Ancient and Medieval History MA (Hons) personal statement example

Why do you want to study this course or subject?

In an after-school Latin lesson last spring, our teacher gave us a few lines of Bede to translate: the passage in which one of King Edwin's counsellors compares human life to a sparrow flying through a warm hall in winter. I had read it in English, but working through the Latin slowly made me notice how carefully Bede places the speech inside his account of Northumbria's conversion, written about a century after the events. That gap between the moment described and the moment of writing is what draws me to ancient and medieval history together. Bede wrote in a Christian Latin culture that grew out of the Roman world, and studying both periods would let me follow those continuities and breaks rather than treating the fifth century as a wall. Reading Mary Beard's SPQR showed me how much of early Rome survives only through much later writers, which made me want to understand how historians judge such sources. I enjoy the patience this work demands: weighing a single phrase, asking who wrote it and for whom, and accepting that some questions stay open.

How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare?

My A levels each train a different skill. In Classical Civilisation, studying the Aeneid alongside its Augustan context taught me to read literature as evidence for politics without reducing it to propaganda. In History, my coursework on the origins of the First Crusade required me to compare modern interpretations, and I learned to separate what historians argue from what the sources say. Urban II's speech at Clermont survives in several later accounts that differ noticeably, and setting them side by side was the first time I felt I was doing history rather than revising it. English Literature has sharpened my close reading and made my essays more precise. I am also taking GCSE Latin in a small after-school group, which is slow but rewarding, and I hope to continue the language. For my Extended Project I asked why Roman coin hoards were buried in Britain in the early fifth century, using published museum material and the Portable Antiquities Scheme database. I found that popular explanations often went beyond the evidence, and I argued for caution about reading every hoard as a reaction to crisis. My presentation was one of two chosen for our sixth-form open evening, where answering questions from parents made me explain my reasoning clearly.

What else have you done to prepare outside of education, and why are these experiences useful?

For the past two years I have worked weekend shifts in a garden-centre café. Sunday lunchtimes are busy, and I have learned to stay calm with a long queue, deal politely with complaints and keep track of several orders at once. Last summer my manager asked me to show two new starters how the till and allergen procedures work, which I took as a sign of trust. The job has taught me reliability more than anything: turning up, doing the routine parts properly and helping colleagues when it gets hectic. I also ring bells with the band at our parish church. Learning to handle a bell took months of practice, and change ringing means memorising patterns and concentrating for long stretches while staying alert to everyone else. In March I rang in my first quarter peal, about forty-five minutes of continuous ringing, which I was proud to complete without a mistake on my bell. Being in the tower has also made me curious about the building itself, and I have started reading the church guide and the county record office's online notes on its medieval fabric. Away from history, I walk regularly with my family in the hills near us, which gives me time to think through ideas from the week's reading.