Speaker 1: hello there if you want to learn how to write a great and compelling statement of purpose why don't you keep watching first of all please like this video it helps me it helps my content grow and subscribe if you have not subscribed also leave a comment to say hey what's up and and I will be sure to respond alright keep watching bring out your pen and papers and let's get learning what is the point of a statement of purpose like why the heck is that even necessary. Why? Okay, here's why it's necessary. So a statement of purpose defines your motivations, your skills, and your career goals. It tells the Graduate Admissions Committee, hey this is what I'm interested in, this is what I can do, this is why you should admit me, this is why I'm important to you, this is what I want to do in five years and in ten years from now. How to write a statement of purpose. How to write a statement of purpose. This is, this is interesting. So let me give you some background about my qualifications and why you should trust what I say. So I was the graduate coordinator for my department as a professor for one year, like one and a half years. And so every admission decision that we made for graduate school went through me. I had to sign off. And I have served on the graduate committee for my department for several years. And so yeah, so I have a very good idea of what your statement of purpose should read like, should sound like. And many of my colleagues would agree that your statement of purpose is very integral to whether or not you get admitted into graduate school. So your statement of purpose you generally have five paragraphs you do not want to write too long right because I personally do not read long statement of purposes I don't and you don't need to like you don't need to write to you don't need to make it too long there's no point and the purpose must capture the reader for at least five minutes so you want to make sure that those first five minutes when I pick up your statement of purpose it's short it's concise it's strong it's well written and it conveys the message. The first paragraph of your statement of purpose should introduce who you are. So when I start reading any statement of purpose, I want to say who is this person? Obviously I have your CV, I have your transcripts, I have all that stuff. But your statement of purpose is kind of a semi informal way so okay quick break I'm videoing outside I'm videoing outside because my son is sleeping upstairs and I do not want to disturb him and this is the only time I have to video so I want to so if it's noisy I'm so sorry I am in my patio making this video okay so so yeah we talking about the first paragraph. The first paragraph should introduce who you are. I want to say, tell a short story of who you are, of what inspires you, of what motivates you. Just in general, don't make it too long. Remember, this is one paragraph. So just a short, quick anecdote of maybe an experience or something that motivates you. So you want to connect who you are to the course of study you're interested in. So this is your first paragraph. Short, sweet. You want to draw in whoever is reading your statement of purpose. Tell, introduce yourself. Talk a little bit about your background. So if you're in Nigeria, for example, talk about you being from Nigeria. You can talk about Nigeria's poor, all that stuff. Feel free to do that. And then you want to connect that to the course of study. So don't forget that. Don't make your first paragraph just about yourself. You want to make sure that every paragraph connects back to your course of study, to why you're even writing a statement of purpose at all. Does this make sense? Let me know in the comments. Alright, so first paragraph, who you are. Second paragraph, you want to go into detail about your academic and technical interests, okay? So for me, for example, whenever I was writing my statement of purpose, I'm very interested in women's health, I'm very interested in black women's health, I'm very interested in chronic disease prevention, chronic diseases like cancer and diabetes, right? So my second paragraph now is gonna focus heavily on these interests, okay? So for you, your second paragraph, after talking about yourself and your motivations and like how that connects to your course of study, now you you talk about technical interests like what really interests you in what really interests you and why you're interested in these things okay so this is what your second paragraph should be about okay so all right so your third paragraph should connect your academic and technical interests to your future goals okay so you want to make sure that all of your interest that you've blabbed about in the second paragraph, you want to make sure that in your third paragraph you talk about your future academic goals. So by future, I mean that your future in the department you're applying to. You can say, oh, so for me, for example, if I were writing this, I would say, oh, well, I'm interested in black women's health in the United States. I'm interested in immigrant health in the United States. I see myself working with Dr. this, this, this, who has also done such research, okay? So you wanna make sure that in your third paragraph, you connect your interests that you've talked about in your second paragraph, you connect that interest to your future academic goals. And part of your future academic goals include prospective advisors, prospective professors, okay? So for example, you wanna make sure that wherever you're going, there's a professor there Doing research that you are interested in. Okay, so that's very important. So you wanna research professors currently working on stuff you're interested in and then include them in your statement of purpose. Guys, if there's anything you take away from this conversation is that you wanna include professors, research professors. If I, whenever I'm reading a statement of purpose and I'm like, and I see my name in the statement of purpose, oh I would like to work with Dr. Amuda on blah blah blah my heart is like oh well yeah tell me more tell me more interesting you know because it shows two things it shows that they have done