"Personal History/Trajectory" in the SoP

[Feanor]

Hey there,

I just finished the draft of my SoP for the 2017 round. I'm now a mathematician, but I used to study engineering (at the same time) and eventually dropped it and decided to focus on math  - for this reason, it seemed to me that I should include a couple of paragraphs to talk about my trajectory and mention how this happened. Will this just bore the reader and is unecessary since they have my CV, and thus I should remove it altogether and just add more research stuff? Or do you think that would be relevant information?  Here are the "offending" bits, which open the text:

"Part of the joy of mathematics is to think about unusual things in unusual ways - this aspect of the field drew me into the field in middle school, due to the timely intervention of particularly passionate teachers, who managed to not only show the beauty of mathematics but, critically, why it was beautiful. However entranced, my path was still unclear up to my undergraduate days - I started as an engineering student due to family desires and took extra mathematics courses on the side, with the intention of eventually graduating in both degrees. Managing both degrees simultaneously was my first major challenge, but my experience in Engineering allowed me to develop teamwork skills and others that aren’t as emphasized in a math degree. It was undeniable, however, that I was much more motivated by mathematics, which led to the decision of fully dedicating myself to it.

Up to this point I had a deep general appreciation for the subject, but had not yet known love. This changed after I was admitted as an exchange student by the University of Bristol for one year, fully sponsored by the government - Prof. X lectured a course on Algebraic Topology and told me about Category Theory, suggesting Awodey’s book. At first, it looked abstract to the point of mystical, but had nonetheless that familiar sense of clockwork beauty that attracted me to math in the first place. Professor X supervised me for a project on Representation Theory and was open to discussions, so with his feedback I made plans and was eventually admitted to Part III at Cambridge, the place I found most suitable to learn Category Theory at a masters level. This time in Cambridge was most productive in this regard: I attended two courses and biweekly seminars on Category Theory, which helped me get in touch with the different angles of research in the field, wrote an Essay on Y, supervised by Prof. Z, and had the opportunity to give three talks of my own - one for a general audience on bla, another on the topic of my Essay (which can be viewed at -insert link-), and one on blabla. "

[rising_star]

Starting with your love of the field since middle school is generally considered a kiss of death in graduate applications.

[Feanor]

Agreed, I think I'll cut off 80% of that.