<p><strong>Personal statement structure</strong></p><p>There are some aspects that makes a strong biochemistry personal statement.</p><p>There isn’t actually a set essay structure for a biochemistry personal statement. The one that I will share with you guys today is the mostly commonly used one, the one that I used myself.</p><p>It has three parts. First part is about why you want to study the subject, the most important part. Second part is about your academic achievement showing that you are an academically strong person. Third part is about your extracurricular achievements. In my opinion, demonstrating why you want to study the subject, your passion for the subject is the most challenging part.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><figure class="table"><table><tbody><tr><td>Why I want to study &lt;biochemistry&gt;</td><td><p>Book reading</p><p>Research/lab experience</p><p>Extracurricular Biology/Chemistry Activities</p></td></tr><tr><td>How good I am/much potential I have in &lt;Biochemistry&gt; &nbsp;</td><td>Biology/chemistry competition award</td></tr></tbody></table></figure><p>Book reading</p><p>Research/lab experience</p><p>Extracurricular Biology/Chemistry Activities</p><p>Biology/chemistry competition award</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>1. Book reading</p><p>There are some famous magazines and journals which you can quote, e.g. The New Scientist and Nature. However, reading the magazines and journals only are not enough and should be read in conjunction with some books.</p><p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Y-NK964qzpzb11qpnB3xcEFYoj6tILHnvjcxeVRWYanmjwaRHh4QZLolLs-xB796sR5OeD-tRwVKDhzF39i2xtcbT1U2qDKxl75NR0QR6-lIbiK_tFNrTM0wBzQCdonuw4dLNaA" alt="D:\GuruMe\Blogs\How to write Oxbridge standard personal statement\second paragraph.jpg"></p><p>I mentioned ‘The Chemistry of Life’ and an actual content from the book and that I would like to study about immunity in more depth to show my academic reason for wanting to study biochemistry and that immunity is one of the subjects that I would like to study in more depth at university. I further mentioned a second book, ‘Power, Sex, Suicide’ to display my interest in the process of aging. I found out about these books through recommendation from my biology teacher before the beginning of summer vacation. Some parts were difficult to understand, took me a long time to understand and as a result used to fall asleep as I was reading through paragraphs of ideas that didn’t make sense.</p><p>I actually attempted to read about as much biochemistry as possible from the summer vacation after end of GCSE exams. I went to the school library to search for some interesting looking biochemistry books and remember reading through a short book on DNA (less than 80 pages or so). But with hindsight I feel that having recommendation on books is much more efficient than just searching for one in library or bookstore from scratch because you may not find a book of appropriate level of difficulty. Now days, these recommended readings lists are available online too.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>2. Research/lab experience, Extracurricular Biology/Chemistry Activities</p><p>Piano playing</p><p>Information Center Helper - Direction</p><p>DNA molecule making</p><p>Science Committee Activities</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Back when I was applying, no one told me about the possibility of acquiring lab internship. Therefore I didn’t have any lab experience to write down I was applying. But I felt like I should have an experience to back up my aspiration to show that I’ve worked to verify and realise my aspiration. Therefore, I tried to look for opportunities and found two.</p><p>So this is the personal statement for biochemistry I wrote 5 years ago. I’ve divided why I want to study biochemistry parts into 2 paragraphs. In the first paragraph you will see I mentioned the Korean Cancer Center Hospital in Seoul demonstrating my aspiring experience.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>4. Vocational Purpose</p><p>A lot of applicants try to relate an aspiring experience they had when they were young to their passion. If you have one if you can talk about one, that’s great. For me, I talked about how 3 months of being at a hospital when I was young helped me, inspired me to become a researcher and contribute to the pharmaceutical industry to finding cures for diseases,</p><p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/EmeSqDiLCZWjbcdhGtWXVLw4XSvlhS3d5yotJC6I6VN67r4lcNtPoOx5HM7CqtWrPhItGdZi0n9tqG4wJ1nLZ5Jw4xbxGE-cMUXevA3110WMWXY-_g42jP2wlyZNxyEDlwsCPNJ_" alt="D:\GuruMe\Blogs\How to write Oxbridge standard personal statement\first paragraph.jpg"></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>2. Biology/chemistry competition award</p><p>RSC/BBO/BMO - AEA past papers</p><p>Peterhouse Competition</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>Next up is the part about showing off academic achievement. I want to talk a little bit about British biology Olympiad for which I had to memorise a lot of biology beyond IB syllabus. I had no idea how to prepare for this test other than going over past papers as there were no syllabus. I want to encourage many applicants to search for some kind of competition where one can really show one’s academic excellence. Hopefully you will manage to be awarded. An award can be of any kind. It doesn’t have to be a medal wise award. I didn’t receive any medal, I received a letter saying that I was highly commended. If you can write any award like this, I believe this can definitely elevate the overall quality of your personal statement.</p><p>I also participated in the Royal Society of Chemistry. I went through all the past papers available well before the test and in order to continue challenging myself with the RSC olympiad level problems. With limited resources available, I seeked for guidance from my chemistry teacher who advised me to try AEA past papers that were of levels beyond A2. I received silver after all.</p><p>Although not mentioned in my personal statement as I have not attained any award in, I participated in science essay competition held by Cambridge (Peterhouse College). I worked on the essay title called “Is stem cell research hope or hype?” Stem cell topic was something that fascinated me at the time although not studied in details at school and participating in this was definitely worth it in broadening my understanding of the subject. </p>