Writing a Personal Statement: Could use some help

[CrazyCrab]

Hi everyone,
After 5 long years, I've decided to reapply to uni - this time as a working individual, without any outside help. This means no mentors, no help of any kind, sadly. All I've got is internet and, this time, true passion for the subject. So, I've been hoping that perhaps some people can have a look at this and tell me what you think - it came out a bit melodramatic, but eh, it's all 100% from the heart. Maybe I should tone it down. Anyway, thanks in advance.

When I left school in 2012, I was undecided. I was, and still am, enamoured with languages, so I figured that an International Communication course (English, French, German) could be a decent option, thinking of future career possibilities and a translator’s monthly salary. Sadly, despite being one of the best in my class, I realized that, being a creative spirit, translation is not my calling in life. I then took a break and picked up a job in London, hoping that a change in the environment and the new lifestyle will help me discover the one vocation that I will truly enjoy.

Now, after all these years, I am writing yet another Personal Statement – this time, hopefully, as a wiser and more mature prospective student. I have decided to ignore the societal stigma and apply for Game Design, something that I have always been good at and yet it never came to my mind when it came to choosing a path. While the snarky comments from fellow classmates and the eye-rolling of my parents dissuaded me back then, nowadays I feel like I am ready to turn my passion into my job.

As stereotypical as it may be, if I were to search my childhood notepads most of them would be filled with stitched together video game cut-outs and chains of numbers, die rolls and exotic locales. Given a Dungeons and Dragons starter set by my family, I managed to somehow wrap my head around all the rules at the ripe old age of ten years old and the game has not left me ever since. Back then, I even managed to convince my teacher at school to let me bring it for the board game day and I filled the primary school classroom with strange dice and knights, alongside Checkers and Snakes & Ladders. It may sound funny, but at that time, it simply felt like I was in the right place, at the right time.

When it comes to video games, I have always been interested in more than just whatever came in the sealed box. I am subscribed to several journalists and critics, as I enjoy both reviews and news. Whether it’s “Extra Credits’” breakdown of a game mechanic or a blog post about creating memorable character designs, I am always on the lookout for new content. As an indie game developer, I feel like they are very helpful when it comes to improving one’s craft. “The Game Maker's Apprentice” and “The Game Maker's Companion” will always have a special place on my shelf, as they taught me both the basics of programming and design.

In addition, I’ve always had a knack for learning new tools to improve my capabilities. Over the years, I’ve learned and perfected my photo-manipulation abilities and I feel confident in being able to go toe-to-toe with industry professionals, despite having received no formal training. I have also been dabbling in digital art, from pixel art to interface design and even cartography, as I have delved into many projects over the years. One of my proudest achievements was participating in the 2015 IGMC, where we were tasked with creating a game in a month, as I received both favourable reviews from the judges and the public.

Despite working a typical full-time retail supervision job, I have been a devoted member of the London Dungeons and Dragon Meetup, one of the city’s largest groups devoted to table top gaming. Over the years, I’ve risen from the position of an average member to being one of the major organizers of the event and the game that I run on a weekly basis is always full. In addition, I have been creating additional content for the game and publishing it online, to a moderate success. One of my recent pieces has even won a ‘Gold Bestseller’ award, for garnering almost five thousand copies sold. While I may not be an industry veteran yet, I feel like I have secured a solid foundation that will help me progress on an academic level.

My recent employers have taught me a lot about managing tasks, organizing teams and appreciating a job well done. And while I will be sad to leave, I am excited to turn the page once again and start a new chapter of my life.

Barely under the 4000 characters limit that UCAS requires, phew. Thoughts?

[aloysius]

Yes, how profound

[2D8HP]

[I]Hi everyone,
After 5 long years, I've decided to reapply to uni....

.... Thoughts?

Unfortunately I have no experience of London or attending a University (unless you count "cutting" high school, and going to read at the local college's library) to share.

Perhaps you may share what you hope to learn?

For whatever it's worth, you sound like a good person to know, best wishes!

