We’re getting closer to the end of the semester, which also means that grad school application season is approaching. So you’ve picked a master’s program you want to pursue, you’ve found all of the right schools that would be perfect for your program, and you’ve anxiously thought about what your life will be like after graduate school. Now here comes the scariest part – writing down in 300-500 words on why you should be accepted into a school’s program. “How can I possibly write down all of my experiences and goals in less than a page?!” is a question I continuously asked while writing my personal statement and pulling my hair out at the same time.

This is a section that you definitely don’t want to wait until the last minute to write. It fills in all of the parts about your life that won’t be on the application or transcripts, as well as the things in your academic/work history that you really want to highlight. Before writing an essay you have probably prepared an outline to lay out what you’ll talk about, and you’ve probably considered who will be reading your essay and what they will be looking for. You need to do the same thing when writing an essay about yourself! Its purpose is for you to share your interests and enthusiasm for the specific work you want to do, and explaining how this college will help you get there. Try and think about how you can benefit from entering a school’s program, and how they will benefit from having you in their program. For example, for my personal statement I mentioned the specific professors in the history department that I wanted to directly work with and research with. This showed that I took their program seriously and took time to thoroughly research what they had to offer.

The big truth is: this personal statement doesn’t have to be so terrifying, it can actually be awesome. It can be incredibly beneficial for you to really think about the experiences you’ve had as well as what you really want to get out of graduate school. I personally think the hardest part is opening up a new word document and beginning the writing process, so before you start writing away, it’s so helpful to have resources that help you format your statement. Once you have a good idea of what a personal statement format should look like, it makes it much easier to tie in your outline of ideas. With that said, to start off, I highly recommend checking out the Career Center’s website for their personal statement page, which you can find here,and here. It gives a lot of great tips and guild lines on how to construct your personal statement. It includes everything from the format, to what to include in your statement, to the writing and mechanics of it. They also include a Do’s and Don’ts list so you have a much better idea of what to keep and take out of your statement. They even have a page to guide you through the entire application process here.

Once you have a draft done of your personal statement, come into the Career Center and get it looked at by a career advisor! You can find details on making an appointment here. An advisor can take time to thoroughly read your statement and give you helpful feedback. In addition, it might be a good idea to have a professor in your department look over your statement as well, but make sure you leave plenty of time for them to look over your statement and provide feedback.