Anyone want to critique my personal statement?

[tlkevinbacon]

If anyone would be willing to critque my personal statement, it would be greatly appreciated. Any and all advice would be welcome.

 

When I began my undergraduate degree at the University of Southern Maine, my interests, like many other undergraduate psychology students, was in clinical psychology. However my interests took a drastic change at the beginning of my junior year when I discovered how fascinating the study of memory is. The catalyst for this change was a cognitive processes class taught by Dr. Scott Brown. The lectures Dr. Brown gave over contemporary models of learning and memory enamored me and caused a shift in my interests from clinical psychology to the psychology behind memory. Initially my interests in the area of memory were in the effects of emotion on learning and implicit retrieval, although my interests in memory have recently changed as well.

An article published in Scientific American's August, 2013 issue, “Perchance to Prune”, proposed a new way to look at the effects of sleep on memory that has given a new direction to my research interests. Authors, Giulio Tononi and Chiara Cirelli, suggest that during NREM stages of sleep synchronous neural activity serves to degrade synaptic connections. Through this degradation synapses that were strengthened during the day remain stronger than the weak synaptic connections that were freshly made that day. The result would be an increase in the strength of an individual's most frequently used synapses.

While reading Tononi and Cirelli's article, the proposed hypothesis and mechanisms of NREM sleep began to remind me of the effects of seizure activity on the memory of epileptics. Due to the connections that can be made between this newly proposed theory of NREM sleep and epilepsy, an area of research that I would like to pursue would be to further look at the possibility of epilepsy being related to NREM sleep, and the effects of anti-convulsants on NREM sleep patterns in non-epileptic individuals. After receiving a Ph.D my goal would be to continue researching the relationship between sleep and memory, as well as teaching at a university level. Through teaching I would hope to inspire psychology undergraduates to pursue an interest of some of the less popular areas within psychology.

Currently I am working with Dr. Elizabeth Vella in the development of a research protocol to be submitted to the institutional review board by the end of the current semester. The protocol in development deals with biological reactions to Facebook induced stressors. I am also working with other student research assistants to complete a presentation on personality trait correlates to ADHD, this data will be presented at the Eastern Psychological Association conference in Boston in March of the current year. I am also currently working with Dr. William Gayton as a teaching assistant. As Dr. Gayton's teaching assistant I am responsible for facilitating in class discussion, holding private tutoring sessions, and holding review sessions before exams. I am also involved in the development and grading of exams, and the grading of extra-credit assignments.

Acceptance to the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Ph.D in Behavioral Neuroscience program would be the first step in achieving my goals as both a professor, and researcher.

 

 

[Loric]

First sentence has too many commas.

 

Try not to end sentences with "is" - "became fascinated with the study of memory" flows better.

 

Over != on. Use on, about, pertaining to.

 

In the last sentence of the first paragraph you're pair disparate ideas that while they seem related neither is fully fleshed out to make sense.

 

"August, 2013," - and is the title of the article Perchance to Prune..? Add the word "entitled" to clarify, otherwise it sounds like the issue is titled that.

 

There's also no reason to commasplice out the title of the article.

 

"that has given" - "gave"

 

"Authors" are a thing, "the authors" refers to a specific group - like the ones you list. It also sort of justifies your commasplice but it's really not neccessary.. Ditch their first names too, it just makes things confusing.

 

You used "proposed" so in the article they will have "suggested."  Watch your tense.

 

Yay you used just the last names! But there's no reason for a comma there.

 

"Due to the connections that can be made between this newly proposed theory of NREM sleep and epilepsy, an area of research that I would like to pursue would be to further look at the possibility of epilepsy being related to NREM sleep, and the effects of anti-convulsants on NREM sleep patterns in non-epileptic individuals" - way, waaaaaay too long and confusing. Restate.

 

"to continue researching" - "to research" as all researching would be a continuation.  "between sleep and memory, as well as teaching" - "of sleep to memory while teaching" - rid yourself of confusing use of extranuous "and"

 

"Through teaching I would hope to inspire psychology undergraduates to pursue an interest of some of the less popular areas within psychology." - no 'some.' Oddly phrased. What are those less popular areas?

 

Ideally: "My goal as a professor would be to inspire young students to explore less popular areas of psychology such as XYZ, YXG, and DSFG."

