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LO2 CHALLENGE – Undertaken new challenges & developing new skills. A new challenge may be an unfamiliar experience or an extension of an existing one. The newly acquired or developed skills may be shown through experiences that the student has not previously undertaken or through increased expertise in an established area. |
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LO4 COMMITMENT – Showing perseverance, resilience. This may be accomplished in collaboration with other participants. Students may show their knowledge and awareness by building on a previous experience, or by launching a new idea or process. |
As grade twelve begins, Medical Society has become a place not only where I can participate in various medicine related activities but also a space and time which I can use to work towards my medicine applications for college/universities programmes – which have been quite challenging. One such challenge has been writing my personal statement for my UK applications. With only 4000 characters to fill, I was quite confused with how to communicate why I wanted to study medicine and show that I was suitable.
What actions did I take to overcome these challenges? I decided to do some research and ended up collating advice from the UAC’s sessions (at UWCSEA), universities’ own guides and youtube videos (from medical students). I then made a plan of the different areas I needed to focus on in my personal statement (for instance: interest, school, shadowing, etc.) I then brainstormed my ideas on a document and picked the strongest points I had come up with and interweaved them together. The last step was simply making the entire statement more concise (as to fit in the character count) and edit according to the advice I received from my own UAC advisor.
Throughout this process of writing my personal statement, I’ve really developed some of my skills when it comes to approaching such writing assignments in the future. One of the most important skill I learnt was following certain steps: researching, planning and then simply attempt to start (with whatever I may come up with), instead of wasting time stressing out about the task.
Upon reflection, working towards these applications have affected my commitment in Medical Society related activities to an extent which meant I was not participating as much as I could have been doing. Perhaps, I can help others in the activity by sharing the valuable resources that I ended up using for my personal statement and advice in case they face the same challenges that I did. One way to do this might be to collaborate with my friend who has taken up a leadership position in Medical Society. We could organize a session on personal statements and prepare a resource for future students that compiles advice and other useful links.
