Personal Statement Topic Brainstorming

[gjohnson]

I've been working on a few potential topics for my personal statement throughout the past couple days, and I wanted to bounce them off the community here in order to see what people think about them and which ones could turn into the strongest PS. I think I want to go into administrative law after graduation, but I'm not convinced on that since I haven't been exposed to law school yet.

• How my academic interest changed throughout undergrad from engineering to political science and how this change, coupled with experiences, gave me a passion for policy and the good it can do for people
• Talking about an individual event I put on through student government in support of in-state tuition for veterans and how that inspired me to want to help people through policy and advocacy
• Talk about my experience shadowing a public defender and how that was the confirmation I needed to know I wanted to study law

These are the ideas I have right now...are these topics too 'normal' or cliche? I'm afraid of going after a topic that just summarizes my resume or is too widely used.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

[UOI4430]

Avoid the switching majors topic. If you got a poor grade in a science or math course (I am not saying that you did) before you changed your major it may look like you picked engineering and found out it was too hard and then switched to political science. The admissions office at U Chicago suggested avoiding this topic explicitly on their web page.

Sorry I cannot help more. I am struggling with my own P.S. right now. I just thought you should know to avoid the switching majors topic. Good luck, friend.

[WhiskeyAndCupcakes]

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