Hi. Thank you for taking your time to proof read my essay. Please feel free to make any corrections or suggestions.
Your Personal Essay should address why you selected pharmacy as a career and how the Doctor of Pharmacy degree relates to your immediate and long-term professional goals. Describe how your personal, educational, and professional background will help you achieve your goals. The personal essay is an important part of your application for admission and provides you with an opportunity for you to clearly and effectively express your ideas.
Pharmacy is a profession that prides itself on reaching out and making a difference in the community through assisting and educating patients about medicine and its usage. Pharmacists, as all health professionals, maintain a high standard of ethics as well as professional mannerisms. I not only live by a great moral ethical code but love helping make the lives of others healthier but more knowledgeable. These are some of the reasons that sparked my initial interest in pursuing pharmacy as a career path.
I had the opportunity to travel internationally on two different occasions that helped secure my decision that going into the Pharmacy field was what I am called to do. In 2004, I received a scholarship to participate in extensive community service work through developmental projects in my home country of Vietnam. Living in Vietnam for approximately six weeks gave me the opportunity to witness something that I have not had to encounter here in the States. I witnessed the struggles of Agent Orange victims, orphans, and farmers trying not only to meet the everyday needs of food and water but medical needs as well. Witnessing the struggles of those I have met stirred difficult emotions, which furthered my response to the problem is a commitment to pharmacy. I again took another opportunity in 2010 to come back to Vietnam with the Nehemiah Medical and Charitable Mission to provide medical assistance to poor villagers in Vietnam and Mekong River in Cambodia. The objective was to provide medical care, social justice, and spiritual support to the suffering people in these communities. Nehemiah Medical and Charitable Mission helped over three thousand people in poverty-stricken villages with their medical needs in a two weeks period. I volunteered to help in the pharmacy department and felt at home distributing medication and instructing patients to take their medicine. I saw people smile as they received a small pack of vitamins. It made me realize that it was not because of a few dollars' worth of medicine that made them happy, but rather a sense of comfort knowing that people care enough to take the time to help them understand them as a person in a deeper capacity.
These ventures to Vietnam and Cambodia helped solidify my passion for helping people and I am sure that a career in pharmacy will help me accomplish that. Not only my community service experience has prepared me for this career but my work experience as a pharmacy technician at CVS has given me confidence that I can use the skills that I have learned to help further my success in this field. Pharmacy has become more than just a job to me but has given me a way to provide aid to the underserved through knowledge, trust, and compassion. I know that as a pharmacist, I am motivated to not only help people understand and use medication but to help give patients a chance at a better way of life.
The essay focus is really nice, but the wording is a little much. My English teacher repeated multiple times unnecessarily, "Omit needless words." Also, in the Strunk and White's Elements of Style, the authors repeat that same sentence (no doubt where my teacher got it). However, in this section:
Pharmacists, as all health professionals, maintain a high standard of ethics as well as professional mannerisms. I not only live by a great moral ethical code but love helping make the lives of others healthier but more knowledgeable .
That red part sounds unnecessary and is just a little extra wording that makes the sentence long. ALso, the blue part, the wording is just a little awkward, so I would rephrase that...
And syntax throughout, you used I in too many sentences in the very front! Unless, of course, you meant to put emphasis...
Not only my community service experience has prepared me for this career but my work experience as a pharmacy technician at CVS has given me confidence that I can use the skills that I have learned to help further my success in this field.
I would say "My community service has prepared me for my career; even more,my work experience at CVS as a pharmacy technician has boosted my confidence and ensured that I can apply my gained skills to promote my success in this field."
hope this helps!
Sounds like a good essay. I changed a few things because they sounded odd or were grammatically incorrect. Nothing major! Good luck and please check out my essay! THANKS :)
