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Personal Statement Support

I am looking to apply to English Literature for my undergraduate degree, but coming across the second question of the personal statements (How have your qualifications and studies helped you prepare for this course?) I have run into a small issue. Up until recently, I thought I wanted to study Psychology with Counselling, but I have now changed my mind. Due to this, I chose to study Health and Social Care as an Extended Diploma. Now, obviously, this doesn't really overlap with Literature, and I'm at a loss for what I should put in for an answer to the question. I guess I could talk about how, for my course, we are required to write essays for our grade, often landing within the 6-10k word range, but aside from this, I am very limited in what I could write within this section. Unless I briefly speak about how my education choice was not premeditated for my course? I'm not too sure. Any advice on what I could put in this question would be greatly appreciated.

Just in case these may be of any use, here are the Units we study:
Equality and diversity
Human Growth and Development
Safeguarding
Communication
Infection Prevention and Control
Working in Health and Social Care
Reflective Practice
Sociological Perspective in Health and Social Care
Psychological Perspective in Health and Social Care
Empowerment
Research Skills
Protection of children, young people, and adults
Anatomy and Physiology
Personal and Professional Development
Dementia Awareness
Family Issues
Nutrition
Mental Health and Wellbeing

Reply 1

TheUniofLawStaff

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Original post

by Em34239

I am looking to apply to English Literature for my undergraduate degree, but coming across the second question of the personal statements (How have your qualifications and studies helped you prepare for this course?) I have run into a small issue. Up until recently, I thought I wanted to study Psychology with Counselling, but I have now changed my mind. Due to this, I chose to study Health and Social Care as an Extended Diploma. Now, obviously, this doesn't really overlap with Literature, and I'm at a loss for what I should put in for an answer to the question. I guess I could talk about how, for my course, we are required to write essays for our grade, often landing within the 6-10k word range, but aside from this, I am very limited in what I could write within this section. Unless I briefly speak about how my education choice was not premeditated for my course? I'm not too sure. Any advice on what I could put in this question would be greatly appreciated.
Just in case these may be of any use, here are the Units we study:
Equality and diversity
Human Growth and Development
Safeguarding
Communication
Infection Prevention and Control
Working in Health and Social Care
Reflective Practice
Sociological Perspective in Health and Social Care
Psychological Perspective in Health and Social Care
Empowerment
Research Skills
Protection of children, young people, and adults
Anatomy and Physiology
Personal and Professional Development
Dementia Awareness
Family Issues
Nutrition
Mental Health and Wellbeing

Hey @Em34239

The UCAS question isn’t asking for a perfect subject match it’s asking how your current studies have developed skills that will help you to succeed in English Literature. So focus on transferable skills and academic habits rather than subject content.

Here are some of my suggestions based on what you mentioned above and I'm focussing on skills:

•

Essay Writing & Research Mention the experience of writing long essays (if this is part of your programme). This shows ability to structure arguments and analyse sources both of these skills are needed for literature essays.

•

Critical Thinking & Analysis Sociological Perspective and Psychological Perspective could involve interpreting theories and applying them to the real-world. This shows analytical thinking, which is key in for literature degrees.