The joys of the personal statement.  That 42 lines in which you get to tell prospective future educational establishments why they should waste their resources on you over the coming years.  Your chance to tell them why you are a heck of a lot more wonderful/talented/filled with potential than the other couple of hundred students that apply for that same course.

This isn’t in my first personal statement, in fact it’s my third, but things have changed a heck of a lot in the 5 years since I started writing my first one.  Not going to lie, back then it was dead easy, I was a keen participant in far too many school groups, I had Guides, I had Rangers, I had the Sunday School, I had Highland Dancing, I worked 2 jobs and I babysat.  I had completed my bronze and silver Duke of Edinburgh awards and was well on the way to completing my gold.

All that remains from that list is that I’m still working on my gold Duke of Edinburgh award(truth be told I’m no further on now than I was then), and I occasionally help out at the church still. So this year, as I write my third, and fingers crossed final, personal statement, everything is going to be in retrospect and that just makes me feel guilty.  I’ve changed job, the kids I looked after moved to Australia, College forced me out of Guides and work forced me out of dancing.  So this year I’m going to tell the universities about how wonderful I was 4 years ago, and somehow try and persuade them that somewhere deep inside I might actually be the same person, at least almost.

Funny how things change.