Details for the personal history statement for Program in Biomedical Science and Engineering: Chemical Biology, Biochemistry & Biophysics (CB3) applicants
A Personal History statement that is 1-2 pages in length is required. We appreciate that each potential student has a unique path towards achieving their education goals. Your Personal History statement should consist of components responsive to the prompt below. The statement will be assessed in a manner appropriate for each individual applicant.
Please describe your prior research experience(s). Include the motivation, relevant hypotheses, and research objectives. Make sure to describe your role in carrying out experiments, key results, and insights that were obtained because of your work. If appropriate, identify research publications, presentations, or conference proceedings that were a direct result of your participation.
Take the opportunity to describe any potential obstacles that you encountered on your research path and/or in the research lab itself, and how you overcame those obstacles to accomplish your research goals. This may include providing context into how you grew as a scientist or what you learned about yourself from these experiences.
UC Santa Cruz values the variety of lived experiences that contribute to our students’ pursuit of higher education. Please describe any educational, familial, cultural, economic, or social experiences, challenges, or opportunities that may be relevant to your academic journey or that contribute to your overall career goals as a scientist.
We appreciate that some students may have limited prior research experience. We encourage applicants who participated in summer research experiences (REU), internships, course-based undergraduate research experiences (CURE), or industry experiences, or those who have had meaningful class-based laboratory or TA experiences, to describe those experiences as well.