我们都知道留学文书在申请中的作用,招生官为了多维度的了解申请人的特质,要求所有申请人或者某些专业的申请人提供统一要求的留学文书。既然是作为一份材料来展现个人的特质,那么我觉得文书还是自己写最好。也正是这个想法的诞生,让我遇到了我在留学申请中最麻烦的事。
其实这件事说起来挺没面子的,因为我本科是在普度大学念的,按照正常思维,我的英语水平应该是不错的,然而事实是仅限于简单交流,对于PS这种书面写作我并不太擅长,而且我本科出来的时候文书也不是我自己写的,这一切对我来说都是个不小的挑战。对我来说,难点不在于词汇或者语法之类的,而是在于写作思路,内容和风格方面,因为是在美国读的本科,我的经历其实是很丰富的,所以写PS最让我头疼的地方在于素材的取舍。因此,我在写PS之前,对PS的写作方式,内容等做了一遍极致的攻略,我觉得PS的写作最重要的地方在于告诉招生委“Who am i”和“What can I provide”,所以我的素材主要是围绕着学术或专业兴趣背景,我将来想要研究的方向和我未来的职业目标来选取的。
当我选取好我的素材,确定好我的PS的主基调后,我才真的发现PS是一个非常非常不好写的材料。从大体框架成型再到后期的细微修改,我前前后后改了不下二十个版本,但在让同学帮忙读的时候任然感觉不满意。(这里提醒下,PS一定要多找人读,自己写的东西修改多了是很难再看出其中瑕疵的。)不满意的地方主要出现在语句上,我自己写出来的东西虽然能表达出我的大致意思,但在语言上还是写的比较生涩,文笔也不优美,读起来就感觉很别扭,对于这点,我已经意识到我没有足够的能力去让它变得优美和流畅了,所以我不得不找目前市面上口碑最好的admitwrite来帮我进行修改和润色。
为了对比修改前和修改后的差别,我就把我的原文和导师修改之后的放上来吧。我的原文被我不小心弄丢了,找了一份第一个导师帮我修改了部分的PS。
![]()
这是我在另一家机构试修改的,导师只帮我修改了前两段的一小部分内容,所以和我的原文相差无几。这位导师在修改处标写出了我的问题所在,并且帮我改了几个语法单词句子,然后,高潮来了,他居然因为错误太多就没看下去了。。。。。
说实话,虽然只是试修改,但这种态度是让我很气愤的,让我深刻的体验了什么叫贪便宜的后果。
这一篇是admitwrite的王导师帮我修改的。
![]()
在我拿到修改好的PS后,我真的惊艳到了,修改标识密密麻麻的出现在我的原文里,在这篇修改后的PS中,可以非常明显的感觉到读起来更加自然,文章的思路也更加清晰了。就拿第一段来说,导师直接把我的废话精简掉了,因为我自己在写的时候,认为我需要谦虚的来表达自己从迷茫期到逐渐找到目标的转变,但没有写实例来证明,只是凭空写了这么一句话,所以导师直接帮我精简掉了这一段可能会对我带来影响的话,这点在我自己写的时候是没有意识的。
再比如第二段中有一句,我想表达自己对统计学的热情,是这么写的,“ I was admitted by Purdue University with undergraduate program of Actuarial Science. Meanwhile, I took Applied Statistics as my second major; Management and Economics as minor majors, which promoted integration and infiltration of academic acquisition”这么写看起来没有什么问题,但看过导师帮我修改后的句子,我才发现语句之间的魅力。我写了那么长一段话来证明自己对统计学的热情,导师用这样一句“At Purdue University, I not only studied Actuarial Science hard, but also took Applied Statistics as my second major”。就直接表达清楚了,并且在情感上比我原来的句子更加强烈。
再比如后面的那一段“During my spare time, I take full advantage of available resources to equip the knowledge and information because I want to accumulate profound foundation to prepare for future career. For example, I learned excel and Matlab by myself, which are essential soft-wares in Statistics application. Through studying courses of basic mathematics, financial mathematics, linear algebra as well as the economy, I have acquired fundamental skills and basic capability in Statistics for further study. Furthermore, I also learned knowledge of actuarial science, futures and stock, which will be beneficial to my future career to work in information and insurance industry. ”
其实我是想表明为了将来的学习,我需要打下良好的基础,所以我描述了一系列我所学习的内容,但这段我写的比较零散,整体的逻辑性不强,前后的衔接也比较混乱。
但是通过导师的修改将我前后的逻辑修改的很紧密,比如这一句“ For example, I learned Excel and Matlab by myself, the essential software in Statistics application. Through taking such modules as Foundemental Mathematics, Financial Mathematics, Linear Algebra as well as the Economics, I have laid a solid academic foundation of mathematics, which would benefit my future studies of Statistics as well.”读起来就要比我的原文好得多,也加强了前后语句的连贯读,看起来就不像我写的那么散。
再比如第三段的开头,这一段我只是单纯的想描述我所做的一个项目,并且从中扮演的角色和收获,但导师帮我加了这样一句话“Having obtained much theoretical knowedge, I grew eager to improve my flexible knowledge use by completing a few projects”这比我的原文“After I learned certain theoretical knowledge, I started to do a project ”更加优美,而且把前后段落链接了起来。
而且,在后面哪一段中,我在对活动给我带来的综合能力提高中非常笼统的用“All these activities improved my confidence and enhanced the sense of responsibility.”一句话概括,而导师在帮我修改时,则是这样写的“ I was mainly in charge of grading the exam sheest and collecting scores, which cultivated my patience and brought me pleasure of fulfilling my duties to help the younger generation. Besides, I have played badminton for three years in college as a member of the badminton club, and took part in some badminton competitions. This sport also cultivated my strong willpower and developed my team work spirit, paving the way for my problem solving and peer cooperation in my future studies and career. ”这样改下来将我在什么活动中获得了什么样的精神非常清晰的表达了出来,而且语言也比我之前写的优美出许多。
类似的修改在文章中还有很多,这篇PS改下来给我的感觉就是,英文文笔很优美,后文章的思路也更清晰了。简单举几个导师帮我把语言修改的优美的句子
“Out of my passion for dealing with numbers,”
“However, I believe there would still be some room for further improvement in my statistical theoretical knowledge and data processing abilities.”
“Having obtained much theoretical knowedge, I grew eager to improve my flexible knowledge use by completing a few projects.”
“Apart from academic learning, I have fully made use of my vacations for social practice.”
除此之外,导师很认真的修改了我的PS中明显的语法、单词等拼写错误,同时清楚的梳理了文章的内容,衔接更加流利自然,这可以说是一种意外的惊喜吧。现在回想起来,我能坐在哥大图书馆写我的这篇体验真心得感谢这位帮我修改PS的导师。
|