Politics and Economics Personal Statement Help! - books

Hi everyone, I am very interested in undertaking a degree in Politics and Economics and have started reading around my subject area - I have just started a book called 'Global Discontents' by Noam Chomsky, yet I see that Chomsky is not a very popular author to reference on personal statements, so should I steer clear? Also if anyone else has any other super-curricular recommendations this would be greatly appreciated - I am a little worried by my relative lack of work experience/volunteering. Thank you!

Reply 1

bloopbloopbloo

9

Original post by bishbish123

Hi everyone, I am very interested in undertaking a degree in Politics and Economics and have started reading around my subject area - I have just started a book called 'Global Discontents' by Noam Chomsky, yet I see that Chomsky is not a very popular author to reference on personal statements, so should I steer clear? Also if anyone else has any other super-curricular recommendations this would be greatly appreciated - I am a little worried by my relative lack of work experience/volunteering. Thank you!

I got offers from Manchester, Lancaster, Loughborough and Reading for Politics, Philosophy and Economics. I didn't write about volunteering and work experience and instead stuck to talking about the subjects, and related it to my A-Levels in the same subjects -- drawing links about what I've learned in my A Levels with common themes in the university course. The books I talked about were 'Women, Race and Class' by Angela Davis, 'Capitalist Realism' by Mark Fisher and 'How Europe Underdeveloped Africa' by Walter Rodney. I also talked about 'Nausea' by Jean Paul Sartre but obviously that's relevant to philosophy and not politics and economics. I wrote a few sentences per book. I drew links between the subjects also, like linking the labour market in economics to politics and hedonism in philosophy to both politics and economics (via individualism and liberalism). I talked about news sources I use to keep up to date with current political and economic events, and I talked about the biggest events I've been following, tying trade union activity into the labour market discussion I had earlier in the personal statement. The last few sentences were very general statements about what I want from the degree.

I'd suggest referencing Noam Chomsky if you're reading or have read his stuff, unless I'm missing something about him. The lack of work experience and volunteering is nothing to worry about honestly, just show your interest in the degree and talk about what you want from it and you should be sorted. Also talk at least briefly about what you want from the university experience as a whole.

(edited 10 months ago)

Reply 2

username5872406

OP

8

Thank you so much @bloopbloopbloo, your advice is really useful. Please may I ask how you made links between subjects (e.g. did you link books? Simply reference ideas that interested you?) and mentioned what you wanted from the degree/university experience in more detail? The personal statement process seems a little daunting to me right now. Also, how did you go about choosing courses - what enticed you to Manchester, Loughborough etc.?

Thank you :smile:

Reply 3

Emmanuel AA

2

Original post by bishbish123

Hi everyone, I am very interested in undertaking a degree in Politics and Economics and have started reading around my subject area - I have just started a book called 'Global Discontents' by Noam Chomsky, yet I see that Chomsky is not a very popular author to reference on personal statements, so should I steer clear? Also if anyone else has any other super-curricular recommendations this would be greatly appreciated - I am a little worried by my relative lack of work experience/volunteering. Thank you!

Hi,

My name is Emmanuel and I'm a 3rd Year Student of History & Politics at Lancaster University, but I've also done a lot of work in sessions as a Student Ambassador around Admissions and matters like Personal Statements. My number 1 recommendation is to not be afraid of not doing what everyone else has done. For example, staff members always advise against the use of cliched phrases to introduce or conclude your Personal Statement, and the personal touch/engagement from yourself is key. In terms of Chomsky, he's a very prominent intellectual, but there is no reason why you cannot use him as a point of reference as long as you have engaged critically with his work and can show how you have used your own initiative to do so. More broadly, the Personal Statement is an opportunity to display your enthusiasm for learning and transferable skills/knowledge that will allow you to excel at University. That doesn't necessarily require work experience or volunteering by any means but as long as you have specific, detailed examples of work that you can use, you'll be fine. Ideas, things that excite you in the field, and any projects/works/thoughts that have arisen from engagement with Chomsky could be deployed selectively, but without more detail of how/what you have done in this regard, I can't explain further. I hope that helps.

