More Personal Statement Questions

[HeyyouETSU]

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[ForcedEntry]

I will only reply because you said "Bueller".

Start your PS with an experience that shaped your life; something that changed your perspective, struck a nerve, and/or left an indelible mark on your persona.

For instance, being the new kid in middle school, getting picked on by the bully, accepting his challenge after class, and then meeting his twin brother and both of them whooping your ass.

It doesn't have to be pharmacy or healthcare related. It has to be personal!

If you want to stand out, avoid the pageant answers. No one gives two dueces about you wanting to end world hunger.

 

[Hels2007]

I think you have a winner here:

the fact that I witnessed the struggle of my father with his health until his death in January has really been a big inspiration to me wanting to learn the ins and outs of the human body and what makes it tick and what can correct its ticking.

That explains your motivation perfectly (don't use it as an excuse for low number of credits earned, or grades, or anything like that - solely as your reason to be a pharmacist). Then tie that in with the related classes you had and why you liked them. Then expand to your education as a whole and what skills you learned. Say, you took some strange course like history of cinema... and learning to interpret silent films was invaluable as a learning tool for non-verbal communication, which pharmacist all too often encounters in uncooperative patients. That's a start. You will need to rewrite several times before getting a decent product, because the first draft will inevitably drift off-topic.

 

[mustang sally]

I had trouble writing my PS as well. In the end, I just wrote about the experiences in my life that led me to choose pharmacy. I am a little bit older so I have had some time since undergrad to have some unique experiences. At the end of my essay, I stated my goals for myself for when I am a pharmacist. I don't know if my essay actually answered the questions on pharmcas or if it is what the adcoms want to read, but it was the truth and it fit in the little box.

P.S. I also didn't have any pharmacy experience to write about in my ps. 🙂

 

[omnione]

The personal statement is just that......a statement that is like a story. Don't regurgitate your application as it would come across as redundant and excessive patting yourself on the back.😉

 

[DrEaMeRcHiCk]

Just start writing it. I went through many rough drafts and variation on intros before I came to my final one. Be positive and maybe take the advice from the previous post about your father...that seems like a good starting point.

Good luck!

 

[wigwam]

i too am having trouble thinking about what to write for my ps. i'm not sure about whether to write about an interest in science, or about how i got interested in pharmacy because of how a person i look up to is a pharmacist.

 

[OSUpharmy]

I got this awesome paper on writing a personal statement. The sources for it are....(Harris, Muriel) "Writing the Personal Statement." from the Purdue Writing Center Homepage. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/pq/p_perstate.html and also (Osburne, Randall E.) "The 'Personal' Side of Graduate School Personal Statements." http://www.psichi.org/pubs/articles/article_165.asp

 

[OSUpharmy]

There was an example of a dentistry school personal statement that the workshop people raved over. I guess I can type out the opening paragraph. "Sitting at the corner of an examination room at a dentist's office, I translated to my grandmother the dentist's explanation of the procedure she was about to undergo, from English to Chinese. Starting at the age of 12, I often accompanied my grandparents on such visits to the dentist. The dentist would explain what he was going to do and show me the tools he was going to use. During these visits, I felt useful and professional for the first time in my life. I was not just an average Chinese girl; instead I was someone who could help my grandparents, a girl who could be helpful, even to someone as important as a dentist. These experiences acted as a personal introduction to the field of dentistry. Over the following years, I sought out opportunities to further explore the profession, including observing at multiple dental practices and attending Dental Careers Institute at Oregon Health & Science University. Witnessing some of the rewarding, the intriguing, as well as the difficult aspects of this field, solidified my determination to develop my early interest into a life-long career.".... She goes on to talk about highschool experiences, the dental career thing at OHSU and her shadowing experiences. She points altruistic qualities of the dentist she shadowed that she admired. Remember that word "altruistic". As soon as I said it during my interview the interviewers all went "OOOOOh!!" in unison. 😀 She ends the personal statement reiterating her determination to be a dentist. Hope this helps you guys.

 

[mike36]

Just start writing it. I went through many rough drafts and variation on intros before I came to my final one. Be positive and maybe take the advice from the previous post about your father...that seems like a good starting point.

Good luck!

This is how I did it. The hardest part is starting it. Once you have something on paper, you can change whatever you need to. I started by coming up with topics for three main paragraphs, then just tried jotting things down until I had an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

Once this is done, you can start working on each paragraph individually. My final paper looked nothing like that first draft. I took out and added entire paragraphs. If you can only come up with a couple of sentences for one of your paragraphs, maybe you should take it out and come up with a different paragraph topic, or combine it with an existing one. Or if you have too much in a paragraph, you can break it up into two different ones.

You don't have to know exactly what you want to say when you start that first draft. Just get something on paper so you can start editing and revising. Yes, it's easier said than done, but you gotta do it somehow and this worked for me.