Climate change personal statement example

Why do you want to study this course or subject?

I started keeping a daily weather log at fourteen, mainly because I liked the tidiness of a full column of numbers. Four years later, the numbers themselves have become interesting: my rainfall totals for the last two summers were noticeably lower than the earlier ones, and the warm spell we had last June produced readings I had to check twice. One dry summer proves nothing, of course, and learning why it proves nothing is part of what draws me to this subject. Climate change is the point where atmospheric physics, statistics and human decisions meet, and none of those can be understood in isolation. Reading Mike Hulme's Why We Disagree About Climate Change changed how I think about the subject. I had assumed that better evidence would settle arguments, and his argument that people bring different values, fears and ideas about fairness to the same data made sense of debates I had watched without understanding. Alongside that I have read about energy systems, including Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air, which taught me to check whether a proposed solution is the right order of magnitude before getting excited about it. Chemistry has given me the molecular side, from the absorption of infrared radiation to the carbonate chemistry behind ocean acidification, and Maths has made me more comfortable with rates of change and with uncertainty expressed as a range rather than a single figure. I want a degree that builds the physical science properly while taking adaptation, policy and economics seriously, because I expect to spend my working life on the practical question of how places adjust. I would particularly like to study modelling and to understand how climate projections are produced, tested and communicated to people who have to plan around them.

How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare?

My A levels have shaped my approach in different ways. Geography is the closest fit, and my coursework was an independent investigation into surface temperatures across three sites in Portsmouth: a paved shopping street, a park and a residential road with mature street trees. I took readings at set times over two weeks, recorded shade cover and produced a short written analysis. The differences were clear enough to see, but designing the study taught me more than the results did. My sample was small, the weather was not consistent across the fortnight, and I had to be honest in my write-up about what could and could not be concluded. Chemistry has been valuable for its emphasis on mechanism and on quantities. Working through equilibria and thermochemistry has made greenhouse gas behaviour feel like physical chemistry rather than a slogan, and the practical endorsement has made me methodical about recording what I actually did rather than what I intended to do. Maths, especially statistics and calculus, has been the subject I have had to work hardest at, and it is the one I now value most for this degree. Interpreting regression, understanding confidence intervals and thinking about gradients have all appeared in my wider reading on temperature records. Outside timetabled lessons I completed a short online course on climate science over the summer, which introduced me to radiative forcing and to the structure of assessment reports. I also read a weekly summary of environmental news and keep a notebook of terms I do not understand so that I can look them up properly rather than guess from context.

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

For the past two years I have helped my grandfather on his allotment, usually on Sunday mornings. He has grown the same vegetables for decades and has been adjusting to drier summers with some reluctance: we have installed two more water butts, mulched the beds heavily, and moved his runner beans to a shadier corner after two poor years. Sitting with him while he decides what to risk planting has shown me that adaptation is made of small, specific, sometimes unwelcome choices rather than broad plans, and that people weigh habit and preference alongside evidence. I contribute my weather log to a local volunteer recording group, submitting monthly totals, and I have learned to be careful about siting the rain gauge and consistent about reading times after a member pointed out that my earlier readings were taken too close to a fence. That correction was useful; reliable records depend on dull consistency. My Saturday job at a garden centre involves advising customers on plants, watering stock and working the till. It has made me quicker at explaining things simply, especially when someone wants a plant that will survive a hot patio without daily watering. At college I help organise the environment group, where I ran a lunchtime session comparing the carbon footprints of different lunch choices and learned how much depends on the assumptions behind each figure. I also swim in the sea most weeks through the year, which is how I first started noticing water temperature and seasonal changes at all, and I play in a community badminton league, which keeps my weekends busy and reminds me that persistence matters more than one good performance.

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