Biomedical Engineering (in partnership with KMITL) [BEng/MEng] personal statement example

Why do you want to study this course or subject?

The first trace my homemade heart-rate sensor produced looked nothing like a pulse. An infrared LED and a photodiode taped to my fingertip gave a wavering line that jumped whenever I breathed or moved my hand. Over several evenings I added a simple low-pass filter and wrote code to detect peaks. Eventually, while I sat still, the readings matched my own count at the wrist to within a few beats per minute. What interested me most was the gap between that result and a device that can be clipped onto a restless, anxious patient and still be trusted. Closing that gap means understanding light in tissue, electronics, signal processing and the person wearing the sensor all at once, and that combination is why I want to study biomedical engineering. I enjoy physics most when it has to work under untidy conditions, and the human body is about as untidy as conditions get. I am also drawn to the design questions: what accuracy is good enough, what a device costs, how it is cleaned and who will use it. I want a degree that builds strong mathematical and engineering foundations while keeping that human context in view.

How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare?

I am studying Advanced Higher Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry, having gained A grades at Higher in these subjects and in Biology and English. Advanced Higher Mathematics has given me tools I had only glimpsed before. Solving differential equations for exponential decay made sense of the discharging capacitor in my filter, and I can now see why removing slow breathing drift is a question of frequency. For my Physics investigation I measured how light transmitted through stacked sheets of tinted acetate falls as the number of layers increases, using a light-dependent resistor, and compared my results with the Beer-Lambert relationship. Getting repeatable readings taught me to control stray light and to estimate uncertainties honestly rather than drop awkward points. Higher Biology covered the circulatory and respiratory systems, which helped when I read about why pulse oximeters compare red and infrared light: oxygenated and deoxygenated haemoglobin absorb those wavelengths differently. Chemistry has been useful more quietly; a unit on polymers made me curious about which materials can safely sit against skin for hours. Outside class I worked through Arduino tutorials and a free online course on basic circuits, which gave me the confidence to start the sensor project.

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

Last summer I spent four days shadowing in the clinical engineering department of my local hospital, arranged through my school's careers adviser. I was there purely as an observer. I watched technicians carry out scheduled checks on infusion pumps and patient monitors, recording each result against a checklist, and I listened while one explained why a returned pump was quarantined until its fault was traced. I had not appreciated how much of the work is documentation and traceability, or how often a fault turns out to be a cracked cable or a tired battery. One technician showed me a simulator connected to a blood pressure monitor and changed its settings so I could see the readings respond, which linked neatly to my own struggles with noisy signals.

I work Saturdays at a garden centre, mostly on the tills and loading compost into customers' cars. It has made me better at explaining things clearly to people in a hurry, and I was asked to show two new weekend staff how the till system works. I swim with a club three mornings a week and help coach the youngest group on Sundays, breaking strokes into small steps they can manage. Most evenings I also walk an elderly neighbour's dog, which is usually when I think through whatever problem my code has given me that day.