CVs and applications for further study

Welcome to this quick guide on applications for postgraduate study personal statement Workshop, which is part of our career Essential series at the University of Edinburgh Careers Service. The key messages we will be covering today are a reminder of the basics, what to include and what to avoid, and we will conclude with follow up resources. These tips will be helpful for you, whether you are writing a personal statement for your master's or for a PhD, as well as for other applications. The advice is highly transferable. You personal statement is an important part of your application. It will help selectors to decide whether you are a good match for the programme you have applied for and just as importantly, whether the programme is right for you. This is a quotation from the University of Edinburgh. So how do we start? Good tips to start with are to follow the guidelines, allow sufficient time and research. So what is it that we need to include? When thinking about what to include in a personal statement, it will be helpful to consider what it is about this course or programme that has appealed to you. These are a selection of examples, and there will be more of these. Is it the particular modules, the teaching approach, perhaps, the opportunities for placements, as well as the larger institution? And points to take into account here would be, are there employer links, potentially research collaborations, community, academic and pastoral support? And what are the facilities like, as well? Spending some time reflecting and articulating on how does this fit with your career plans will be another important section. If it is a vocational course, why would you be suitable for it? Or perhaps you're intending to change direction in your career plans, and if you are taking this route, why now? What is it about this timing for you? A key part of the personal statement focuses on why you. For this area, you would want to be describing your relevant experience, going into detail about that, your skills, your abilities, and qualities that demonstrate you will be a good student and have that capacity for further study. And you would want to finally conclude with a strong closing statement. A key point and a very important point to mention here is to make it evidence based. For example, are you active in your student community? This may be an open day ambassador, perhaps a class rep, or other positions of responsibility? Thinking about examples of academic study or relevant projects that you have been involved in, your dissertation shows good skills of project management and organisation as well as written communication skills to name a few. And your outside interests. And how have these built different skills and qualities that will be transferable to postgraduate study? And if it is vocational, provide particularly detailed evidence of any previous relevant work experience that you've had. Often, as we know, the starting the opening sentence of the personal statement can be the hardest thing to do. It can be quite difficult. But as much as you can, try to avoid cliches and unnecessary preambles. So, for example, one of these cliches would be, I've been a bookworm from the time that I've learned how to read. Again, this is quite general and it is that unnecessary preamble. So instead, you would want to replace it with the example here is in 2018, after attending a seminar on holistic nutrition, I realised that this is a more viable approach to health management, and I decided to devote my research to it. As you can see, that first example is quite general, and the second is much more focused, and it shows a more considered approach to that sentence. Be specific, and it is a really key important point with personal statements. So review your writing and ask yourself it is too vague. We know ourselves how our writing is sounding, so being honest with that and seeing if it might be too vague for you on that. So for example, the first one is I researched various cultural aspects of different populations. This one is extremely vague, and it does basically sum up what anthropologists do in general. Instead, you would want to start with a statement that it's much clearer and more detailed. For example, in my thesis project, I studied the interactions among the use of Samoa, and in my future work, I will revise my previous data with meta analysis from relevant literature. This is much more focused, and again, shows that considered approach to writing, which is what you would want to be ideally aiming for. We included here an example of a section of a personal statement. As you can see, that first example is far too vague, and it only really states what the applicant will gain from the course. It shows no evidence of research into the course or the potential premier. But the example below is a much more focused and better research statement. So hopefully these examples will give you a sense of the type of writing to be aiming for with that, but of course, bringing your own personal twist into your writing as well. So we hope that's been some helpful tips for you, thinking about a checklist in the final checklist. So have you included all that needs to be included? Have you provided evidence to support your claims? Have you avoided cliches and unnecessary waffle and been honest with yourself about if something is sounding vague. And have you been specific with your detail? Well, if you feel that you've concluded all of these and you've been happy with that, then you can go forward then to submit, but it can be helpful to go through that final checklist. Before we conclude today, I'd like to go through some of our follow up resources. Prospects .ac .uk has excellent advice on PG personal statements, including example personal statements. UCAS has a guide for writing postgraduate personal statements, and there's also a short video for that, too. We have our career Essentials playlist, which is our career service video based on this session and to find our other career essential sessions in there. For postgraduate courses overseas, you can use the further study resources on the Career Service website and the link there. And if you're writing a personal statement for a PhD, there's some helpful advice on the find a PhD website for writing a personal statement. And finally, you can connect with us through our email, our website. We have our Career Service LinkedIn page, our Career Service Blog Informed, and our Instagram. We hope that you found this Quick Guide useful and some pointers that you like to implement into your personal statements, and we look forward to seeing you at events in the future. Thank you very much. And