Personal Statement- Advice on how/where to start

[KR315]

Hi everyone! This is my first time posting in any forum so please bear with me.

Just to preface this, I'm a 4th year student graduating in May, but I will not be applying to PA school until 2018 so that I can get some more patient-contact experience. 

 

For one of my seminar classes I have been asked to just write a "skeleton" (or rough draft) of my personal statement and I'm stumped. I feel like I don't have any extraordinary experiences so any help on picking my main topic/idea and how to structure my essay would be greatly appreciated! 

 

So a little bit about me- I currently haven't shadowed any PA's since I got to a large university in a smallish town so they aren't many places willing to take in students for shadowing. That being said, I grew up with parents in the medical field so I've always kind of known I wanted to do something in healthcare. I think I really knew when I was in middle school and my grandma had a ruptured brain aneurysm and the support we received from the medical staff really impacted me. So fast forward a few years and I'm in college and pre-med (typical, I know). My first encounter with a PA was actually at a breast center when I was being seen for a lump/cyst and she was the one that comforted me and did the sonogram. I ended up asking her a ton of questions and then went home and researched about what PA's do and found that it matched my personality and goals more. The Doctor was actually  the one who did the biopsy... but I honestly didn't like her very much and felt super rushed, which. After that, I changed my major and here I am!

 

Those are essentially two things that have impacted me, but I'm just not sure if they're good topics.... I don't want to seem like I want pity or be super dramatic, so I just wanted to see what y'all thought. Something else I've considered integrating is how I've moved around a lot so I adapt to change easily. Also, I've heard it's good to talk about things we've overcome and for me that's public speaking anxiety (still kinda hate it) and how I've grown from my experiences in college and am able to communicate better, which is obviously important in the profession. 

 

As you can tell, I'm all over the place and wanna hear some opinions on what you guys think will work and what things I should keep out. I expect I will have more to add after shadowing and after some work experiences, but I just wanted to get a head start on this.

 

Thank you so much for reading!! 

[paproof]

There are a whole lot of resources available with a quick google search as well as searching through the forum itself.  But the main topic you should cover completely is why you want to become a PA in the first place.  Many candidates write essays about their life history and more or less discuss their resumé.  Your job is to highlight what's not on your transcript/resumé in order to make schools want to accept you over other applicants.  I'd be happy to help with any further direction you need.

[kargiver]

go get your experience and youll figure out where to start while you are getting it... don't worry about a statement now.  Go be.  Your statement can wait.