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Geek Culture / Personal Statement

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 29th Nov 2010 20:46 Edited at: 3rd Dec 2010 19:16
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Yep, it's that time of year, UCAS application For those of you outside the UK it's the arduous process we go through to apply to university.


Quote: "
(Course - Audio Systems Engineering)
"


The main part of UCAS is the personal statement. Was just wondering if anyone had a spare minute if they could give it a quick read over and provide some constructive criticism.

If anyone is wondering why I've not applied yet it's due to a dispute on my grade for Maths for which is needed to do the course I want to do - something which hasn't been resolved yet.

Cheers


Blitzwerks | Indie Development Team
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Fatal Berserker
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Posted: 29th Nov 2010 20:55
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they say it has to be ur own work... how will they know its yours or wilderbeats?

Smoke me a kipper, ill be back for breakfast.

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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 29th Nov 2010 21:17
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What, my personal statement or the projects I've mentioned?

If you were referring to plagiarism of the personal statement - they check them all thoroughly to ensure that it is all original work.

If you were referring to the projects - most of the universities I am applying to hold interviews where they will ask about the stuff you've written about - it will be apparent if they're not your projects because you won't know much about them.


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lazerus
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Posted: 29th Nov 2010 21:54
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I havnt read it since i havnt too much time, so quick tip
Backup any statments such as, 'i work well in teams', 'hardworking', 'motivated', ect with appropreate times where you demostrated these abilities.

Good luck, i had my personal statement knocked back 5 times before it was accepted by my teach, not as bad as 12 by another friend.

All the best


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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 29th Nov 2010 22:03
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Thanks for the advice Lazerus I think I'm on my 2nd draft so far, so not too bad xD I've tried to avoid generic phrasing as much as possible, and rather than using those terms explicitly I've tried to show them through the various things I've written about. Such as the work-placement - obviously you have to be able to work in a team for that etc.

Cheers

What did you apply for btw?


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lazerus
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Posted: 29th Nov 2010 23:02
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Creative computing @ hope university.
Its a blast, the course i chose is perfect for me, new firends are great, pubs are close. Ace'd the practice exam today aswell, done the final 35/80 mark question in 4minutes flat, got told im on watch for a 1st class honors now so thats a good start
If i keep it up the ''hard work and revision'' -(sat on the sofa in the coffee lounge for 3 hours before-hand messing about and generally acting like a child) he said i would get alot of extra grants as incentive

It was actually my only course choice, since if i never got in on the grades i had, i was going to resit the year, though it was my AS holding me back from my c-b's + distinction.

Im sure your teach's will crit your statement before hand aswell so go nuts and watch for typos!. Word dosnt always get the buggers or mis-checks them as something else.


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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 29th Nov 2010 23:10
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Quote: "It was actually my only course choice, since if i never got in on the grades i had, i was going to resit the year, though it was my AS holding me back from my c-b's + distinction. "


Kind of the same problem I'm having here. Everything is predicted A* bar Maths which I managed to flunk pretty badly


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lazerus
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Posted: 29th Nov 2010 23:31
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There was only that place for me to get that course/specific units i wanted, so it was only natural to choose the one. If all else failed i had several places in southport college where they wanted me to do fine arts. So i was pretty safe to be honest. Also helps alot in writing the statement as i specifically mentioned it that university.


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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 30th Nov 2010 21:55
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Would anyone else be able to provide some input?


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Diggsey
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Posted: 30th Nov 2010 22:54 Edited at: 30th Nov 2010 22:57
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Wow, I sent mine off months ago...

As for feedback:
Grammar:
Don't use comma splicing. If both clauses on either side of a comma make sense on their own, then you should use a full-stop or a semicolon. Using a comma is grammatically incorrect. Similarly, the opposite is also true. Don't use a semicolon if either side doesn't make sense on its own. Almost every sentence in the first paragraph has one of the two mistakes above. Also, I don't think you should use a capital letter after a colon.
A comma after 'emotions' might make that sentence a bit clearer too, to make it clear that it's not the 'emotions in the language', it's 'bringing out emotions, in the language'.

Language:
All the long and complicated words are impressive; just make sure that you don't use one out of place, or people make suspect you of just looking up words in a thesaurus without actually knowing what they mean. As far as I can tell you've used them correctly so far.

BTW, it's probably not a good idea to post your personal statement online. The universities and UCAS have software to detect copied statements which works using internet searches, so if it finds this one, who's to say that it's actually you that posted it! You may not even get a chance to prove that you are the person who posted it.

