How to write your future goals in the SOP

[samman1994]

Hello everyone,

First and foremost, I want to apologize for asking so many questions in general (and cluttering up the feeds with them). I hope at the very least they are at least good questions that other people may have and can find answers to. 

I had a question regarding the final portion of your SOP where you discuss your future goals/plans. How specific should I be? For example, my eventual goal is to understand how a particular disease/protein involved in disease works, and through that, design a drug around that (and also test drugs interactions); thereby curing the disease/problem. Now this is very general of course. The detailed version would probably look at a particular type of diseases, and then say focus on one disease such as Alzheimers. Alzheimers is caused primarily by aggregating amyloid plaques, so if I were to be super specific: I'd like to use the structural biology and biophysical skills I've learned at X school, to solve Alzheimers by elucidating the structure of amyloid plaques and finding out how to disrupt the formation of these aggregates in the first place (i.e. preventing Alzheimers from happening). 

So my question is again, how specific do you want to be?  

1)  I want to cure disease by understanding how proteins work. 

2) I want to cure neurodegenerative diseases by understanding how proteins function through solving their structure and probing their dynamics

3)I want to cure Alzheimers by elucidating the structure of amyloid plaques and disrupting their formation

Each level is more specific in its focus, and its methodology addressing how to solve the focuses problem. 

[_kita]

I would go with #2 but added "such as Alzheimers disease". Gives the committee more detail, but also doesn't make you sound like a one trick pony.

Edited September 23, 2017 by _kita

[samman1994]

5 hours ago, _kita said:

I would go with #2 but added "such as Alzheimers disease". Gives the committee more detail, but also doesn't make you sound like a one trick pony.

Thank you!

[fuzzylogician]

Please don't take this the wrong way, but is "non of the above" an option? Your options all sound incredibly naive and kind of obnoxious. A more self-aware version of #2 might be something like: 

"My long-term goal is to contribute to the effort to cure neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers disease by expanding our understanding of how proteins function, through a close study of their structure and by probing their dynamics."
 

As in, acknowledge that other (smart, talented) people have been working on this very difficult problem for a long time already, and be humble enough to show awareness of your own potential limitations -- you may not cure a disease all on your own, but contributing to the effort is something that a reasonable undergrad can aspire to. 

[samman1994]

1 hour ago, fuzzylogician said:

Please don't take this the wrong way, but is "non of the above" an option? Your options all sound incredibly naive and kind of obnoxious. A more self-aware version of #2 might be something like: 

"My long-term goal is to contribute to the effort to cure neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimers disease by expanding our understanding of how proteins function, through a close study of their structure and by probing their dynamics."
 

As in, acknowledge that other (smart, talented) people have been working on this very difficult problem for a long time already, and be humble enough to show awareness of your own potential limitations -- you may not cure a disease all on your own, but contributing to the effort is something that a reasonable undergrad can aspire to. 

Well naturally I wouldn't word it exactly like that, these were merely examples of how detailed or specific I should be (e.g. I would never just say I want to cure disease by seeing how proteins work)

[fuzzylogician]

9 minutes ago, samman1994 said:

Well naturally I wouldn't word it exactly like that, these were merely examples of how detailed or specific I should be (e.g. I would never just say I want to cure disease by seeing how proteins work)

Well, again. A self-aware version of #2 seems the most appropriate. #1 doesn't give much of any information at all. #3 has you already settled not only on the target disease but on the way to go trying to cure it, but you should probably be more cautious about making such detailed choices before you even start grad school. #2 gives the general intent and the kind of directions you think might be fruitful without getting overly specific in the wrong places, so therefore seems the most appropriate. 

[GreenEyedTrombonist]

I agree with fuzzy. #1 reads as though you don't have any real direction/knowledge of the area while #3 reads as you being too set in your ways/stubborn and unwilling to learn something new. 

[samman1994]

Yeah, I was personally thinking #2 as well, it flows better and relates to my SOPs theme as well (structural biology and biophysics). Thanks for the feedback guys!