Design and Environmental Analysis (BS) personal statement example

Personal statement example

For three weeks last spring I carried a clipboard into our school library at lunchtime and break, marking which seats were taken every fifteen minutes. The tally sheets showed something the librarian had suspected but never pinned down: the six tables by the big south window stayed nearly empty, while students crowded onto the floor beside the radiator at the back. That small puzzle became my independent project for Higher Graphic Communication, and it is the clearest reason I want to study how people and designed spaces affect each other.

My first guess was that the window seats were too bright. I borrowed a light meter app, checked it against the physics department's lux meter, and took readings at each table. The window tables were bright, but not dramatically more than elsewhere on overcast days, which in Scotland is most days. Noise readings told a different story: those tables sat beside the main door and the issue desk, where conversations and the scanner beeped constantly. I then asked twenty regular users, chosen across year groups, to mark on a floor plan where they liked to sit and why. The most common answers were about being seen walking past and having a wall behind them, not about light at all. I found it useful that the evidence moved me away from my first explanation.

I produced scaled drawings of three alternative layouts and talked them through with the librarian, who knew practical limits I had not considered, such as fire exit widths and where the sockets were. We agreed on the simplest option: turning two bookcases to form a partial screen between the door and the window tables. Two classmates from my Graphic Communication class helped me move the shelving one Friday after school, and I repeated my seat counts the following fortnight. Use of those tables rose noticeably, though I am careful not to overstate it, since exam season began during the second count and the whole library was busier. I wrote that limitation into my project report rather than leaving it out.

Reading around the project, I came across Jan Gehl's Life Between Buildings, which describes how people gather in public spaces where they can watch others with something at their back. It was striking to see the same pattern I had noticed in one library described across streets and squares, and it made me want to understand the research methods behind such observations, not just the conclusions.

My Saturday job is at the key-cutting and paint counter of a local hardware shop. It is not a design role, but I spend much of it hearing how people describe problems in their homes: a hallway that feels dark, a door that catches, a kitchen where two people cannot pass. I have learned to ask a second question before suggesting a product, because the first description is often not the real difficulty. Working with customers has also made me patient and comfortable explaining things simply.

Outside school I play fiddle in a weekly traditional music session in a pub back room. I mention it partly because it is a large part of my week, and partly because I have watched the same room work well or badly depending on how the chairs are arranged, which I now cannot stop noticing.

In Maths and Biology I have enjoyed handling data and thinking about how bodies respond to their surroundings, and Graphic Communication has given me confidence in drawing and presenting ideas. I would like a degree that joins these: one where I can learn proper methods for studying how people use buildings and products, and then apply that understanding to designing them better. I hope to bring the same careful, curious approach that started with a clipboard and a set of empty tables.