Personal starement - personality?

[Marlene5]

I applied to the UK for my undergrad degree (no, I'm not there, I'm home) and the applicants had to write a so called personal statement. I'd like to ask how a personal statement for a Master's degree or a PhD differs from the undergrad personal statement. The part that bugs me the most is "showing your personality". I can talk about my school and career accomplishemnts just fine. I got this and that grade, I like this and that subject because X, this is what I did outside classes, this is what I'd like to learn, this part of the grad course is interesting for me, those are my career plans, I had an internship here and there, I did some group projects so I can work in a group, I had this and that language certificate, and so on. But personality? Meh. Why do they even care? Isn't it stupid? Is it still a thing in grad applications? I can add a word or two about having hobbies, but... does this change anything? How much should I elaborate on this? What should I even write? Mind you, I'm a coder ;) Fluff isn't my strong side. If this question seems silly for you , ha ha. 

[BabyScientist]

14 minutes ago, Marlene5 said:

I applied to the UK for my undergrad degree (no, I'm not there, I'm home) and the applicants had to write a so called personal statement. I'd like to ask how a personal statement for a Master's degree or a PhD differs from the undergrad personal statement. The part that bugs me the most is "showing your personality". I can talk about my school and career accomplishemnts just fine. I got this and that grade, I like this and that subject because X, this is what I did outside classes, this is what I'd like to learn, this part of the grad course is interesting for me, those are my career plans, I had an internship here and there, I did some group projects so I can work in a group, I had this and that language certificate, and so on. But personality? Meh. Why do they even care? Isn't it stupid? Is it still a thing in grad applications? I can add a word or two about having hobbies, but... does this change anything? How much should I elaborate on this? What should I even write? Mind you, I'm a coder Fluff isn't my strong side. If this question seems silly for you , ha ha. 

Well, for graduate schools (at least PhDs), it's actually a statement of purpose. If you convey personality, you're doing it through your writing style or with an anecdote. The SOP is meant to be a statement describing your purpose in applying/going to certain graduate schools. Why do you want to? Why are you qualified? What are your research interests? Why this program? Those are the questions you should be answering.

[Marlene5]

1 hour ago, BabyScientist said:

Well, for graduate schools (at least PhDs), it's actually a statement of purpose. If you convey personality, you're doing it through your writing style or with an anecdote. The SOP is meant to be a statement describing your purpose in applying/going to certain graduate schools. Why do you want to? Why are you qualified? What are your research interests? Why this program? Those are the questions you should be answering.

Thanks for reply! 

So the personality part is nothing to worry about? Then I'm relieved. :)

[BabyScientist]

1 hour ago, Marlene5 said:

Thanks for reply! 

So the personality part is nothing to worry about? Then I'm relieved.

Yeah, it's not anything direct. I mean, you can say something like "My experiences have shaped me into a dedicated and inquisitive student, and I look forward to bringing my talents to this university." 

That's not a great sentence, but just an example of how you can incorporate describing your personality. Really you should just imply it with anecdotes and writing style.

Good luck! 

[Marlene5]

Alright then. Thank you!

[Sigaba]

11 hours ago, Marlene5 said:

So the personality part is nothing to worry about? Then I'm relieved.

It depends upon the program and the department. Some departments won't care as long as you can do the work.

Departments that value collegiality, especially smaller ones, may give additional consideration to someone who is going to be a good fit personality wise and pass on someone who clearly scoffs at the importance of interpersonal skills. 

[BabyScientist]

25 minutes ago, Sigaba said:

It depends upon the program and the department. Some departments won't care as long as you can do the work.

Departments that value collegiality, especially smaller ones, may give additional consideration to someone who is going to be a good fit personality wise and pass on someone who clearly scoffs at the importance of interpersonal skills. 

Well yeah of course a program cares about your personality. But the question here was how do you talk about your personality in an SOP. As I said, you don't discuss it, you convey it with anecdotes and writing style. 

[PokePsych]

^agreed with @BabyScientist

Approach a SOP as 'show, don't tell'. Don't say 'I love research and I'm very motivated' - anyone can say that, rather show you enjoyed research by conveying the amount of research you did and what you learned from it. 

Think about sort of 'traits' you want to convey and make sure you have the anecdotes to back it up. I've never explicitly mentioned anything about what I love or what I'm interested in. I actually told a story how I got really into a certain area of psych, how that lead me to move abroad actually (it's related to culture), how I kept becoming more into it and thus went back to uni to get my masters, and the more research I did, the more I knew I wanted to continue on this and actually study a specific topic. It read better than it sounds now. But there was definitely a clear element of motivation in there, a certain curiosity, and also personality (not everyone moves halfway across the world because they're interested in a certain topic). 

I also quickly discussed with my reference writers what they were gonna talk about - most of them actually asked if I wanted to add something after they wrote a draft. This was also so they could balance my references and highlight different parts (i.e., my advisor wrote a different letter than a prof I worked somewhat less with but who was for example my boss when I was a lab manager. So person 1 highlighted my research skills, person 2 mentioned that too, but focused more on how easy and reliably I was to work with, that I was easy to get along with, and how great the data always was blabla).