问题: In my personal statement, should I focus more on what I have done in my internships or more on what I have learned and gained?

回答：

It’s an excellent question and demonstrates you’re beginning think your experiences in a useful way for an applications context. Specifically, it suggests to me that you’re evaluating your experiences and assessing the value that aspects of those experiences can deliver in your statement.

The first thing to note as a sort of premise is the examples and factual information you express in your personal statement should be provided with purpose. By which I mean the information should not be listed out or recited without some clear connection to a point you wish to make (that will further your case for admission). The statement is a piece of persuasive writing. That means factual information should support claims that are relevant to the proposition: I would be an outstanding member your program.With that premise firmly in mind, it is clear that you should describe enough factual information about your internships or other experiences to

(1) Provide adequate context for the reader to understand what’s going on;

(2) Specific enough information for them to be able to visualize what you did and begin to understand you as an individual; and, importantly;

(3) Information that supports relevant points. So, you could say: “I learned a lot about team-work and client relationships, as well as vastly improving my communication skills.”

Alternatively you could say: “I coordinated with 4 department heads across the organization, synthesizing their remarks and creating these into a pitch document that resulted in winning $10,000-worth of new business”.

I hope it is clear to you that these sentences both convey the same thing. They both convey the skills, what you learned, the development and what you gained. The second sentence does so much more vividly, plausibly, and interestingly. It’s a quick example but serves to demonstrate the point that ‘what you have done’ can be used to demonstrate ‘what you have learned’. It’s much more effective. 

I want to add that you’re completely right to be thinking in terms of what you learned, what development needs you identified, and—I would also add that you should think about—specific outcomes and successes you secured – what you achieved. 

But the point I was to make to you is that once you’ve completed that evaluation, in order to present it effectively on the page, you should think about how you can convey these points with specific factual about what you did, eschewing vague adjectives and general nouns. Your writing will be much more vivid, compelling, and persuasive as a result!