Environmental economics personal statement example

Why do you want to study this course or subject?

In Economics we spent two lessons on externalities, and the example given was a factory polluting a river. It struck me that the framing was doing a lot of work: the pollution was not an accident or a moral failing but a cost that simply did not appear in anyone's accounts. I wanted to know who decides what gets counted, and how. That question has shaped what I read since. I found the discussion of discount rates especially difficult and interesting, because deciding how much weight to give to people living in 2120 is partly a technical choice about interest rates and partly an ethical one, and economists have to be honest about where one ends and the other begins.

Geography has pulled me in the same direction from a different angle. Studying water scarcity and coastal management showed me that the physical problem is often reasonably well understood while the allocation problem is not. Deciding who gets abstraction rights, or whether a stretch of coast is defended or allowed to retreat, involves comparing losses that are not measured in the same units. Environmental economics appeals to me because it takes those comparisons seriously rather than avoiding them, using tools such as cost-benefit analysis, permit markets and non-market valuation while acknowledging that each has limits.

I want a degree with real quantitative training, because I have noticed that the arguments I find least convincing are usually the ones where nobody has checked the size of the effect. Studying this subject would let me build that discipline while working on questions I already care about.

How have your qualifications and studies helped you to prepare?

My A levels give me a useful combination. Economics has taught me to model and then interrogate the model: I can now write a competitive market analysis of a carbon tax, but I have also learned to ask what happens when firms are price makers, when consumers respond slowly, or when the tax is regressive. Essay questions on market failure and government intervention have made me more careful about assuming that identifying a failure automatically justifies a particular policy.

Mathematics is the subject I have had to work hardest at and the one I am now most pleased with. Differentiation has changed how I read economics, because marginal reasoning stopped being a phrase and became something I could actually do. Statistics has been equally valuable: sampling, correlation and hypothesis testing have made me sceptical of confident claims drawn from small or self-selecting data.

Geography sits between the two. My independent investigation on surface water flooding in a residential area near college involved fieldwork, infiltration measurements and a household questionnaire, and taught me how messy real data collection is compared with textbook examples. Several of my questions were poorly worded and I had to interpret the answers cautiously in my write-up.

Outside the syllabus I have read Tim Harford's writing on measurement and statistics, and I follow the Institute for Fiscal Studies briefings on fuel and vehicle taxation, which have shown me how much careful work goes into estimating who actually bears a tax.

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

For the past fourteen months I have worked Saturdays and some Sundays at a garden centre, mostly on tills and in the plant area. It has taught me more about consumer behaviour than any worksheet. When the peat-free compost was moved to the front of the aisle and given a clearer sign, we sold noticeably more of it, even though the price had not changed. Watching customers hesitate over a more expensive water butt and then buy it after a member of staff mentioned hosepipe restrictions made me think about how much environmental choices depend on information and framing rather than price alone. I also deal with complaints politely when deliveries are late, which is less enjoyable but has made me calmer under pressure.

My own small project grew out of the bus route I take to college. Over a term I recorded my journey times and fares, compared them with the cost of the same trips by car using fuel prices and parking charges, and put the results in a spreadsheet with simple charts. My rough figures suggested the bus was cheaper but around twenty minutes slower each way, which made me think about how people value their time and why a subsidy might not shift behaviour much if reliability is the real problem. I know the sample was just me, and I would want proper survey data to say anything general.

I debate fortnightly at college, which has improved my ability to argue a position I do not hold and to concede a fair point quickly. Two evenings a week I collect my younger brother and help with his homework, which has made me organised about when work actually gets done.

This example has 4,718 characters across the three answers. Use it for ideas and structure. Your own UCAS answers must fit within 4,000 characters in total, including spaces.

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