Hello to future readers,
This is the last post for this blog. I am transitioning to another blog as well as Wordpress for posting about life and nursing. Thank you for reading up to this point.
See you in the future!
Showing posts with label Learning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Learning. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Monday, June 20, 2022
Issues with Writing a Personal Statement
I have been going through the wringer again with writing personal statements for PA, RN, MD, and DO. I just keep having writer's block and struggling to come up with a decent outline that does not need constant adjusting for every new sentence I composed.
Once again, I have also been running right into the wall with 3rd person statements. I do not know if it is a bad habit I got from my history major days, but I found run into the issue of writing in the neutral 3rd person. God, it gets so frustrating! I write a paragraph into existence, only to read and find out that it sounds trite or dull.
It has gotten so bad these past few days that I am checking multiple different online websites to find examples of good writing that I can learn or emulate. Here are the takeaways I got from a few of these sites:
https://www.shemmassianconsulting.com/blog/medical-school-personal-statement-analysis
Excellent source describing how to approach writing a good personal statement. It goes through the run down on how to write the intro → body → conclusion in a more detailed fashion than others on here.
- Resume-first approach leads to poor introduction
- Use a list of qualities 1st (use 2 or 3) → think of events or situations that highlight these qualities
- Show don't tell (write like Charles Dickens and drop in adjectives like crazy)
- No need for Eureka moment
- Cover 3-4 personal experiences
- Why did you pursue the experience?
- How did you feel during the experience?
- What have you accomplished or learned?
- How did the experience affect you?
- How did the experience influence you to pursue medicine?
- Conclusion = positive qualities + new perspectives + passion for medicine
https://www.princetonreview.com/med-school-advice/medical-school-personal-statement
Okay source, but has too many general tips or rules (15 on their list). It goes broad in its advice and adds some cliches of its own such as checking for spelling and grammar.
- Allow extended time for multiple rewrites and revisions
- Focus on a certain aspect of the story
- Take care with cliches
- Show don't tell
- Solid 5-point essay format: (Intro, 3-4 body paras, conclusion)
- Check for grammar & spelling
- Get 2nd opinions about your essay
https://writingcenter.wustl.edu/2021/03/17/finding-your-voice-medical-school-personal-statements/
Very verbose with pain text and blog-like aesthetic (like here), but good writing advice.
- Have a plan for 2 stories focusing on people/science.
- People stories
- I helped someone
- Saw its impact
- Felt gratified
- Write down the 5 senses details from these moments (good intro)
- Follow up next para with background before the event
- Science Story
- Doing something sciency
- Solved problem and got the result
- Gratification
- Write down 5 senses right before the wave of gratification
- follow up vivid hook with background paragraph
- Segue between people and science stories with a good transition
Hopefully with these new "templates", I can develop more clear outlines for a good essay. So far I keep ending up with the same nonpersonal rubbish.
Friday, February 11, 2022
Old attempts for keeping records for transactions. New attempts for money management, back to software
When going through the Google Drive files, I found the old files that I used to keep track of transactions. I will post them here so that I can keep these memories. Plus, I get to reminisce on the embarrassment of having such mediocre financial record tracking.
First up is the expenditure tracking:
As seen above I spent too much time trying to separate the expenditures based on company name.
My other obsession at the time was trying to figure out the best "deal" that I would be getting when buying from different stores. I tried to use net weight vs price to avoid the fancy sales tags that the stores like to put on their stuff. The problem was that I never had the excel chart hand when actually going shopping and in the end, I never actually used it much beyond self-confirming my own purchases.
The sad part is that I still struggle with managing money well. I am trying not to rely on using software to keep track, but when I use handwritten records the accuracy is all over the place. Currently going back to electronic records because paperless has become king for a lot of billing platforms.
Two possible software to try out is
- You need a Budget → Bought the program via Steam, but have not utilized it fully yet.
- Quick books → Heard this program's name through a lot of business-oriented people. It would be great to learn, but I have yet to see how it could help a salaried employee like me.
- Mint → New subscription-based service for money management (Hard pass if possible I hate subscription-based stuff)
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