| This is a real personal statement written by a student for their university application. It might help you decide what to include in your own. There are lots more examples in our collection of sample personal statements. |
I have always been fascinated by the concept of computing. The computer is there; it can do anything, even thinking for itself (to an extent) with AI! The only limitation is the engineer behind it. Society relies heavily on computers every day for nearly everything; they solve problems, they help people, they even save lives.
For years I have explored the subject area. Starting with HTML I quickly progressed to learning client-side scripting languages and then to PHP and VB .NET programming languages. I quickly became involved with programming communities and spent a while working as a PHP programmer on a freelance basis. I thrive from completing puzzles and solving realistic problems.
Since realising my enthusiasm for programming, I have completed NVQ Level 1 in Electrical Engineering. This was fascinating, as it concentrated purely on the electronics, and I found understanding of what makes up hardware, why it works, and how. I took hardware and software as layers and began to ask questions as to how these layers interact with each other. I discovered that there are more layers when I attended Aberystwyth University for a weekend to study AI and robotics.
I further enjoyed programming when I was given a larger, more-demanding task on my work experience placement at ***** *****. Given that the task was assigned to me because it wasn't urgent and staff thought I wouldn't complete it over the 2-week placement, they were very surprised when I had it programmed and live on a testing server after 3 days. Enhancements and additional features were added nearly instantly. I was then given two more separately demanding projects to work on.
One building a CMS for the A-Level department to calculate predicted grades, track current grades and assignments, provide staff with student note collaboration and highlighting students who may be underperforming, for separate subjects and classes. The other was for IT department staff to manage routers, hubs and switches for the network, showing their location, device name, physical and logical addresses and their common use. The college staff were extremely impressed by my work and continue to use the systems.
These projects not only tested my logic and programming skills, but also my communication, design, testing and systems analysis skills, as, the A-Level project especially, needed to be usable by staff who are not overly familiar with computer systems.
After attending the Computer Science Sutton Trust summer school at the University of Cambridge, I am amazed as to how much I appear to enjoy all aspects of the subject. From algorithms to complexity theory, to how the Internet and mobile phone networks function. I was so engrossed that I continue to look further into the subjects after the summer school.
I have enrolled on a Cisco CCNA networking course part-time and am currently averaging 95%+ in theory assessments and am finding that once I've picked up a screwdriver or a switch to start practical work, I don't want to put it down!
Outside of the binary world, I find outdoor sports exulting and I have been a member of the Scouting Association for 11 years. There's no words to describe the vibe of reaching the top of a 30ft climb or the adrenaline rush when you bungee from twice the height when your stack of milk crates collapses.
I am currently a Young Leader for the Scouts, attend Explorer Scouts and am currently completing the Duke of Edinburgh Silver Award and the Chief Scout's Diamond Award. I don't think it's possible for me to word how much I want to study Computer Science. The job prospects, market availability and future career offer a bonus, but I could easily spend my life exploring in layers to discover completely new branches in the area.
Universities Applied to:
- Aberystwyth, University of Wales - Offer (260 UCAS Points)
- University of Bristol - Offer (ABB)
- University of Nottingham - Offer (ABB)
- University of Southampton - Offer (AAB)
Reviewer comment:
- Section on programming languages is good as it explores why applicant enjoys them
- Can expand more on the weekend at the university, how did this aid the applicant when learning about university life?
- Work experience paragraph is nice but mostly just consists of lists, need to explain why this interested the applicant
- Sutton Trust paragraph is great but can be expanded, which topics were they?
- Extra-curricular section can be cut down so that the PS can be expanded in other areas.
- Lots of randomly capitalised words
- Some words are missing and the grammar is not correct in places
- Cliched first sentence
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