Audiology, AuD postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

Late one evening in my final year, I stood alone in a lecture theatre and clapped, once, into a microphone. My project was to measure how long sound lingered in that room, and the answer, a reverberation time of a little over one and a half seconds at mid frequencies, explained why students at the back complained they could hear the lecturer but not understand him. Speech is a stream of quick consonants, and a long decay smears one syllable into the next. That project gave me my first serious question about hearing. A sound can be loud enough and still fail to carry meaning. I now want to pursue that question where it matters most, in the clinic, through doctoral training in audiology.

My degree is in physics, and I graduated with a 2:1. Modules in waves, signal processing and acoustics gave me a working understanding of frequency, decibels and Fourier analysis. These ideas sit underneath pure-tone audiometry, tympanometry and hearing aid fitting. For the project I used a calibrated sound level meter and wrote a short Python script to estimate decay curves. I compared my measurements with the Sabine equation and found the room behaved worse than its surfaces predicted, probably because of the hard, angled ceiling. I also learned how easily careless measurement misleads. My first set of readings was useless because I had placed the microphone too close to a wall.

I knew physics alone would not prepare me for a profession centred on people, so I took modules in psychology and human physiology where my timetable allowed. Since graduating I have read Moore's An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing, working slowly through the chapters on frequency selectivity and masking. They helped me see why a person with cochlear damage can struggle in a noisy café, even when amplification makes speech audible.

For the past two years I have worked on the front desk of a high-street optician's that also offers hearing assessments. I do not test anyone. My job is booking, reception and answering questions, but it has shown me a lot about the patient's side of audiology. I have noticed how many people arrive having delayed for years, how often a partner made the appointment, and how anxious some patients are about looking old. I rewrote our reminder message so it explained what a hearing test involves and how long it takes, and fewer people now phone to ask. Watching the audiologist work, I have seen that counselling and patience take up as much of an appointment as the equipment does.

Outside work, two things keep me close to hearing in ordinary life. I play bass in a covers band in local pubs, and I began wearing musicians' earplugs after noticing ringing after gigs. I then persuaded the rest of the band to do the same, which took more effort than I expected. I also drive my neighbour, who has worn hearing aids for twenty years, to her repair appointments. She is frank about what works for her and what does not. She mutes the television's background music, but restaurants defeat her completely. Her experience matches what my lecture theatre measurements suggested, and it has made me curious about directional microphones and remote microphone systems.

I am applying for an AuD because I want clinical training that rests on solid science. I bring quantitative skills, practice in careful measurement and two years of everyday contact with people who are nervous about their hearing. I am ready to learn the anatomy, diagnostics and supervised clinical skills I do not yet have. I am especially interested in hearing in noise and in helping adults take their first steps towards treatment sooner than many of the patients I meet at work.