Hi everyone,

I was recently presented with the opportunity to apply for a funded studentship to do a 1+3 year course - 1 year masters, 3 year PhD. I never ever thought I would do a PhD for various reasons but the opportunity I've been given, literally couldn't be more perfect for me. It's a subject I'm passionate about and I have always intended to build my career around it...

So I'm attempting the application but I'm struggling. I think because I'm so excited by it and I really want to do it, I've made it into a huge deal in my head and now I'm struggling with the application!

The application involves my CV (which I'm happy with) and a personal statement as follows:

"Please upload a PDF your personal statement that is no longer than 500 words in length. Your personal statement should clearly communicate why you are interested in our Digital Civics research agenda and which of our research themes you are most interested in aligning your PhD topic in. A good personal statement will be one clearly articulating how your prior experience or qualifications provide a good foundation for conducting a PhD within the themes of our CDT, and state what new skills and expertise you hope to develop through our PhD training programme. We would also like you to tell us why you are motivated to conduct a PhD."

Any advice on this would be great?! My supervisor said to outline my experience and get across that I'm passionate about it - that's the easy bit for me but the rest I'm finding very difficult. I'm also quite used to filling in job applications but I feel like this needs to be different!

Is there anything that makes a good/bad personal statement for a PhD application?

Thanks in advance!