I cannot write my personal statement :(

[catcobb]

I think that the personal statement will be the death of me.

The prompt is:

"Please provide a one-page letter of intent in which you comment on your (1) undergraduate courses of study and performance; (2) goals and aspirations for graduate study in the SLP program; "

At first it seemed fairly easy to write but it has been a struggle to say the least. I am an out-of-field student (child development major) and think I know what I want to discuss in terms of my courses but I'm not sure how to say it.

I took a families course and learned about how to work collaboratively and communicate effectively with families of all backgrounds and I think that this is really important when working with children in order to give them the best therapy possible. We also focused on the concept of empathy in this course which I believe is also incredibly important and beneficial to therapists to be able to understand the struggle the families may be going through after being told their child needs therapy (no parent wants to hear that their child is behind in some way). When I write I keep making it more like an essay as opposed to a personal statement (talking about myself is not something I'm great at). 

I hope that this made and sense and would appreciate any and all advice!

 

[oldsolnewworld]

i think you should highlight how your background in child development might even make you a stronger candidate because you understand these family dynamics. assuming you might still want to work with children or youth, maybe you can tie this into your goals as it relates to what population and setting you would like to work with.

[aaaslp]

I was also very overwhelmed when I sat down to write my personal statement. I had so many ideas that I wanted to put together but didn't know where to start; I just began jotting down any and all ideas I had and as I continued to write I figured out how to sequence it to make it sound great (and then scrapped that essay and redid it about 100x, no joke). Just ask yourself; why do I want this (admission to grad school/ becoming an SLP)? What have I done to achieve this? How will this specific program help me achieve this?

Good luck!