Reply 4

Emmanuel AA

2

Original post by bishbish123

Thank you so much @bloopbloopbloo, your advice is really useful. Please may I ask how you made links between subjects (e.g. did you link books? Simply reference ideas that interested you?) and mentioned what you wanted from the degree/university experience in more detail? The personal statement process seems a little daunting to me right now. Also, how did you go about choosing courses - what enticed you to Manchester, Loughborough etc.?

Thank you :smile:

Hi,

It's Emmanuel again. I just thought I'd chip in here, in the absence of a response, to talk about my selection process. I received offers from two London universities, Nottingham and Lancaster after rejection following an interview at Cambridge. I got unconditional or very achievable offers from these four institutions and would have been able to fulfill the grade requirements of any of that quartet, so the decision came down to other factors. First and foremost, at the time, I prioritized academics because Uni (wrongly) felt like an extension of school, and I knew, in any case, that it would be the area to which I committed most of my efforts. Lancaster provided me with the opportunity to explore modules with works like those of Walter Rodney on African geopolitics (which was important to me) and approached non-Western histories/politics in a way that aligned with my interests and perspectives on the field. It's definitely been the right decision for me and the balance of History & Politics is very flexible at Lancaster due to the structure and prevalence of Joint Honours degrees here. However, in retrospect, and at the time, there were additional considerations I made to settle on coming to Lancaster.

One of those was the type of University. I grew up in a big town and liked a quiet lifestyle. So, since Lancaster is a campus-oriented University, it afforded a safe, calm environment into which I could settle and familiarise myself with student life joining as a student during the pandemic, meant 2nd Year wouldn't be such a shock to me because I could stay on campus practically all the time if I preferred that course of action. The accommodation has won 'Best Halls of Residence' 8 times in the last 13 years, you can stay on campus as a 2nd/3rd year (no guarantees) and the collegiate system of the University allowed you more immediate support with accommodation issues, a tight-knit community of friends, communal spaces and sports clubs that I liked. Matters like the flexibility of part-time employment and volunteering opportunities also were important to me once I joined and it all made me realize that the integration of studying and life as a Uni student into the same environment meant I needed a more holistic approach to choosing where I wanted to go to University. An Offer Holder Event sold Lancaster to me; I'd recommend going to those events, and Open Days where possible and using any online forums Universities provide to talk to staff and students directly if those visits aren't possible. I hope this response has been helpful!

Reply 5

bloopbloopbloo

9

Original post by bishbish123

Thank you so much @bloopbloopbloo, your advice is really useful. Please may I ask how you made links between subjects (e.g. did you link books? Simply reference ideas that interested you?) and mentioned what you wanted from the degree/university experience in more detail? The personal statement process seems a little daunting to me right now. Also, how did you go about choosing courses - what enticed you to Manchester, Loughborough etc.?

Thank you :smile:

Sorry I forgot to reply to this. I linked Capitalist Realism to Women, Race and Class, so yes I did link books, and I also linked subjects via the labour market in economics to political analysis of workers' rights. For what I wanted from the degree I wrote a sentence about problem-solving, policy and ideology. For the university experience I wrote a sentence about community. I knew what course I wanted to do before I started A Level, that's why I chose the A Levels I did. What enticed me to the universities I chose was their grade boundaries in respect to my predicted grades, I was predicted AAA so I couldn't choose any university that was above that, and also I did not want to go to any universities within London because I hate London.

I'd suggest looking at universities per subject performance and not just taking a gamble like I did, which I'm only recommending because other people generally recommend doing so. Personally I chose the universities I did out of bias and relatively randomly, I see the whole thing as meaningless and I don't really know what I'm doing.

(edited 10 months ago)

Politics and Economics Personal Statement Help! - books

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