One of the most crucial and perhaps difficult pieces that you will ever write in your life is your personal statement. Whether it be for a job application or graduate school, a personal statement can completely change how your application looks to someone. The thing that makes these so difficult is that they have to be about you and that there is no set format in how to write one. However, you have to really sell yourself and show why these schools should consider you over other applicants. Thus, I believe there are 2 main components of a personal statement: ambition and purpose.
A lot of people believe that in order to make a good personal statement, at the end, your admissions officer or whomever is reading it should be in tears. However, this is not the case. In order to be unique and different, you should try a new approach that you believe no one has done before. Admission officers read TONS of these which can be boring so sticking out is crucial. Once again, there is no correct format so I will be talking purely about mine.
I started off with a struggle I faced as a young child, a skill that would be necessary in order to be a doctor. I put the reader in the situation and made them understand where my ambition came from. As a young child, having purpose for a career is EXTREMELY hard because you don’t really understand how the world works but having AMBITION is possible. I talked about how this led me into thinking about how the body works and etc. I then continued on to talk about my experiences in high school and college where I worked in different labs. I mentioned how my ambition drove this and how it established my understanding on the research side of things (because research is important in medicine).
After mentioning all of that, I then mentioned where my purpose came in. I talked about how I volunteered at several different places and how interacting with patients brought the emotional side of medicine to me while making sure humans had the basic necessity of medical care bought my purpose. I connected these two to get an overarching sense of purpose where medicine is all about the patients and how everyone deserves healthcare so as a doctor, that is my major goal. Furthermore, I mentioned how, during my tutoring project, I impacted children by being a role that as a doctor and community member, it is your responsibility to be a good role model and direct kids to the right path which further developed my sense of purpose.
I ended off by restating my purpose and ambition and how they formed throughout my life. Once again, there is no standard way of writing a personal statement and the whole point of this is to show whomever is reading this something personal. However, I do believe that each personal statement should show a student’s ambition and purpose. If you would like to read my personal statement or have me read over yours, I am happy to do so!
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