Physics Personal Statement Example 13

Attending university has been a lifelong dream of mine; ever since my childhood, I have been told that I should, and I have always agreed with the sentiment. If I were asked to pin down an exact reason, however, I would be forced to confess that I do not know - I just enjoy learning new things and exercising my mind.

Science has always fascinated me. I have always wanted answers and had a thirst to know more about how the world around me works, and have never been satisfied with the shrug of the shoulders that I usually received in response. Science allows us to answer these questions, and physics does so on the most fundamental level; while mathematics may be the language of the universe, physics is - for want of a better term - the instruction manual. This is what interests me the most about it: that it is fundamental to the way everything works, and can explain the universe in a unique way.

My secondary school science teacher really introduced me to the wonders of physics as a field, and it was primarily due to his influence that I began to read into the subject. After reading a number of popular science books, I was hooked. I knew that it was what I wanted to do.

Some think it odd that the parts of physics that fascinate me the most have so few practical applications; but expanding humanity’s horizons is, I feel, at least as constructive as medicine, engineering, and other such traditionally “useful” fields - perhaps even more so in the long term. Even things that seem rather abstract, like general relativity, have important applications, such as in GPS.

After university, I would like to work in research, so that I can devote my career to the study of a subject I love, the pursuit of knowledge, and hopefully doing something to help future generations along the way.

In year 11, I received my school’s Chair of Governor’s Award and the Mathematics Achievement Award, as well as being made Student of the Year (Year 11 Boy).

Outside of my academic life, I have been an editor of the online news source Wikinews since 2008, and I have written in excess of forty articles there, three of which have been selected by the community as example’s of the project’s best work.

The article I am the most proud of is an in-depth special feature on space debris that I wrote, entitled “Out of space in outer space: Special report on NASA’s ‘space junk’ plans”. This included exclusive comments from a leading US satellite company and the UK Space Agency, as well as drawing information from other news sources and a National Research Council report.

My work on the project as an administrator and elected member of the arbitration committee, as well as an accredited reporter and volunteer email respondent, shows trustworthiness, good decision-making and ability to perform challenging roles within a team.

I also write everything from fanfiction to gritty dystopian thrillers. My novel “Thur’s Utopia” is on sale on Amazon.com, and won National Novel Writing Month in 2009. I am an avid reader, and have read books across a wide range of genres, both fiction and non-fiction. I enjoy popular science books covering various fields. These range from those closely and clearly related to physics, such as “A Brief History of Time”, to the works of Richard Dawkins - which, for the most part, exist in an entirely separate field. I am also a fan of science fiction, which, although usually far closer to fiction than science, can help me to embrace different principles and ways of looking at things.