 

"Currently I am working with Dr. Elizabeth Vella in the development of a research protocol to be submitted to the institutional review board by the end of the current semester."

 

--

 

"Currently, my work is with Dr. Elizabeth Vella on a research protocol which deals with the biological reactions to Facebook induced stressors. It is expeced to be submitted to the insitituitional review board at the end of the semester. "

 

Correlates? Not sure if that's proper terminology. Correlation sounds better, but perhaps i'm wrong. "ADHD(. period) This.."

 

Second use of "I am also" - "Addittionally, I am working.."

 

"for facilitating in class discussion, holding private tutoring sessions, and holding review sessions before exams."

 

--

 

"the facilitation of class discussions, private tutoring, exam reviews, as well as the grading of the exams and extra credit assignments."

 

Yeesh, i'm not gonna lie this was rough. The whole thing is rough. I think I put out several of the fires with phrasing and such but.. structurally it's got issues.

 

The second paragraph is the most compelling. Lead with it.

 

Start from there and rework/rewrite what's left.

[tlkevinbacon]

I appreciate everything you've said. The more brutally honest the better. The personal statement is really the one part of the application process that is giving me difficulty, I had no idea where to start and essentially just typed out whatever came to mind. This was my first draft really and with the revisions you've suggested this statement will definitely improve it.

Edited November 24, 2013 by tlkevinbacon

[tlkevinbacon]

And here's the second draft of this statement if anyone would be so kind as to look this over.

 

An article published in Scientific American's August, 2013 issue entitled “Perchance to Prune” proposed a new way to look at the effects of sleep on memory that gave new direction to my research interests. The authors,Tononi and Cirelli, suggested that during NREM stages of sleep synchronous neural activity serves to degrade synaptic connections. Through this degradation synapses that were strengthened during the day remain stronger than the weak synaptic connections that were freshly made that day. The result would be an increase in the strength of an individual's most frequently used synapses and in turn an improvement in memory.

 

While reading Tononi and Cirelli's article, the proposed hypothesis and mechanisms of NREM sleep began to remind me of the effects of seizure activity on the memory of epileptics. Considering the connections one can make between this newly proposed theory of NREM sleep and epilepsy, an area of research I would be interested in further pursuing would be in this domain. It may be possible to establish a link between NREM sleep and epilepsy. One way to potentially establish this link would be to study the effects of anti-convulsant medication on the NREM sleep patterns of non-epileptic individuals. An already known side effect of anti-convulsant medication in epileptics is degradation of memory, in the context of Tononi and Cirelli's theory this memory degradation may be due to disruptions in NREM sleep cycles caused by the anti-convulsants. After receiving a Ph.D my goal would be to research the relationship between sleep and memory while teaching at a university level. My goal as a professor would be to inspire young students to explore less popular areas of psychology such as sensation and perception and cognitive processes.

 

When I began my undergraduate degree at the University of Southern Maine, like many other undergraduate psychology students my interest was in clinical psychology. However in the beginning of my junior year my interests took a drastic change when I became fascinated with the study of memory. The catalyst for this change was a cognitive processes class taught by Dr. Scott Brown. The lectures Dr. Brown gave on contemporary models of learning and memory enamored me and caused my interests to shift from clinical psychology, to the psychology behind memory. Initially my interests in the area of memory were focused on the effects of emotion on learning and implicit retrieval. After reading the Tononi and Cirelli article discussed above, my interests now lie within the vastly different domain of memory and its relationship with sleep.

 

Currently my work is with Dr. Elizabeth Vella on a research protocol which deals with the biological reactions to Facebook induced stressors. It is expected to be submitted to the institutional review board at the end of the semester. Additionally, I am also working with other student research assistants to complete a presentation on personality trait correlates to ADHD. This data will be presented at the Eastern Psychological Association conference in Boston in March of the coming year. Additionally, I am working with Dr. William Gayton as a teaching assistant. As Dr. Gayton's teaching assistant I am responsible for the facilitation of class discussion, holding private tutoring, exam reviews, as well as the grading of exams and extra credit assignments.

 

Admission to the University of Hawaii at Manoa's Ph.D in Behavioral Neuroscience program would be the first step in achieving my goals, both as a researcher and a professor.

Edited November 24, 2013 by tlkevinbacon