Personal statements as a STEM student

JesseWeNeedToCook

Recently I've started brainstorming ideas for my personal statement and just wanted to get some opinions from students who are / were in a similiar situation as me. It feels as though addressing the drastic pivot from science into law must be explained on my statement; however, is this feeling justified? If so, how much of your personal statement did you end up using to explain this switch, i.e was it the main focus?

ClaudioD21

Honestly, it doesn’t need to be explained. It can be if you want it to but I would use the PS to let the school know more about who you are and what makes you unique. Schools don’t generally care if you were pre-med or an engineering major and decided to attend law school. Most schools really only care about hard numbers. Again, you’re free to explain why you decided to attend law school when your original intent was STEM in your PS. However, it’s not really necessary and you might benefit more from discussing other unique life experiences, challenges, and adversity.

C_S_D 01

I agree.

Or, you could reference it but not make of it a main thrust: "My passion for numbers/science/whatever originally pulled me toward a major in X but over time I couldn't shake the feeling that my skills/interests/natural giftedness would be better suited to the world of Y..."