Personal Statement

[kooljessie2007]

Hello community! This is (what I consider) my final draft of my personal statement for CASPA. I've revised it over and over and read it aloud to people, and I think I finally have a winning essay. Please critique!

 

Having grown up in an economically disadvantaged family, I didn't see much of an academic future for myself. Knowing that the money required to attend a university was out of my father's budget, I took advantage of the career opportunities offered in high school. I instinctively began taking health sciences classes which led up to my qualifications for a pharmacy technician program. Little did I know that what started off as an intention to receive a fast career was, in fact, the door of opportunity to something bigger than anything I could have imagined.

 

I instantly fell in love with what I was learning in the program, from medical terminology, Latin abbreviations, and a compilation of everything I had learned in the biological sciences to the hundreds of trade and generic drug names along with their mechanisms of action. I began to intern at a hospital where I experienced the caring, dynamic, and fast paced environment of the healthcare world. This love I developed for healthcare extended past the program's expectations to career advisors, universities, and scholarship applications. I was intent on following through with this new found interest, and ultimately I graduated at the top 10% of my class, taking with me an opportunity to enrich my fascination in medicine even further with scholarships, a job at one of the Rio Grande Valley's most reputable hospitals, and the confidence to succeed in my endeavors.

 

When I began attending the university, I spoke to a professor who suggested I look into the physician assistant (PA) career. Delving more into the profession, I was motivated by how it incorporated my genuine interests in people and medicine and allowed a dynamic person such as myself the flexibility to work in different specialities. Having worked under pharmacists, I developed an appreciation for the pharmacy-pharmacy technician relationship and found it comforting that I could have the same affiliation with a physician along with a higher degree of knowledge, autonomy, and involvement in the patients' care plan. However, when my father was disabled due to his uncontrolled diabetes and forced to quit his job, the predicament took a dramatic toll on my life as a student. Unable to balance my economic and academic responsibilities, my grades began to suffer. The option of becoming a PA began to fade at the idea that I would never be able to recuperate from such a shameless display of academic negligence.

 

Inspiration rekindled one day as I was administering my father's morning dose of insulin and helping him get ready to go to physical therapy. I realized no matter how sick he felt, he always found the courage to continue to fight against his inhibitions and challenge himself. The inconspicuous example my father set convinced me that if he could overcome his circumstances, I could overcome mine. The following semester, I retook my classes and earned exemplary grades on all of them. I also became involved in scientific research at the university, city and intramural volleyball leagues, and coordinating laboratories in the biology department which allowed me to develop time management skills and a sense of ownership, responsibility, and leadership.

 

During the summers, I began to shadow PAs. I observed as they went throughout the day constantly on their feet consulting patients, building rapport with new patients, filing loads of paperwork, and discussing medications with countless pharmaceutical representatives. I also watched as the PAs went beyond their duties of delivering healthcare by looking into different insurances for their patients and providing domestic counseling to those who sought it. Observing the calm and rational manner in which they dealt with the overwhelming circumstances was the most notable aspect of my shadowing experiences.

 

It takes a special kind of person to be a PA, one with true compassion, patience, charisma, and professionalism. Allowing myself to build upon those qualities, I enrolled in a nurse's aide program in order to help the disadvantaged community with their activities of daily living. During my clinical rotations, I assisted residents of different personalities, cultures, and diseases which made my experiences the more constructive, innovative and challenging. As difficult as it was at times to convince residents to cooperate with their care plan, I never allowed myself to give up on the residents, and consequently, it made all the difference as observed in their mood and behavior.

 

Despite the extenuating circumstances that were presented to me throughout my life, my ambition to become a PA remained strong. I have grown knowledgeable and hard working and am more than confident in my abilities to deliver quality medical care as a PA in the future. I believe I am equipped physically and mentally for the rigorous training that the PA program will have me undergo and for what the profession has to offer.

[sstephens]

I really like your essay, you did a good job of turning negatives into a positive. My only suggestion would be some of the sentences seem to run on. For instance, the last sentence of the second paragraph can be separated into two paragraphs. Overall a great essay though. Good luck!

[mktalon]

Your structure and grammar are great. Good flow and direction. Unfortunately I just don't walk away feeling likethere was much substance. It's a shame because it is one ofthe most well written ps's that's been posted in a while.

[kooljessie2007]

Thank you for the suggestion, sstephens. It's really hard to read aloud that last part without losing my breath, and the last thing I want the admissions committees to do is pass out not even half way through the essay :P I still have 50 characters to work with so I'll find a way to make it flow better :) mktalon, reading some of the other personal statements on this site does make my PS sound a bit dry (believe me, I am aware of it), and it does make me feel uneasy. I didn't want to repeat what I have written in the "work and volunteer experiences" and "honors and awards" sections, and at the same time, wanted to leave some content for me to address at the interview... I don't feel right concentrating on one specific event that 'shaped' me either because ALL my experiences did. I DO, however, have moments of epiphanies that I will address if given an opportunity to. This essay is mainly catered to show my interest in the profession after deliberation and self analysis and my determination to become a well-rounded individual in the pursuit of eventually becoming a successful PA. Besides, I had to explain a bad year I had as an undergraduate somehow :/ Let me know if this is a good strategy of tackling this whole PA application process. I went through it once, and in fact, it was the INTERVIEW process that I needed to work on as per the admissions committee from my first choice program. But hey, the competition is getting fierce-I wouldn't want to regress as an applicant...