ADVICE NEEDED: Personal History Statement

[vkcr7]

Hello,

I'm applying for M.S. in Mechanical Engineering(focus-Biomechanical). I wanted to start my PHS by mentioning two people in my life who have faced health issues (1st person-osteoarthritis, 2nd person- disabled) and stating that watching their struggles motivated me to pursue this area of study. 

I've used up nearly 150 words to describe their condition and their struggles. However, a PHS is supposed to talk about the person applying. So, I was wondering if this will be considered as a waste of space. It would be great to hear an outside opinion.

Thanks!

[knp]

Everything can always be shorter. Oh, you think that was a good point? Great! Now make it shorter.*

*A few people really do write extremely concisely, but they are not you or I. 

Do feel free to keep in the description, but getting through it more quickly is important! Have you heard about that one spoon that helps Parkinson's sufferers eat independently? Someone who worked on that project might write, "Having watched my mother, who has Parkinson's, lose the ability to feed herself due to her tremors, I realized that there was an engineering solution that could help her with one of the symptoms of her disease. Thus, I figured out how to engineer the motion sensors in the spoon." In only half a sentence, we've gotten from this hypothetical person's personal motivations to their academic/professional work on the problem. Performing that switch in under 50 words will give you more time to talk about yourself in the rest of your statement.

[vkcr7]

That leads to yet another question. What else do I write? I've seen numerous posts explaining the PHS and what it needs to accomplish, yet, I'm stumped. I thought about mentioning my motivation and my research internship experience. But, I don't think they want to read about what I've done in my internship because that says nothing about me as such and that's the sort of thing to be put in a SoP. I would appreciate any hints or suggestions on how to proceed.

Thanks!

[knp]

Spitballing, here.

• I hate personal history statements. Alas, not writing them is not an option.
• Because I hate the "personal history" part of this ritual, my "basic" statement of purpose has 600 words on my research topic and 150 about my life and my qualifications to do the research. When faced with an application that requires a research statement and a statement of personal history, I basically cut those 150 words about my life out and turn them into 300 in a separate essay. So yes, my "personal history" statement is a lot about my research experience.
• What does the actual prompt in the actual personal history statement at your program say? These are different, you know! For instance, one of my schools' prompts was basically "tell us about yourself." Another one really wanted "tell us about yourself, and what diverse perspective can you bring to this program?" Looking at the wording of the questions let me talk more about diversity in the second one than was natural to do in the first.

Does any of that help?

[TakeruK]

These are things I wrote in my personal history statement when I wrote one:

1. Wrote about my experience as a first generation college student.

2. Wrote about my experience working in the summers to pay for college tuition because my family has no savings for college and I don't want to take the risk of having a student loan.

3. Wrote about why I am motivated to pursue higher education: my parents were refugees that fled their home country after a war so they had no chance to pursue any sort of education. They gave up their old lives to move to Canada where they know their future children would have a better chance.

4. Wrote about all of my non-academic reasons for wanting a graduate degree.

I interpreted the personal history statement to write about me, as a person. I didn't write about my research experience at all. Instead, I thought about two questions: "What challenges have I overcome to get to where I am? and "Why am I applying to graduate school?". The answers to these questions that were professional/academic related went into my SOP. The ones that were more personal than academic went into my Personal History Statement.