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So at last you have settled on going to nursing school and kick-starting your career? Or have you decided to develop your nursing career adding to your education? Whatever it is, let me let you on a tip, your nursing personal statement is your way of standing out among your fellow applicants. In simple terms, the nursing personal statement can be defined as a document that details your strengths as a learner and a prospective nurse. In the document, you are required to include your reasons for pursuing the degree program, your short and long term goals, your motivations, experience, and commitment to providing care to others who are in need.
The term itself, “Personal Statement” is not as literal as it is. The institutions asking for this document do not expect a student to put down their entire story, on the contrary, they expect you to write what makes you stand out in the vast sea of applicants. It is this uniqueness in character and ability that qualifies you as a candidate into the institution’s nursing program. In this post, you are going to be acquainted with the steps necessary to write a personal statement for nursing school. To understand further, let us review the purpose of this document for nursing schools.
Purpose of a Personal Statement
The personal statement is only a single element in your nursing application. However, that single document could end up being one of the most crucial parts of your admission. The admission to nursing school definitely begins the vetting with performance. The academic prowess of a person matters a lot due to the amount of knowledge expected to be grasped in the nursing program. In addition to your grades, the selection committee seeks to know you as a person. This is because the nursing career not only requires you to be sharp in class, but also have a heart and drive to care for those in need, the patients. Lack of this latter element separates the nurses from other professions. The personal statement gives you a chance to present your personality to the selection committee to convince them that you are not only a smart student but also a great person who will in the future make a reliable nurse. Writing to impress this panel is not as easy as it sounds. You may have an admirable personality, but you could fail to put that into writing. Top writers are constantly providing personal statement writing services.
Nursing Personal Statement Tips
To paint this perfect picture of yourself in a logical and polished manner requires adherence to a specific set of tips. Reflect the appropriate mindset for the profession that the selection committee shall be looking for. To achieve the best out of your nursing personal statement, comprehend the following tips:
- Come up with a brainstorming timeline
This step although overlooked is as crucial as writing the personal statement itself. In this phase of your writing, you shall think of all that you could include and try and remember any unclear details that you intend to include in the personal statement. This allows you to settle on specific steps that you shall follow during the actual writing to avoid last-minute rushes.
- Generate specific open-ended statements
Most schools have a fixed prompt to which you develop your personal statement. However, there are those that do not have that common prompt and shall require you to generate the entire personal statement from scratch. Generating open-ended statements allow you to repurpose some of these statements and hence saves you some time and energy in the process of writing.
- Do not stall
In every form of writing, coming up with that first complete and sensible sentence is always the hardest and it often gets easier after that. Most people will waste a lot of time stalling and staring into a blank page instead of beginning with whatever ideas they got. It is advisable to fire up that keyboard once you have something tangible and before you know it, your personal statement for nursing will be flowing with ideas as you proceed. Furthermore, the first copy that you write might end up as a mare draft from which you will create a more refined version of your nursing school essay.
- Avoid your childhood experiences as a plague
No matter how catchy or touching it might seem to you to include your childhood ambitions of always wanting to become a nurse or playing nurse as a kid, believe me, it is not. The best that story will do for you is to help you lose the interest of the selection committee.
- Maintain specificity
A lot of applicants will use vague and generalized language to explain themselves to the selection committee. It is important as a writer to note that the committee has a lot of applicants to cover and what they are seeking from your nursing personal statement is to see you in that document. Help them visualize you quickly and by so doing you shall easily win them.
- Do not overlook the care
The nursing profession is all about providing care. This is an element that you can not afford to overlook in your nursing personal statement. From the very beginning of your statement let the admissions officers see that you know what this profession entails. Such comprehension gives you the upper hand for the mere fact that you know why you belong to this profession.
Nursing Personal Statement Structure
Your nursing personal statement could vary between one and two pages, containing between 350 to 500 words. The document is subdivided into several paragraphs which should coherently link with each yet provides a wide range of your personality. The first half of the personal statement should be outlining your reasons for choosing nursing as a course to pursue. It should further give a reason why you feel you are well suited to pursue it. This section alone could be take-up between 150 and 250 words. The second and last half should include your personal interests and details pointing to your personalities accurately. After reviewing all the instructions and guidelines you might get a vague idea of what they need you to include in your statement. This is where the actual writing begins. Below are the steps outlining the nursing personal statement structure:
- Your opening statement should declare your desire to become a nurse and explain the origin of the same.
- Use personal details to give the admissions committee an idea of who you are right from the first sentence.
- Describe your path to this moment. Any experiences, role models, or events that have encouraged you to apply for nursing school.
- Bring in your professional or academic qualifications that qualify you to be a nurse trainee. These are aspects of your personality that qualify you beyond academic or technical expertise.
- Outline your plan for school once you begin training as a nurse and your future prospective. Here you are required to identify the course you intend to study and your career goals once you graduate.
- Identify hardships you have had to encounter on your way to nursing school. Doubts, past history, or even school performance can be included here.
- In your concluding paragraph, reemphasize your will and qualification to be accepted as a nurse trainee.
Requirements When Writing a Personal Statement for Nursing School
Even though we want to refrain from recounting your life story, this statement still has to be personal. It is a document that should contain all information to convince the selection committee that you indeed are cut out for a career in nursing. In as much as there are countless things that could be included in a personal statement for nursing school, the following list should at least give an idea of what the admissions committee wants to see in a candidate:
- Education
– Having taken advanced biology in school.
– Knowledge of relevant skills such as CPR certification.
– Any history of extensive care to a person or animal in need.
- Volunteer work
– History of volunteer work in hospitals.
– History of volunteer work in assisted living facilities.
– Good recommendation from supervisors in such institutions.
- Work experience
– Any work experience from a related field.
– Good recommendation from employers in such fields.
- Personal motivation
– Is there any unique story that awoke your desire to want to be a nurse. Could be anything like taking care of an unwell friend or family. As long as it fits to awaken your desire to want to be a caregiver.
- Relevant acquired skills
– Do you have any unique skill that is relevant to nursing? Could be as meager as having a pharmaceutical experience by working at a pharmacy or having a history of high-stress situations.
– Are you fluent in any foreign language?
- Unique traits
– Do not just express your desire vaguely like every one of the thousands of applicants do, you need to cut yourself clear of the rest. For example, while there are those from an early age who knew and had a desire in medical science, you need not be conventional as everyone else. Take the panel on a journey of how this desire got awakened by an event or events throughout your life. Such mare aspects of the personal statements differentiate the best from the rest.
