personal statement for medical school

The message that Medical School Loans
wants to communicate is clear: it is a blog about medical school student loans. One glance at the home page is enough to give you an idea that the blog is all about medical loans and other medical school financial issues. This site is clearly intended for med school students. The blog aims to provide useful information about loan options to help med students overcome school financing problems.

What are the good points?

The good thing about the blog is that its entries are not only limited to loans. It also includes news and updates on education. There is an entry, for instance, about the visit made by the US Secretary of Education to Alaska for NCLB updates. Another thing I like about it is the variety of the entries. It is not like those other blogs that seem to repeat the same information. In Medical School Loans, no two entries seem to be alike.

What needs to be improved?

One of the things I don’t really like about the blog is the design. I understand that a site about loans needs to be simple as to appear professional-looking, but I find this one very lacking when it comes to design. Another weak point is the very small font size. This factor could mean a great deal. There are readers who easily lose interest reading the rest of the entries when they see that the text is quite hard to read. Because of these factors, the blog gives an impression of monotony. An emphasis should also be given to the reasons why one should visit Medical School Loans. I think this part should be made more attention-grabbing, design-wise.

Overall, the entries are good. The focus of improvement should be directed toward the design of the blog.

Information blast — this was the very phrase that came into my mind the moment I opened the SF Medical School Life Examiner main page. It seemed like some sort of a web portal leading to many different kinds of information and web content such as videos, news articles and commentaries, personality tests and assessments, book reviews, medical students, information on infectious diseases, entries on the health care system, and many others. I would dare say it is intended for and highly helpful not only to medical students, but also to other medical practitioners, researchers, interested readers, and other members of the medical education community.

What’s to like about Examiner

What?s special about this blog is that it includes many different types of content and information with different angles under an umbrella topic: Medicine. The author includes her political views, as well as her opinion on current issues in relation to health and medicine. I particularly liked her entry on the raids to pharmacies regarding the issue of Michael Jackson?s death, where she said that the raids are “justified” but “worrisome.” Besides the articles on current issues, there are also information and content helpful to medical students and other interested audience such as personality assessment tests and results. At the top of each article, there are buttons for fast and easy printing, comments, sending through electronic mail, and subscription. Beside the array of entries is a side bar containing links to contents arranged according to categories. At the top are tabs for easy navigation.

Areas for improvement

With the layout of the main page, however, the blog has the tendency to look cluttered. I must admit getting a little disoriented for a couple of seconds before being able to find the articles that I wanted to review and look at. For a while, I didn?t know how and where to start. The lead in paragraphs for the array of entries are a little too short and the division of the page into three columns didn?t work quite well, with the “main content” on the left column.

In the Study: Life in Medical School is a comprehensive personal blog of a University of Tennessee College of Medicine student?and a U.S. Navy scholar at that. It seems that the blog is basically for his friends and for other people who might be interested in how a medical student?s life works: the day-to-day tasks, occasional dilemmas, bizarre and interesting experiences, and many others.

Etmeek’s good points

The main page of the blog shows an array of paragraphs and links to his latest blog entries. On the side are links to other pages and other navigation options. Overall, the blog is user-friendly and easy to navigate.

The content of the blog is basically personal, but not really private. The author?s use of first person perspective, simple and conversational language, and light writing style give the articles an interesting twist that would encourage one to read, and to keep on reading. It?s like reading one?s journal and sharing in a medical student?s thoughts. I particularly became interested in an entry about his Ob/Gyn
exercises, where he shared how he never actually thought he could do Ob/Gyn until that day he tried.

Among the links you’ll find on the blog?s main page, you can find links to other pages containing other information you might be interested in, such as some trivia about the author. You can also check out the archive for his past entries, which date back to 2005. He?s got entries on various topics besides school experiences such as adventure, life, science, humor, sermon notes (being a proud follower of Christ, as he stated on his About Me page), quotes, and useless facts, among others. He also provided links to his friends, the church he?s involved in, his school, and other things that matter to him. Some entries include photos to make them more interesting.

Etmeek’s weak points

Making use of more videos, photos, and media files would spice up the blog more. It would also do with more interesting trivia and stories that could inspire other medical students or aspiring medical students.

As the title suggests, College Online Guide is a site that aims to provide useful information for college students. The blog provides tips, opinions, and news about topics related to college. These include relevant and highly useful info on college life, sports, college loans, and updates on the education system.

The blog’s strong points

The choice for the title is good. The readers would have an idea what the site is all about with those three short words. One glance at the title and the readers would get an idea what to expect from the site. There is also a section for videos and news on the site. I really like this one, and I guess the audience find this part interesting as well. Another thing I like about it is its user-friendly interface. Although the options are not that many, I give the blog credit for the visibility and clarity of the options. One wouldn’t find it difficult to explore the site.

The areas that need to be improved

The site is professional-looking with its blue-grey and orange combination. But it isn’t very attractive. The design is a bit boring. Another area that needs improvement is the content. Some entries have problems with clarity. Some sentences are not constructed well that their meaning becomes a bit obscure. Typo errors also affect the clarity of the entries. In the article Tips for getting Through a Medical School Interview, for instance, the first sentence is not clear. I also find the sentences very long. I think writers for this blog have to invest on brevity. Remember that content is what every blog is all about. The blog’s credibility as a site dedicated to college issues rest upon the content. So people behind this blog really have to work on improving the structure of the articles. The writers also have to be careful in their choice of words.