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+-- Forum: Applying to university (https://www.studentdiscussion.co.uk/forum-24.html)
+--- Forum: UCAS Forms & Personal Statements (https://www.studentdiscussion.co.uk/forum-2.html)
+--- Thread: arty hobbies on a sciency personal statement (/thread-40.html)
arty hobbies on a sciency personal statement - Iris - 21/07/2004
How do you talk about your interests and hobbies when I am passionate about art and am applying for a science course, hopefully medicine or pharmacology? Anyone who reads my statement can tell at once my heart lies with art! And also things I taught myself are also art-related or Japanese-related, which is again irrelevent to any science course. By the way is it a good idea to put all my work experience down when they are not medically-related? The paragraph on work experience has taken half a page and they're mostly leadership-related work with children. Currently my personal statement is three pages, computer typed at size 12, which is obviously way WAY too long. By the way should you list the aspects of science you look about medicine? There are quite a few!
RE: arty hobbies on a sciency personal statement - Willa - 22/07/2004
Right, I'm just a little confused atm.
Firstly, in regards to the work experience, as far as memory serves, there is a space for employment detaisl on the UCAS form itself. However, that tends not to include non-paid experience. In regards to all the non-medical-related non-paid experience you have done, forget it, they just arent interested. Just make sure your medical related stuff really links in and really shows how you are passionate about science.
Now in regards to hobbies that make you sound all arty. Yes, this does seem to pose a little problem. But try and spin it to your advantage. Appeal to your "Independant learner" side by talking briefly about the things you have taught yourself, but mainly stressing that you "enjoy the challenge of self-tutoring, exploring ideas and solving problems in my own way I find helps to organise and structure knowledge in a very effective way" (or something to that effect). But yes, you need to find something in your subject that you really enjoy, and devote a large chunk of your PS to talking just about that. Read my article on this website for a few pointers on doing just that.
Art and Medicine - Emi - 28/08/2004
Same here, I'm applying for Medicine (hopfully) this Septemebr, and one of my major intrests is Oil-Painting.
I find it quite hard to get both in the my PS.
RE: arty hobbies on a sciency personal statement - irisng - 28/08/2004
Yeh I've ended up limiting it to just one/two lines - it's still there. Mentioned the important aspect of how I taught myself or "self-directed" I think is the phrase I used, and said it developed in particular in the aspect of drawing. It's too bad, I guess, cus none of the unis really care about your arty hobbies if it's a science subject you're applying for! Art A-Level is my problem now cus I'm taking it onto A2 and it's really not gonna do me any favours with the unis cus some don't count it and Cambridge doesn't like it. I know Manchester doesn't accept art for medicine degree cus it says they want a third 60% academic subject.