Overall, it will be good. Just clear up all the grammatical mistakes

edit:
Also, if this is part of the personal statement: 'mu·sic Noun /ˈmyo͞ozik/ ', be aware that none of the accented or special characters will appear when you submit it

[b]
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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 1st Dec 2010 00:07
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Quote: "Wow, I sent mine off months ago..."

As I mentioned, I've been waiting for one of my teachers to finish my reference and predicted grades - otherwise I would have applied months ago too.

Quote: "As for feedback:
Grammar:"

Ahaha, and to think that I got the best GCSE English grade in the whole school xD

Quote: "All the long and complicated words are impressive; just make sure that you don't use one out of place, or people make suspect you of just looking up words in a thesaurus without actually knowing what they mean. As far as I can tell you've used them correctly so far."

I think that's just the way I speak, I have a nasty habit of making things overly-complicated (he says, trying to keep the sentence as simple as possible xD).

Quote: "BTW, it's probably not a good idea to post your personal statement online."

Fair point, although I think a great deal of people post their statements on the TheStudentRoom which no doubt would be the first place to check for plagiarism. But I'll make sure I remove it soon.

Quote: "Also, if this is part of the personal statement: 'mu·sic Noun /ˈmyo͞ozik/ ', be aware that none of the accented or special characters will appear when you submit it"

Yeah, been meaning to fix that but never got round to it aha.


Thank you very much for the feedback


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BiggAdd
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Posted: 1st Dec 2010 07:54 Edited at: 1st Dec 2010 07:54
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Quote: "If you were referring to plagiarism of the personal statement - they check them all thoroughly to ensure that it is all original work."


Universities have software that's pretty good at fishing out plagiarism.

It's been so long since I went through all that UCAS stuff, its a pain but its usually the worst part about the whole thing.

The only thing I remember was my interview (I applied for Aerospace Engineering at Liverpool), and they asked me about screws... I had no idea about screws, but the point of the question was to see if you could solve problems and use logic to come up with a reasonable answer.

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Eminent
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Posted: 1st Dec 2010 18:25
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Sometimes you don't even have to check. In elementary school, I remember some guy copypastaed Wikipedia. He got owned immediately by my teacher.


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Master Man Of Justice
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Posted: 1st Dec 2010 18:33
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Quote: "I remember some guy copypastaed Wikipedia."

haha, i had a whole class that did that for a latin project.
Some kids even left the hyperlinks shown xD

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lazerus
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Posted: 1st Dec 2010 19:26
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Get better at rewording stuff?

Even better approach is to consistantly write lavishly so they stop questioning it, though that never worked out for me.

I always got pulled up over plagurism, even though not a word was taken or sourced and no filters, searches and databases said otherwise, but the head of ict had it in for me so searched my work with booleans.
He tried to kick me off the course with what he found, and his main evidence link was 'Superstructural analysis of chordate subphylum' //Invertebrate// with a 5% false negative on words with 5chars or more in a 50k research paper.
I should mention that my work was on communications security risks in business.


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BiggAdd
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Posted: 1st Dec 2010 20:13
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Quote: "Get better at rewording stuff? "


Or just learn to write for yourself would be a better option. People who constantly plagiarise never learn to actually come up with an original thought themselves.

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data 98junkiee
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2010 17:35
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Quote: "Universities have software that's pretty good at fishing out plagiarism"


As far as I know the software also searches the Internet as well meaning that it will probably flag this forum up. Probably best to reword it but keep the same information tbh, just in case.

End of line.
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Eminent
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2010 17:46
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Or edit the thing and delete it...


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The Wilderbeast
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2010 19:15
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Quote: "Quote: "Get better at rewording stuff? "

Or just learn to write for yourself would be a better option. People who constantly plagiarise never learn to actually come up with an original thought themselves."


This wasn't directed at me was it? I can assure you that everything I've written is entirely original.

Unless anyone else has anything further to add I shall remove this now. Obviously I've made several revisions since this was posted - all hunky dory now xD


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Fatal Berserker
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2010 19:21
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My teacher made such a software in his spare time, it searches using many different search engines and also on documents already handed in for key words. It then builds a list on the most similar sources. Its very effective.

Smoke me a kipper, ill be back for breakfast.

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Master Man Of Justice
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2010 19:40
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Quote: "My teacher made such a software in his spare time"


Can i say promotion worthy?

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BiggAdd
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Posted: 3rd Dec 2010 19:48 Edited at: 6th Dec 2010 16:04
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Quote: "This wasn't directed at me was it? I can assure you that everything I've written is entirely original."


No, just directed at anyone who thinks plagiarism is a good idea.

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bitJericho
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Posted: 6th Dec 2010 15:15
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Funny, people not publishing their work for fear they'll be accused of plagierism

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