How to Write a Letter of Motivation

Letter of motivation is an essay written by a candidate about his/her aspirations and motivations for pursuing the particular program of study. There are few useful tips we are going to discuss in this article but bottom line is to be honest and speak the truth. Do not try to make up an essay, it’s quite possible to make up some motivational story and get selected for the program but if it’s fictitious you won’t be able to succeed as you do not really have what it takes to be successful in particular area of research.

Introduction/Background

Explain a little about your background, focus more on academic part. Do not just lay down facts and your achievements, try to make a story. People like to read stories rather than achievements of others. You need to prove that your background is strong enough to take up any challenge posed during studies. This is a paragraph where you also need to establish the fact that your educational background is relevant to what you are going to study in future. Do mention major achievements during course of your study including best paper awards, gold medals, sports, dramatics and anything else you are proud of. Do not just mention hardships you faced but try to emphasize how you dealt with posed challenges. Try to establish interest of reader in this paragraph as it will build an urge to read through.

Influence on career

There must be a reason behind what you are today and not anything else. Why are you an engineer or doctor and why not economist? Explain who influenced your choice of career and how? He can be someone from your family, friends or teacher. You may have been influenced by some particular subject of yours, some noble laureate or simply a film character. It’s about your fascinations and what is that which fascinates you most in your profession. Some people have that ‘by-birth’ instinct, although it’s difficult to convince someone on this until your achievements are marvelous. There are higher education institutes where some “bright” students dream of to be, because of environment, professors, facilities research activities. If you really believe in learning for betterment of mankind, do tell this, it’s a great thing in one’s life.

Research Area

 You should be familiar with the intended area of research. Again you need to tell, why this particular field of research? For example if you are interested in control systems engineering then why not power or wireless communications. You have to defend your choice. That’s the reason we told you to be honest because you would not try to make up answers if you are really into research area and once you are honest your chances of being selected are enormous. Briefly explain filed of your interest and some potential research questions you will research in future. Do not go in to much detail, as that is better if you’re a contacting a particular Professor rather than a board. For details see the article ‘How to contact a Professor’.

[How to Contact a Professor]

Previous research experience

This is paragraph to connect your research experience, skills, tools and practices to intended area of study. Here briefly mention topics of your latest and most relevant papers do not go in too much detail. Since there is not much space to talk about all of your work but try to put your best publications only i.e. papers published in top journals in your area. If we look at the flow of this motivational essay, it’s evident that this part can be conclusive about your candidature. Having laid down details about your academic background, this is part which proves your abilities as a researcher.

Extracurricular activities

Many researchers may think this is not a very important part but if you want to secure really good amount of funding you need to focus here too. If you are interested in debates, sports, music, drama or philanthropy, this will have huge impact and make you stand out as a balanced personality with leadership qualities. The competitive scholarships do give a lot of weight-age to this factor and if you are successful in presenting some membership or office holding certificates for different societies/clubs, your chances being selected increase many folds.

Professional Aspirations/Future Goals

What are your career goals? What you want to be after five years from now on. How you plan to achieve your objectives? You may conclude based on previous experience, even if you did not achieve all of your previously set goals, do mention the solid reasons behind and what you have learned from your experiences. A visionary, futuristic and forward looking conclusion can put a lasting impression on evaluators mind as last thing read will be fresh and top of stack in a readers mind. Do not waste this important space by giving a lot of regards and thanks for reading your letter, it’s useless from evaluator’s point of view. It will lose their attention from your essay. Be a great finisher.

Review Essay

 Put yourself in seat of a member of evaluation committee and review your letter. Read as if you are reading it for the first time and imagine in how many ways it will stand out among other hundreds of similar letters you received. Try to make it more personal, unique and distinct to increase your chances for selection. 

I hope you will find this article interesting and useful. It’s a general layout and cover most common aspects of a motivation letter but it’s not exhaustive. You can have your own way to express yourself. If you want to add something or improve this article, please comment below. Thanks for nice reading and do share with your friends.