Personal Statement troubles

[keerthan]

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I've been having a tough time deciding whether the perspective of my essay should focus more on what I have done and less on my thought process to get there. I feel like I'm wanting to try and explain the reasons for why I am pursuing medicine rather than focusing on my characteristics and what I have already accomplished. I'm wondering if it would be ok to save the story of how certain events in my life made me even consider medicine as an option and leave that for the interview. I feel telling my path would make it more personal, because I figure talking about coursework, leadership, and campus life is pretty mundane and they hear that all the time. But is that what they maybe want to hear? Just something cut and dry to the point? Please bear with me while I explain more of where I'm coming from:
I'm a non-trad student that graduated last May. After graduating, I completed the remaining upper division bio/ochem prereqs (I had all the bio/chem prereqs from AP credit) except for one class which I'm taking right now. I took up a software engineering job in January of this yr, worked for about 6 months, left the job to pursue undergrad neuroscience research at my college, and then continued to take the MCAT in August. However, the truth of the matter is that I never really knew that I wanted to become a doctor until the experiences towards the end of college and directly after. Additionally, I reflected back to volunteer work in high school in order to come to the realization. I had all the prereqs from high school, which def. helped me out, but I didn't go into college with a clear idea of what I eventually wanted to be doing. All I knew coming to college is that I liked math, chemistry, and computers.
So I don't know if mentioning this path in my personal statement would be necessary or something that I should leave for the interview. I don't know if med schools really care when someone actually made the switch in their minds to become a doctor or if they just want to know what aptitude(through your coursework, extracurriculars, etc) you think you have to become one. I would think it would be more interesting for them to listen to my path some more than just hear about things I have done through college, but I'm just not sure. Sorry if this is kind of confusing and long. I just kind of wrote all of this as it came to my head. I'd really appreciate any feedback. Thanks in advance.

-Keerthan

 

[Orb]

Your personal statement needs to be compelling, and I think it is the ideal arena for you to discuss your motivations and reasoning behind the choices you've made. Your list of accomplishments is already available for the adcoms to review, the personal statement is your place to show how your unique sensibilities have prepared you to become a doctor.

I think adcoms expect for you to defend your decision to switch careers, and would find it odd if you didn't mention it.

 

[scpod]

At all costs, avoid a biography. Your application will tell them about your past. They need to know something about your character.

 

[keerthan]

Ok cool, thanks for the responses guys. I'm really trying to get applications completed and send them out within the next week so hopefully it'll turn out the way it's supposed to by then. I'm planning on making it into more of a story and hitting the major landmarks along the way. I feel making it too professional kind of destroys the "personal" aspect of it, so I guess I gotta find a good balance.

 

[QuikClot]

The key in personal statements, as in any other sort of writing, is using incident to reveal character. Tell the stories you want to tell, the ones that let you tell the reader about how you made your decisions and the person you are now.

 

[keerthan]

The key in personal statements, as in any other sort of writing, is using incident to reveal character. Tell the stories you want to tell, the ones that let you tell the reader about how you made your decisions and the person you are now.

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is what type of incidents would be better to use. One set of incidents reveals my character through telling the story I've taken to get where I am now and one does it through more of a reflections standpoint(talk about how an incident affected me....and the fact that I want to do medicine now is more or less briefly stated instead of explaining the semi-detailed path I took to get to that point ). Using one approach takes away from the other, that's why I'm trying to figure out what's most important...but the more I stare at it, the more I feel like explaining my path may be 1) more representative of what I want to say and 2) hopefully more interesting. I'm hoping my application will fend for the the other stuff. I've seen a few example papers (all from traditional applicants) and they seem to explain more of their characteristics and qualities and keep a short part of the paper for their motivation for becoming a doctor. ...but since I kind of went a roundabout way in gaining my motivation, the content i need to explain is significantly longer.
Thanks for your input... I feel like the more I keep typing here, the more it helps me eliminate some of the indecisiveness floating around in my head 😛

 

[scpod]

I guess what I'm trying to figure out is what type of incidents would be better to use. One set of incidents reveals my character through telling the story I've taken to get where I am now and one does it through more of a reflections standpoint(talk about how an incident affected me....and the fact that I want to do medicine now is more or less briefly stated instead of explaining the semi-detailed path I took to get to that point ).

This is an essay, just like the ones you were suposed to learn about in English 101 and 102. You should be using the same techniques that you used then to make your paper interesting and , above all, make it memorable. Can you imagine how boring it would be to read 3000 consecutive "I want to be a doctor because..." papers? Take into consideration that people will read and remember a story a lot longer than they will a history of events. Why? Because using colorful language, action verbs, and metaphors engages them in the reading. It "shows" them what has happened instead of "telling" them. They can see a very clear image of it in their head.

Take an example I used often when teaching kids about writing: You could say, "The man was happy." The reader would hear your words, but maybe not be able to see it in his or her head. You could say, "He slowly turned his head toward me, the light from the sun glinting in his eyes, and smiled." There are two things you can say about the second sentence. Number one, you didn't have to tell me that the man was happy. I, as the reader, was able to determine that myself. Number two, I also have a pretty darned good image of the event in my head, and images are a lot more memorable than words.

The point is, not only to look at the information that you put into your statement, but also make it different from that same old trite BS that 95% of the others will put down. Make it appealing, not boring, and it will be much more memorable. You'll show that you have the ability to eloquently express yourself and convey ideas, a thing that few people even think about when they sit down to write their statement.

 

[keerthan]

This is an essay, just like the ones you were suposed to learn about in English 101 and 102. You should be using the same techniques that you used then to make your paper interesting and , above all, make it memorable. Can you imagine how boring it would be to read 3000 consecutive "I want to be a doctor because..." papers? Take into consideration that people will read and remember a story a lot longer than they will a history of events. Why? Because using colorful language, action verbs, and metaphors engages them in the reading. It "shows" them what has happened instead of "telling" them. They can see a very clear image of it in their head.

Take an example I used often when teaching kids about writing: You could say, "The man was happy." The reader would hear your words, but maybe not be able to see it in his or her head. You could say, "He slowly turned his head toward me, the light from the sun glinting in his eyes, and smiled." There are two things you can say about the second sentence. Number one, you didn't have to tell me that the man was happy. I, as the reader, was able to determine that myself. Number two, I also have a pretty darned good image of the event in my head, and images are a lot more memorable than words.

The point is, not only to look at the information that you put into your statement, but also make it different from that same old trite BS that 95% of the others will put down. Make it appealing, not boring, and it will be much more memorable. You'll show that you have the ability to eloquently express yourself and convey ideas, a thing that few people even think about when they sit down to write their statement.

I'm not doubting that I need to write an essay that's engaging and memorable. There are two ways I can do this, and I'm asking which perspective would be more ideal to use for my case. I know I would be able to make it interesting in both instances, but I'm having mixed views on which instance to use. I've been told that writing about my thought process to arrive at the idea of medicine is more or less unnecessary and that I should focus more on talking about myself through experiences, with the med school idea being more or less implied. They said the coming and going of the idea is more or less irrelevant,the fact that you want to do it now is enough, and that you should just focus on doing that and using more room to talk about other stuff rather than getting too in depth about how I came to the idea of medicine. So, what I'm asking is for is feedback on the two ways I have thought of approaching this. Thanks again.