A personal statement is a piece of writing that allows you to talk about yourself and sell yourself to whoever the personal statement is for. In a personal statement, you write about yourself, who you are, what you have been doing, and where you want to take your career. This is also the chance to talk about anything you have done outside of college such as work experience and anything else you have done related to the course you want to study at university and talk about your hobbies even if they aren't in the same subject area as the course you want to study. You can also talk about the open evenings that you have helped out.
Talk about where the dream destination is as this will help explain why you want to stay in education.
Prompts directly from the UCAS Personal Statement Builder:
Why are you applying for your chosen course(s)?
Why does the subject interest you?
Why do you think you're suitable for the course(s)?
Do your current or previous studies relate to the course(s) that you have chosen?
Universities like to know the skills you have that will help you on the course, or generally with life at university. List these skills here and any supporting evidence to back up why you are so excited about the courses you have chosen.
Include any other achievements you’re proud of, positions of responsibility that you hold or have held both in and out of school, and attributes that make you interesting, special, or unique.
Include details of jobs, placements, work experience, or voluntary work, particularly if it's relevant to your chosen course(s). Try to link any experience to skills or qualities related to the course.
If you know what you’d like to do after completing the course, explain how you want to use the knowledge and experience that you gain.
I love a broad range of media from photography, filming and graphic design and I would like to take this further in my education and then make a career out of it. I have been playing with cameras since I can remember, I expanded this when I had the chance to study Media in Year 9 at High School. I love how I can be in control of what the outcome is when I am taking photographs and it fascinates me how media is interwoven with so many different elements. As media is such a huge part of our everyday life it's interesting to see what new ways we can represent our interests via media. During lockdown we all had to adapt to new ways of learning and communicating and having access to a camera and video opened up many opportunities for many people, I found myself thinking how I could contribute and started to use social media much more to share my work. As I live in a remote area I had the opportunity to explore my surroundings and share my experiences of day to day life in lockdown via my photography and my interest in the subject just grew. I love studying media and learning how I can express myself through photography or videography, I find both elements interesting however, during my studies I have found myself drawn more to the photography side. I think studying media will help me to build my knowledge and skills of the subject and take a more focused approach to where it can take me in the future. I am dedicated to my work and am passionate about learning more especially about how I can improve.
I studied Media at GCSE level and really enjoyed it, this was also my highest achieving subject in high school because of this, I decided to take this further at college. These courses directly relate to the area I would like to move forward into via university. During the time I have been studying media I have become confident and competent in using a variety of different software programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom and Adobe Premiere Pro. I have my own social media accounts for my photography which I post regularly to share the images and the content that I have created and edited. I am looking forward to continuing to improve and learn new skills within all of this software, I really enjoy trying out new ways of editing in photography and film. I have successfully worked on a short film and a music video as part of group projects, this helped me to improve my communication and team working skills and has been useful to me to build a professional set of skills which I can take forward with me to university or employment. Working on individual and group projects, the organisation is key and has helped me to improve my time management and planning skills. I am passionate about trying to save the planet and being as eco-friendly as possible; to do this I help alongside my mum to run a recycling centre for all hard to recycle items that can't go into your curbside recycling.
I have been doing work experience with Liz Henson Photography since July 2021, I have photographed Hyndburn Business awards, The Whitaker VIP Opening event and Ribble Valley Business Awards. At these events, I have been shadowing the lead photographer in the role of Photographer's Assistant. I have also done some work experience for Burnley Social where I was the lead photographer for the University Freshers night, these images were used for promotional content on their social media and the Burnley College social media and the local Burnley Express Newspaper. I currently work for Cookson & Clegg clothing on the shop floor, this consists of taking orders from the factory manager, and my line manager and using the machinery that I am asked to use.
I am still undecided about what I would like to do after completing the course, I am leaning more towards becoming a photographer however I would like to keep my options open and gain the skill to go into different areas in the industry.