Interdisciplinary Studies in Agriculture &​ Life Sciences (BS) personal statement example

Personal statement example

Most of the parsnips I reject at work are perfectly good to eat. They are forked, too long for the supermarket tray, or slightly scarred where a stone sat in the soil. For eight years I have worked at a vegetable packhouse in Lincolnshire, first on the grading line and for the last three as a quality checker. I enjoy the job, but it has left me with questions I cannot answer from where I stand. Why did one field's crop come in badly forked after a wet spring? Who decided the length specification, and what happens to growers when it changes? Where do the rejected roots go, and does anyone measure whether that route is sensible? These questions cross soil science, plant biology, economics and consumer behaviour, which is why I want to study agriculture and life sciences in a degree that lets me connect them rather than choose one.

I left school after A levels and went straight to work, partly because I wanted to earn and partly because I had no clear idea what to study. Two years ago I started an Access to Higher Education Diploma in Science, taking evening classes after shifts. Biology units on cell structure and photosynthesis gave me vocabulary for things I had been looking at for years, and a chemistry unit on titration made me far more confident with careful measurement. For my independent project I compared the moisture content of carrots from three batches that had been held in cold storage for different lengths of time, weighing samples before and after drying them in the college oven. The results were modest and the sample small, which I said plainly in my write-up, but I learned how much thought goes into designing a fair comparison. I achieved Distinctions in most units and found I liked studying more as an adult than I ever did at school.

At work, quality checking means recording defects, taking temperatures and talking to drivers, line staff and the technical manager when a load is borderline. I have learned to explain a decision clearly to someone who disagrees with it, and to keep records that another person can follow on the next shift. When the packhouse introduced a new digital recording system, I was one of the people who helped colleagues get used to it, mostly by sitting with them on breaks.

Outside work I keep an allotment, where I grow brassicas and have spent two seasons failing to beat club root, which sent me reading about soil pH and crop rotation. I also help at pruning days at a community orchard on the edge of town, where volunteers look after old apple varieties that nobody sells commercially any more. I am not an expert pruner, but listening to the more experienced volunteers argue about rootstocks has been an education in itself. Reading Isabella Tree's Wilding, about returning the Knepp estate in West Sussex to a more natural state, made me think about land use differently, even though I am not convinced its approach suits every kind of farm. Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma, which traces several food chains from field to plate, gave me a way of seeing my own job as one link in a long system. Away from all of this I cycle most weekends, often along the drainage dykes of the fens, which is a good way to notice how flat, managed and intensively farmed this landscape is.

An interdisciplinary degree appeals to me because the problems I care about do not sit within one subject. I would like to study plant and soil science properly while also learning how food markets, policy and communication shape what ends up in the field. I bring practical knowledge of how produce is handled, the discipline of studying alongside full-time work, and a lot of questions. I am ready to give them the time and attention they deserve.