5.3. Brainstorming

If you worked through Sections 2, 3, and 4 of this resource, you’ll remember that there were several brainstorming activities to get you thinking about your experiences, motivation, and fit to program. These activities were included to help you start thinking about the content that you might want to include. That’s the purpose of brainstorming – to guide the development of your content and explore what you could say. You won’t necessarily use all of the brainstorming in your SoP, but it is a valuable place to start because it focuses on YOU and YOUR interests (which is what the reader wants to know). Writing is thinking, and brainstorming is a way to document the thinking you’re doing at the beginning of the process.

When you are brainstorming, your goal is to explore the ideas, and this means that you want to refrain from evaluating the ideas or becoming overly focused on word choice, spelling, punctuation, or even the logical flow of ideas. At this point, it doesn’t matter if you have “beautiful” or “perfect” sentences that are logically ordered; instead, reduce the cognitive load by putting your energy into the exploration of ideas.

If you find yourself staring at an empty Microsoft Word document, cursor blinking, and panic rising, take a step back. Close your computer. Go for a walk and give yourself some space. Maybe try talking through your ideas with a friend or mentor – be sure to record the conversation so that you have the notes for later! You might also want to record voice notes as you go for a walk. Whatever brainstorming tasks you engage in, allow yourself time to think and recognize that this is a meaningful stage of your writing process and a strong final product.