hey guys,

I graduated from Manchester in English Literature in 2013 with a low 2:1, to cut a long story short, I had a disastrous last year and completely messed up my chances of getting a first. After taking a year out of education and doing some serious thinking about the whole thing, I decided that I wanted to go back into university, but through the study of Political Theory, which I feel is more suited to my general interests. I have decided to make applications to LSE (MSc Political Theory), UCL (MA Legal and Political Theory), Sussex (MA Social and Political Thought) and Birkbeck (MSc Social and Political Theory), which I feel would give me a variation of ambitious (and perhaps rather unlikely) and more realistic places to get in to.

Despite large periods of my degree being rather shambolic (due to personal reasons) and not being able to develop much of a rapport with tutors, I have managed to secure 2 references from my university, and I have spent the last few months trying to get together a personal statement.

This has proved really difficult for me, but I am managing to make some headway, and I am trying to explain that during my English degree I followed a line of enquiry through literary criticism that was informed by political ideas pertaining to marxism, power/hegemony and dominant ideologies, cultural materialism and post-colonial criticism ...I was wondering if anyone had any advice for somebody in my position who is:

-Applying for a postgraduate in a different subject
-Applying after taking a year out
-Doesn't have a formal background in pure political thought, but desperately wants to study the history of political ideas and use this course to develop their interests to perhaps go onto do a PHD


Many thanks