Personal Statement Introduction Help?

Hello. I am currently attempting to write my Personal Statement and I am stuck on the introduction and I have a few questions to ask.

To give you some background; I am trying to apply for Occupational Therapy.

In terms of my application introduction I am not sure of whether to talk about:
a) A volunteering position which steered me towards healthcare (obviously, I'd aim it towards why it inspired me and then go into why OT etc.)
b) My Younger Brother who has Learning Difficulties which truly inspired my towards the OT profession

Because Obviously, the benefit would be that the volunteering position was about me specifically and what I did whereas, my brother was more about what it inspired me to become and his story. However, I believe I could always go on to mention the volunteering position later?

Any help, opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank You

Hello. I am currently attempting to write my Personal Statement and I am stuck on the introduction and I have a few questions to ask.

To give you some background; I am trying to apply for Occupational Therapy.

In terms of my application introduction I am not sure of whether to talk about:
a) A volunteering position which steered me towards healthcare (obviously, I'd aim it towards why it inspired me and then go into why OT etc.)
b) My Younger Brother who has Learning Difficulties which truly inspired my towards the OT profession

Because Obviously, the benefit would be that the volunteering position was about me specifically and what I did whereas, my brother was more about what it inspired me to become and his story. However, I believe I could always go on to mention the volunteering position later?

Any help, opinions or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank You

Have a look at https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/personal_statement_builder/make_some_notes - I don't see how you can't use both as an explanation of why you've chosen OT (although it would be worth expanding more on your volunteering elsewhere in your statement too)

Both sound like a good starting point, you could go with either.

This might help - http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Personal_Statement:Occupational_Therapy

Thanks Both; these are a great help. Curious how many lines (roughly) would you recommend to allocate to my introduction? At the moment mine is 7/8 (depending on which opener I use) and I am worried about fitting other things in (I've got quite a lot of things to include in my PS) Is 7/8 lines too much? Thank You
(ALSO, PQ can't give rep at the moment, because I've given you rep recently but will as soon as I can)

Thanks for the help both

Aim for around 500 characters for your intro unless you're typing straight into Apply then using lines will be misleading)...

But don't worry overly about line/character counts at this point. Get something that contains everything you want to say THEN redraft to make it say the same thing in fewer words.

OK thank you, great help (again REP when I can). Completely random question here but I applied last year (for September 2014 entry, for a different course) and was told that I did not reflect on my skills enough by one uni, even though, I beleive I talked about my skills/qualities sufficiently throughout but when I look at other PS on the student room, studential and other websites, they don't seem to reflect on skills/qualities any more (and in some case less) than I did. So how much should I mention actual skills such as Communication skills etc. (Sorry I know that was quite wordy and confusing)

OK thank you, great help (again REP when I can). Completely random question here but I applied last year (for September 2014 entry, for a different course) and was told that I did not reflect on my skills enough by one uni, even though, I beleive I talked about my skills/qualities sufficiently throughout but when I look at other PS on the student room, studential and other websites, they don't seem to reflect on skills/qualities any more (and in some case less) than I did. So how much should I mention actual skills such as Communication skills etc. (Sorry I know that was quite wordy and confusing)

Ideally, you should show not tell when discussing skills- You shouldn't just say "I have good communication skills". However, you might be able to give examples from volunteering, school or work experience which show the sort of skills you need for your course.

Also, for non-vocational subjects, talking about skills is less important, than it is for a degree like social work or medicine, where demonstrating skills from work experience is considered quite important. If you look at university websites, they may mention skills/attributes they think are important for occupational health, so on your PS, you might try and include some examples/reference to these skills.

However, your overall focus should be on why you want to study occupational therapy, not your skills.

The thing with skills is not to just list them off but to give examples of work/experiences where you have used/demonstrated them. Anyone can say "this developed my communication skills" what you need to say is "this involved producing a report for x audience" or "I was required to explain concept x to these people and gather y information from them". Solid PERSONAL examples of displaying and using skills.

So just to clarify, would something along the lines of "Volunteering with the Alzheimer's Society, I offered reassurance, companionship and support to patients affected by Alzheimer's Disease; this developed my communication and people skills" Be OK or would the "developed my communication and people skills" be unnecessary? (Obviously, this would be written far better than this,that was written off of the top of my head for now) Sorry for all the questions, its just I failed this year; I don;t want to fail the second time around. Thanks for all the advice both