[Xyril]

It does a good job doing all the things they tell us to look for when we conduct alumni interviews--it humanizes you and shows how you might stand out from the crowd, demonstrates passion for what you want to study, and shows you can be a reasonably articulate communicator. As someone who also designed video games on the backs of worksheets as a child, it helped me to find a point of connection with you, and you include enough of those sorts of personal details that hopefully someone on the admissions committee will find something as well.

One thing to note--and please don't take this as me trying to dissuade you from game design--a lot of translation isn't straight up interpreting for someone who wants to precisely communicate their ideals in another language. When it comes to literary translation in particular, there is surprising freedom for the translator to make creative decisions, which is why for example there have been numerous English translations of Dante's Divine Comedy, and some debate about which is the best and by what metric.

[qechua]

So, I'm not an admissions tutor, or even someone in charge of hiring. I'm a lowly PhD student, however more importantly, I'm someone who doesn't know you, so has the same view of you as an admissions tutor. Working to the assumption that you have an academic/employment record to fill in the blanks, I'll give you my thoughts.

Generally speaking, you are trying to stand out. Course/university dependent, an admissions tutor is going to have somewhere between 10 and 500 personal statements to read (course/university dependent), in addition to their own day job of teaching, writing, reading and researching. You need to stand out. Fortunately, you appear to have several things on your side to do this. Unfortunately, I don't think you use them as effectively as you could.

Predominantly, you stand out from the average college leaver in two areas. You're a mature student, which means you already know how the world works. Get in contact with admissions tutors, find out what they'd want to see from a mature student. For my undergrad, my classmates all had 1A*, 2A A-Levels. I had a 5 year old BTEC National Diploma, and a demonstrable ability to still learn, because that's all the admissions tutor was worried about, that I could still cram things into my brain.

The second, bigger area, is that you already make games & content. You've got (at least one) good released product, you've partaken in IGMC (side note, spell out the acronym, even if it's well known in the sector), and apparently you have professional grade image skills, yet you don't show any of this off. Set up a personal website if you don't already have one, and showcase it all. In the personal statement, name the stuff you've got, along with an independent rating if possible. For the game created at IGMC, put it online open source, and actually note what the judges/public said about it. Do a dev-blog, explaining options and reasoning for decisions. These are big things, yet you seem to have buried them in a pile of childhood memories and repressed anger.

The statement itself opens and closes nicely, but it seems to jump a bit. We go from reasoning --> society sucks --> game design --> D&D --> curiosity --> learning --> learning/IGMC --> organisational skills --> content creation --> closing. It's also a little worrying that one of the largest paragraphs covered learning D&D and taking into school, when you then get note later about being at the character limit. You've made it sound awesome, but the admissions tutor is reading potentially hundreds of statements, so bouncing off the character limit isn't necessarily something to aim for. I think a little bit of proof reading and flow would probably help as well, although it's fine to leave that until you've got the actual structure and content set.

Hopefully I haven't been too harsh on you, I've had a long day so far and looking over what I've written, I think I've been a bit too negative. You've got an amazing start here, and while it may sound like major things being pulled, they aren't. It's certainly more than a quick tidy up, but you should be able to turn this into a winner.

[warty goblin]

Hopefully I haven't been too harsh on you, I've had a long day so far and looking over what I've written, I think I've been a bit too negative. You've got an amazing start here, and while it may sound like major things being pulled, they aren't. It's certainly more than a quick tidy up, but you should be able to turn this into a winner.

This is basically the feedback I wanted to give too. It's a very good draft of an admissions statement, but it could be tightened up considerably. You've got a very strong case for why you'd be a good game design student, so make more of that. The childhood reminiscences have a place, don't get me wrong, but griping about the social stigma of game design majors is just wasted verbage. In general there's a lot of words that you can sweat out, without changing the content at all - 'ripe old age'- for instance adds no meaning.

A maybe useful alternative structure would be to weave the why you like game design in with your game design experience.

[CrazyCrab]

Thanks for the feedback, I'm glad it's not all terrible.
I've been shortening and rewriting it over and over, I feel like it's a lot less 'angsty' now- more about the now and why, rather than reminiscing about the past.
I'll keep it all in mind, before I release the final version. Thanks again.