Speaker 1: Welcome to Grad Life Grind and welcome back to my series on personal statements. In this video, I'm going to be sharing what is important to include in your personal statement. If you haven't already watched the first videos in this series, you're going to want to check them out because they explain what a personal statement is and why it's such an important piece of your application if you're trying to apply to graduate programs. So there's a lot of things that you're going to want to include in your personal statement. The first one that I definitely recommend is your why. Why are you really pursuing this degree, this program, or this project? What drives you? I personally applied to programs in clinical psychology and it was really important for me to share what experiences in my life led me to this point. Why is the mental health field so important to me? Why do I feel like being a psychologist is my calling? This is your chance to share the really deep and personal reason why you're doing this. And talking about your why actually leads me to another great thing that you can include in your personal statement, which is personal experiences that have impacted your life and any adversity that you've overcome. And if you don't have adversity to talk about, then that is fine. You can also talk about really unique opportunities that you've had that really changed your life. So some of the really personal life-changing experiences that people write about in their personal statements are if they suffered an illness and overcame it, if they lost a loved one to an illness or a tragedy, if they studied abroad, that's one that's a little bit more positive but also can have a huge impact, if someone in their family really influenced them to pursue a certain field, if they had a really impactful and influential role model. These are the things and people that are often included in the personal statement because they share a little bit more about who you are and what kinds of things influenced you. So along with sharing your personal experiences in the personal statement, you're also going to want to share your strengths, how you learned from or grew from some of the things that you're writing about. And this is going to show the admissions committee that you can overcome adversity because graduate school is super hard and life throws lots of different challenges at you during the graduate school experience that are not even school related. So showing how you overcome adversity or how you've found a positive in something really challenging shows them about grit and perseverance and other really important character traits. And if you're sharing about challenging experiences or really positive and life-altering experiences as well as how you learned and grew from them, you're also going to want to tie together your goals. How are all these things connected? If you experienced a really traumatic loss in your life and then you learned something that changed the course of your life and now you're pursuing a degree that is related to the adversity you overcame, you're going to want to connect those things. And sometimes it's hard to see that because you're so close to it. You know your life better than anyone, but when you're writing it out sometimes you really have to be clear about those connections and how the different events in your life, the people in your life, and the lessons, how they're all related to what you're trying to do now, the degree you're pursuing or the opportunity you're seeking. In the personal statement, you also want to include information about your identity, whether that's a race or ethnic identity, if it is a cultural identity, a religious identity or affiliation, your sexuality or gender, anything that you think is a really big part of you or that represents you differently from other people, things that set you apart. So some of the aspects of my identity that are number one, really important to me, and number two, important for admissions committees to know about, is that I'm Latinx and I'm also Spanish-speaking. So those are things that I have made sure to mention in my personal statement. There are things about you that are unique to your identity, whether it's your race or your religion, things that really impact you. Whether they're visible or not, those are things that you're going to want to write about in your personal statement. And finally, you're going to want to share a little bit about your match or goodness of fit for this program. Why is the person that you are, based on your experiences, your lessons, the tragedies or adversities you've faced, your goals, why is this the program for you? And this is your chance to show that you've kind of done your homework on this program and you know that their mission and their opportunities match with what you're looking for. And it doesn't need to be a whole paragraph, but you can kind of weave that through your statement and share how all those things led you to applying to this specific program for a reason. So those are the general things that you should include in your personal statement. I hope you were taking notes because there's so much that goes into this process. And if you're looking for tips on how to start writing the personal statement, that's coming up in the next video in this series. But before you move on, please do like this video and subscribe to my channel if you haven't already. Good luck.