Accounting and Business MA (Hons) personal statement example

Why do you want to study this course or subject?

Pricing a house move looks simple until you try it. For three years I have written quotes for a family-owned removals and storage firm, and each one starts with a list: a three-bedroom semi, an upright piano, a loft nobody has opened in a decade. Turning that into a price means estimating van hours, crew size, packing materials and the chance we will need a parking suspension, then judging how much margin the job can carry without losing it to a competitor. Last year the owner asked me why our storage side felt busy but earned so little. Working through a year of invoices, I found we charged per container while our real costs came from floor space and the staff time spent retrieving items for customers. That analysis changed how we price long-term storage, and it made me want to understand properly the methods I had been improvising. Accounting and business appeal to me together because the questions I enjoy sit between them: how a figure is measured, and what a manager should do once they have it. I left school at seventeen with modest results, and returning to education now is a deliberate choice.

How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare?

To prepare, I completed the AAT Level 2 Certificate in Accounting through online study last year, fitting modules around work. It gave me a firm grounding in double-entry bookkeeping, VAT and bank reconciliations, and it changed how I see our own accounts. Learning the accruals principle, for example, explained why a month in which we had completed many moves could still look weak if customers had paid deposits months earlier. Depreciation was another revelation: our vans lose value whether or not they are busy, which helped me see why idle winter weeks cost more than the empty diary suggests. I am now taking Higher Mathematics and Higher English at evening classes at my local college. Algebra did not come naturally at school, but working steadily through past papers has made it far less daunting, and essay writing is helping me argue a point clearly rather than just describe it. Outside the syllabus I read Financial Intelligence by Karen Berman and Joe Knight, which argues that financial statements depend on estimates and judgement as well as arithmetic. That idea matched my experience of quoting, where an honest number still rests on assumptions, and it is something I look forward to examining in much more depth.

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

I joined the firm as a crew member at twenty-two, carrying furniture and wrapping fragile items, and moved into the office after offering to tidy up the booking spreadsheet. Working on the vans taught me what a quote actually means on the ground: an underestimate becomes a long, tense day for four people. I now handle enquiries, site surveys and scheduling, and I deal with customers at stressful moments, often explaining costs to people who are moving because of a divorce or a bereavement. Being clear and patient with them matters as much as being accurate. For the past two years I have also been volunteer treasurer of our allotment association, which has around sixty plot holders. When I took over, rent was collected in cash at the summer open day and recorded in a notebook. I set up a simple ledger, issued receipts, and now reconcile everything against the bank statement before the annual meeting, where I present a one-page summary that members can actually follow. It is unglamorous work, but people trust the figures, and that trust has made it easier to agree on spending for a new water tank. Away from numbers, I spend most free weekends hillwalking in the Highlands with two friends. Planning routes, checking forecasts and knowing when to turn back have given me a practical respect for preparation that I expect will serve me well when balancing study with life as a mature student.