I need help writing my English personal statement!

Hi everyone,
I am currently applying to study English Language and Literature at university next year and I am writing my personal statement. At the minute I am really stuck in general on what to write, I do have quite a few extra curricular activities (and super curricular activities) under my belt, such as work experience in a primary school, being a subject ambassador etc. I am quite stuck on what to write for the main body of my personal statement as i feel it is quite hard to find a good balance between the literature and language aspects. I feel like the obvious thing for literature would be to write about books/poems etc that have impacted me, however I am struggling on how to approach this. I am also generally quite unsure on what to write about for the language aspect. I understand that a combined English degree is a bit niche, so help from people either side and the combined would be great!

Hi there!

I have recently just finished my English Literature degree, so I can give you pointers even though it may not be Language related!

Thinking back to my own personal statement, I opened it with a book I had recently worked on for my English Literature coursework, which was American Psycho, and related it to postmodernism as a era and expressed my interest and its importance, etc. Conventionally, I discussed where my passion stemmed from and how I use/relate to Literature on an everyday basis and the skills I have learnt, which translates over to the skills that I would need at university! Writing about transferable skills is a great thing to put in your personal statement as it shows that you are equipped to study the courses!

I know this is generic advice that you may have seen before, but it can work. So, I think that you are on the right track as Literature and Language at degree level feed into each other really well. At Liverpool Hope, it is a typical course combination so there is nothing unusual about it at all; it is just finding the balance in your personal statement!

If you have already submitted your personal statement by now then good luck! I hope my advice was useful nonetheless

Estelle
Graduate Advocate