Dos/Don'ts of Personal Statement?

[PochoRockNwaves]

Personal statements/statement of purpose are a very important part of the graduate application.

Does anyone have any specific DOs or DON'Ts about what to include? Perhaps being in the field of earth science, what things to emphasize while still not just listing what you have done.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[GeoDUDE!]

I wrote my SoP like a research proposal: I stated what problems I was interested in, how the facilities and people in that department would help me tackle those problems, and how my background was suited to solve these problems. I think if you can do that you are golden. 

[ssynny]

Well, you can find a lot of general dos and don'ts all over gradcafe. Relating to earth sciences, I have always been told to not be very specific with what research you want to do. Obviously don't say something vague like "I want to study rocks", but don't be as specific as saying something like "I want to study the bedrock of the Quabbin Reservoir to determine the influence of aluminosilicates on chemical weathering over the last 100 years". I totally made that up, but I hope you get the idea. 

As with any job application, you want to emphasize how good of a fit you are and how you plan to make great contributions to the scientific community. Don't focus all on you and how grad school will help you with your goals. Why should they want you?

Papers, posters, talks, etc. are really good, so don't forget to put them in your paper, maybe as segways to what you would like to study in the future. But don't keep talking about how awesome you think you are, and how smart you think you are, and how you've done all these amazing things, because it makes it seem like you think you're the shit and you already know everything there is to know about everything. 

 

Good luck!

[magnetite]

4 hours ago, GeoDUDE! said:

I wrote my SoP like a research proposal: I stated what problems I was interested in, how the facilities and people in that department would help me tackle those problems, and how my background was suited to solve these problems. I think if you can do that you are golden. 

How much of this research proposal in your personal statement was drawn from your work as an undergraduate? I ask because I'm looking to go into planetary science/earth science/oceanography, but my school doesn't have active research in these areas. So, I'm not exactly sure of the unanswered questions in these fields. I just know that I want to study extreme environments on Earth and what implications they could have for life on other bodies in the solar system. Apart from that, I don't have much in the way of elaboration.

Also, sorry if I tend to hijack threads with questions of my own that are only tangentially related to the original post.

 

[GeoDUDE!]

1 hour ago, magnetite said:

How much of this research proposal in your personal statement was drawn from your work as an undergraduate? I ask because I'm looking to go into planetary science/earth science/oceanography, but my school doesn't have active research in these areas. So, I'm not exactly sure of the unanswered questions in these fields. I just know that I want to study extreme environments on Earth and what implications they could have for life on other bodies in the solar system. Apart from that, I don't have much in the way of elaboration.

Also, sorry if I tend to hijack threads with questions of my own that are only tangentially related to the original post.

 

 

Almost none.  The research I did in undergrad was observational and experimental .... and I wasn't even in the earth sciences. It wasn't a full blown research proposal... it was more like " I am interested in using methods x " to attack problems y and z .  There was more connecting the department to that research than actually proposing a full blown problem. Another thing that worked well is I gave a specific example of how I solved a research problem. I didn't go through the entire history of my research experiences, that's what the CV is for. Your statement of purpose is a meant to be a compelling argument of why you want to attend a specific program.