Inspired opening lines

[thenerdypengwin]

Hi denizens of thegradcafe,

I've outlined my SOP and the body and culmination is wicked inspired, but I can't seem to start it out. Is anyone particularly proud of their opening lines that they'd like to share? (promise I won't steal it. And if it's jackable, then you probably aren't uniquely inspired anyway.)

Maya

[fuzzylogician]

And if it's jackable, then you probably aren't uniquely inspired anyway.)

[1Q84]

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times...

[DarwinAG]

If you're a linguist, can't go wrong with "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously".

or a Hubel and Wiessel reference.

[fuzzylogician]

If you're a linguist, can't go wrong with "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously".

As a linguist, I beg to differ. The only thing that would be more cliche is "Ever since I was a child, I've always enjoyed learning new languages."

[mandarin.orange]

LOL. I just PM'ed someone re. her SoP, and it's been a back-and-forth with me trying to impress the value of starting with something straight and to-the-point...which I feel is especially important in STEM fields.

Beware of getting overly worked up and riding what you perceive as a wave of linguistic cleverness...this may not leave the impression on the adcom you envision.

My opener was something like, "I want to go to graduate school so I can develop skills to work in California's public sector." Not exactly something I labored over, or coveted as "the Precioussss" while high on my own literary prowess. But it got the job done.

[DarwinAG]

As a linguist, I beg to differ. The only thing that would be more cliche is "Ever since I was a child, I've always enjoyed learning new languages."

Touche!

[Allouette]

LOL. I just PM'ed someone re. her SoP, and it's been a back-and-forth with me trying to impress the value of starting with something straight and to-the-point...which I feel is especially important in STEM fields.

I completely agree. I was at a mental standstill for my SoP for so long, and one of my profs was just like, "well, your problem is you're hung up on something completely valueless" (the opener).

As soon as I dropped the notion of starting with something 'inspiring' and just dove straight into the 'good stuff', the silly thing pretty much wrote itself. And one million out of one million people who looked it over agree that it is so much better (clearer, more concise, more mature, more 'with it') than the drafts I started with narratives or quotes or anecdotes.

[Quant_Liz_Lemon]

I agree with Mandarin Orange.

Here's my opener: I would like to pursue an academic career in quantitative psychology with a methodological focus on longitudinal design and a substantive focus on personality predictors of long term outcomes.

Nothing clever, nothing inspired, just direct and to the point. It's probably the least important line in the entire thing. Perhaps my field is different, but I doubt that a clever gimmick will get you into graduate school. Your past experiences and future plans are much more important.

[1Q84]

Monkeys on typewriters aside, I think there's nothing wrong with a less than straight-forward SOP opener either. I mean it doesn't have to be a feat of verbal prestidigitation (thank you, GRE!) but something a little less dry than "I am applying for XYZ" can't hurt either. Opening with a non-obvious quote can be subtle enough to show that you have an interdisciplinary bent, perhaps.

I'm using a Latin quote from Tacitus in my application for English Lit because I majored in Latin in undergrad and also because that language skill is related to/important to my proposed field of study.

[fuzzylogician]

FWIW I opened with a (broad) research question that was on my mind at the time, then described the background that allowed me to ask it (education, research and teaching experience) then circled back to expanding on the question and at the same time explaining how the school I applied to would be a good fit for working on this type of question. I had tried a couple of "hook" openings but none of them worked as well as the straightforward approach, not to mention the space it saved compared to the versions that contained 2-3 sentences telling a story that was not related to my current (at the time) research.

[practical cat]

Mine literally starts with the words, "I am interested in" but the sentence has something of a twist ending. I came up with a very blunt (I love bluntness in an opening sentence) but also very honest way of expressing my interests and started with that. It helped the rest flow and it's something that I can continuously gesture toward in the paper.

[rising_star]

The SOP opening I used back in the day (I applied to PhD programs in Fall 2007) is basically the same as Quant_Liz_Lemon's. I'm not including it for anonymity purposes but, here's the basic structure: "At the forefront of my research interests are A, B, C, and D, with an emphasis on using Z theory to acknowledge problems."

It worked, btw. I got no complaints about it.

[mandarin.orange]

Female Science Professor's blog has a sample essay, with a great quote/opening line here (scroll down past the perfectly legit SoP advice to view it).

[R Deckard]

"My name is Rick Deckard, and I am applying to [some department] at [some school] to study [some stuff]."

And I was in.

[rems]

"My name is Rick Deckard, and I am applying to [some department] at [some school] to study [some stuff]."

And I was in.

Well yah, you're a blade runner.

[TeaGirl]

After spending so much time writing personal statements, first for my Masters and then for my PhD and again this year, I found it best to get to the point. I went with,

"I'm a graduate from University X with a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering."

And it's worked. I think unless you are in some humanities field where writing is a major focus, professors don't really care for cool opening lines as long as you write well and have good grammar. In the end, the decision is going to come down your qualifications and not whether you found that perfect quote or not.

[Tolman's Rat]

I am going for simplicity as well. I think it will be most important to demonstrate you have a thorough understanding of what you want to do, why you are prepared to do it, and how it fits with specific faculty in the department. A nice style will help you to get your point across, so that is obviously important, but I find that the 'inspired opening line' could be interpreted the wrong way. I want to strike a chord with my potential advisors because I am a better candidate than other applicants, who will conduct outstanding research in their lab for the next 5-6 years, not because I am witty and cute.

[practical cat]

After spending so much time writing personal statements, first for my Masters and then for my PhD and again this year, I found it best to get to the point. I went with,

"I'm a graduate from University X with a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering."

And it's worked. I think unless you are in some humanities field where writing is a major focus, professors don't really care for cool opening lines as long as you write well and have good grammar. In the end, the decision is going to come down your qualifications and not whether you found that perfect quote or not.

Writing is a major focus (in, I would think, all research fields but whatever) but cheap gimmicks are not. I'm going for a bit of intrigue in mine but not for distracting.

[TeaGirl]

Writing is a major focus (in, I would think, all research fields but whatever) but cheap gimmicks are not. I'm going for a bit of intrigue in mine but not for distracting.

You're right. It's important to be able to communicate well and be able to write papers and articles all fields. I meant more along the lines of something like creative writing, or being able to write a novel or a history book, which requires more style or skill I think than the mostly dry, straight forward language of science papers.

In any case, that was me, I'm sure it would be great if someone used a more creative opening. I just couldn't figure it out at the time, and decided to just skip it and dive in

[SeriousSillyPutty]

Do you think it depends on how unusual your story is? Not only do the sciences tend to have a matter-of-fact writing style, but (I would argue) the reasons for wanting to pursue those fields are (generally) more matter of fact as well. If you love physics and you're applying to a physics department, you'd be preaching to the choir if you spent time talking about how amazing physics is, and they can probably figure out that you want to be a physicist.

For me, I wanted to focus on an unusual sub-field, so I felt that I had to first make the case for why it was important at all. So I started with a quote (the one below in my signature), took two sentences explaining what was important about my current work as related to that, and then did the theses sentence, "I want to go to grad school to blah blah blah." Then the last few sentences of the SoP circled back around to this notion.

But if one's goals are more obvious, such a narrative wouldn't be so necessary. At least that's my hypothesis.