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Reviewing what you have written

Time to review what you have written down.
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A healthy disregard for authority, and curiosity. Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm and drive is the key. I think, ultimately, is a willingness to take risks with their ideas and curiosity. Students who are not afraid to deal with and embrace the difficulty that often accompanies literary study. In a good student, I value the ability to pause and to take time in responses, and to take time and care in their work. I really value enthusiasm. I think you can teach a student anything who is an enthusiastic learner of the subject that they are at higher education to learn. We’re interested in what we’re doing and we like to be around people who are also very interested in what they’re doing because it makes it exciting.
53.8
The attributes that I value most is their critical ability and their ability to take information from a number of sources and being able to synthesise their own understanding from that. The enthusiasm, the desire to learn, the feeling that they are here because they want to be here. And they’re really excited about hearing what you’ve got to say and they’re really interested in it. And actually, that doesn’t take much academic ability. That just takes a really lively mind. The ability to learn fast. The ability to present their work in an effective and clear way. The ability to abide by deadlines, tight deadlines. And the ability to interact with their peers and with me. Good students are fun, interesting, interested.
102.8
They have enthusiasm. They have drive. They are just a joy to teach. If you’ve got that, then all else will follow.

To get the most out of this, you need to have a good gap between this step and the previous step.

Reviewing your writing is always better and more productive if you have a period of time between the two when you have not looked at it.

Remember the key purpose of your personal statement. It is to persuade someone to give you a place at University. Who is this ‘person’? Who is your audience? It is hard to write persuasively if you don’t know your audience.

Let’s return to the video you saw in week 1 (you can view it again above). There are lots of opinions in this video. None are wrong, they are different because they reflect personal opinion.

  • How confident are you that you have persuaded these lecturers to give you a place at university?
  • What makes you confident or not confident?
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