their research and they know they're smart people and number two that they're actually really serious about this stuff okay so so include professors names in the part in the department that are are doing stuff you're interested in. Okay, is this good so far? Okay, if this is good, subscribe and give this a thumbs up. Okay, give this video a thumbs up. When you give this video a thumbs up, YouTube says, oh, this is a good video. Let's show more people. And that helps my channel grow. So give it a thumbs up and comment and subscribe. All right, so your fourth paragraph, you wanna connect your future academic goals that you've talked about in your third paragraph. you wanna connect that to your short and long-term goals after you graduate. So you wanna talk about what you wanna do five years after graduation, that's very good because any professor, any admissions committee reading your statement of purpose is gonna be like, oh, interesting, this candidate is thinking long-term. This person is talking about five years from now, 10 years from now, hell yeah, wow, interesting. So you want to include that, you wanna make sure your fourth paragraph is about the future, like the future after graduation. So your third paragraph is the future from where you are now, like your future in the program. Your fourth paragraph is the future after the program, after you graduate. And so you can talk about possibly curing, creating a cure for coronavirus, which has made all of us quarantined right now. But you wanna talk about those things, like the future, your big dreams, your big goals. you want to entice the professors, right? Because who doesn't want a student who is ambitious? Like, I want a student who's ambitious, you know? I don't know, I tweeted about one of my students who is pretty much a millionaire right now, and she's my student, and I'm so proud of her, right? She's very ambitious, and I love that. So you want to make sure that the admissions committee sees you, like, you come across as ambitious to the admissions committee, and that's great. That's great for you. Okay, so your fifth paragraph should conclude. You wanna start to conclude, you wanna, I call this anticipatory thanks. So you're saying thanks in anticipation. I look forward to, you know, being admitted into your prestigious program. So this is the paragraph where you like praise the program, you praise the school as a whole, you praise the city. So that's something a lot of people forget, right? So you want to you you you you should remember that Your school is in a city, right? So if you're applying to University of Texas, right you're applying to you University of Texas University of Texas The main campus is in Austin, Texas. So you want to talk about the city of Austin how you look forward to Austin? You want to maybe research the weather in Austin and talk about like, oh, I look forward to being to becoming part of you know the community in Austin and giving you know so you want to talk about the city at large right so you talk about the department the school the city the school is in and that just you just come across as so knowledgeable and so so hard-working right because it shows that you've done your research and that's you you you can buy that right so that's really really important okay so a statement of purpose it's all about fit okay it's all about fit when I was a graduate coordinator and I had to look through several several applications it was all about fit for me like when I read a student's application I always thought hmm would put this student fit with this graduate student master's PhD student fit in our University is this a good fit for us you know so that that's something I always always thought about right so I want you guys to remember that it is about what fits do you fit so your statement of purpose needs to needs to convince convince the committee the graduate committee that you fit into their program that what they what the school what the program is offering is best for you like there's nowhere else you can go accept that school and that is gonna help a ton. Alright so the last thing now is that you want to edit vigorously. Edit your work. No absolutely no typos. No grammatical errors. Please okay you want to make sure your work is edited to the gods, okay? Edit, edit, edit, edit, edit like crazy so that you're so that because imagine imagine like for me when I'm trying to decide on who gets into the graduate program and I see I read a statement of purpose that has so many grammatical errors what does it tell me? It tells me one, this student this prospective student is so lazy because really you couldn't edit your work, come on, come on now. Two, what does it tell me? It tells me that this student is careless because maybe you edited but you missed some stuff, right? Three, it tells me that you're not ready for graduate school and I don't want you. Okay, so you want to make sure that your statement of purpose is beautifully edited. Ask someone else to read it and make edits. In fact, invest in a professional editor as someone professional maybe somebody who read English or something to read over your work and provide edits for you and that is gonna be your that's gonna be a make a break for you because if you so if you submit a statement of purpose that has so many errors nobody's gonna people are gonna look down on you and look down on your application even if you have a first-class nobody cares really honestly this is me now telling you guys because I've been there. I've made decisions on who gets into graduate school or not. And I'm telling you, try not to submit a statement of purpose that is not compelling and full of grammatical errors. You don't do good doing that. Do you see how passionate I am talking about this? Because I've seen some students who I felt had good prospects, but their statement of purpose was just full of errors, full of so many errors that I felt like this is not a good candidate. This is not a good student. If they can't fix errors, if they can't edit their work, I don't want them because that says so much about who you are as a person, okay? And I hope you took notes and I will catch you back in the next video. Bye bye.