Computer Science Personal Statement

I'm in year 13, doing Bio, Chem and Maths but might want to do Mayhs and Compiter Science or just Compiter Science. I don't know if I should do it. My PS is bad because I have nothing to write about. Can someone give me advise and maybe check my PS or what I've done so far.

Reply 1

TheOnlyEman

6

Below is the advice my mentor gave me for Personal Statements. I'm submitting mine pretty soon and It's much better than it was because of this. Take it or leave it though, it's your statement :smile:

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Oxbridge basically don't care about extra-curricular activities, and most other top unis (which I hope you'd be applying to also) won't care much either. Now I'm not saying you're whole personal statement should be about computer science (mine wasn't), but you shouldn't be using a significant proportion of your statement on it either. Try and link it to your subject if you can, but don't force it, not everything has to be about Computer science, just make sure it demonstrates something about you.

Show that've gone above and beyond what you're taught in school. I guess it actually kind of works well for you because you don't do Computing A-Level, so anything to do with Computer Science is your own decision. This is my idea, so take it or leave it: Show a progression, an example:

- I learnt about Bayes Theorem in school, I heard about Bayes Classifiers
- Attended a lecture/taster day
- Built my own Naive Bayes Classifier

If you haven't done much, build something. Computer Science is one of the only courses (a reason why I love it) is where you can, in your free time, create something without much experience. Then on your PS, talk about a field you're interested in, and you can demonstrate it, by talking about what you learnt when you built a web app/phone app or even a simple script.

Don't boast, don't list

Don't get too attached to what you've written, I went through about 13 drafts and there wasn't a single sentence that didn't get changed/removed/added from the original draft.

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I also got a personal statement hints sheet with examples attached if you want to take a look. I used this too but I wouldn't follow it to the letter. Talk more about academics and super-curricular stuff (programming, work experience at a relevant company, building things) and less of everything else.

- Emmanuel

fl-method_application_ucas-ps-hints (1).pdf112.9KB

computer-science_1.pdf62.8KB

computer-science_3.pdf56.9KB

Reply 2

E--

OP

7

Original post by TheOnlyEman

Below is the advice my mentor gave me for Personal Statements. I'm submitting mine pretty soon and It's much better than it was because of this. Take it or leave it though, it's your statement :smile:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oxbridge basically don't care about extra-curricular activities, and most other top unis (which I hope you'd be applying to also) won't care much either. Now I'm not saying you're whole personal statement should be about computer science (mine wasn't), but you shouldn't be using a significant proportion of your statement on it either. Try and link it to your subject if you can, but don't force it, not everything has to be about Computer science, just make sure it demonstrates something about you.

Show that've gone above and beyond what you're taught in school. I guess it actually kind of works well for you because you don't do Computing A-Level, so anything to do with Computer Science is your own decision. This is my idea, so take it or leave it: Show a progression, an example:

- I learnt about Bayes Theorem in school, I heard about Bayes Classifiers
- Attended a lecture/taster day
- Built my own Naive Bayes Classifier

If you haven't done much, build something. Computer Science is one of the only courses (a reason why I love it) is where you can, in your free time, create something without much experience. Then on your PS, talk about a field you're interested in, and you can demonstrate it, by talking about what you learnt when you built a web app/phone app or even a simple script.

Don't boast, don't list

Don't get too attached to what you've written, I went through about 13 drafts and there wasn't a single sentence that didn't get changed/removed/added from the original draft.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I also got a personal statement hints sheet with examples attached if you want to take a look. I used this too but I wouldn't follow it to the letter. Talk more about academics and super-curricular stuff (programming, work experience at a relevant company, building things) and less of everything else.

- Emmanuel

Wow thanks for this. It has really helped.
But the only experience I have for CS is doing a Online course at code academy, that's it's really. I cant seem to relate my subjects (apart from Maths) to it either.

Reply 3

GamingAnonymous

13

I agree with above. Just make something, anything. Make a calculator. Talk about what you made and how it made you feel. It feels great right, making stuff. After making something, give a very brief summary of what you did after to find improvements. Read an article on design patterns for example. I have been programming for 5 years for example and I can tell you that you never stop learning things and every time it feels great.

Its also important to not list programming languages as also stated above. You dont learn programming languages you learn skills and techniques which can be applied to almost all of them. The syntax is the easiest part.

(edited 6 years ago)

Reply 4

TheOnlyEman

6

Original post by Eza-

Wow thanks for this. It has really helped.
But the only experience I have for CS is doing a Online course at code academy, that's it's really. I cant seem to relate my subjects (apart from Maths) to it either.

Talk about it! then reflect on your experience and how it helped develop your skills/interest.

When it comes to subjects other than maths, I know that chemistry (like computer science) requires mathematics and abstract thinking. You can talk about how you may have developed this in lesson or outside of school.

Then again, you don't HAVE to talk about all your school subjects. I'm doing Maths, Further Maths and Physics and I didn't really talk about any of them in my statement (I don't think it matters since they already know about my subjects, and would care more about academic things I did out of school, but that's just me). If you don't think you can relate it to CS smoothly in your PS, It's best to leave it out.

- Emmanuel

(edited 6 years ago)

Computer Science Personal Statement

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