留學(xué)申請文書的開頭有如任何文章的開頭，第一段的核心意義在于：它決定了別人是否愿意把這篇文章繼續(xù)讀下去。在談什么是好的開頭之前，我們先來一起看看幾個(gè)典型的不好的開頭。不好的開頭有很多類型，但效果都是一樣，就是看完開頭我就不想再讀下去了，下面你寫了多精彩的內(nèi)容也都無濟(jì)于事。

?失敗開頭第一類：追憶兒時(shí)

When I was a child….

When I was a child….

When I was a child….

當(dāng)你還是個(gè)小屁孩……教授怎么可能關(guān)心你小屁孩時(shí)候的經(jīng)歷呢？？講真，把小時(shí)候的一段經(jīng)歷用來開頭，也沒什么錯(cuò)誤。但是！！真的是太平庸太平庸了！！

這種平庸的例子，小智見過太多，信手拈來，比如一個(gè)學(xué)化學(xué)或者化工的學(xué)生：

“小時(shí)候我爺爺給自行車補(bǔ)胎，能把橡膠粘上，但我用自己的膠水就粘不上，我就去問爺爺，爺爺語重心長地告訴我，這叫萬能膠，這就是科學(xué)。啊，從此，我就立志將來要學(xué)習(xí)化工這個(gè)專業(yè)！”

還有還有，比如學(xué)數(shù)學(xué)的，When I was a child我就對數(shù)字敏感；學(xué)生物的，When I was a child我就天天觀察地上的小螞蟻；學(xué)金融的，When I was a child我就對錢感興趣；申教育學(xué)的，我從小就立志當(dāng)一名老師，恨不能把“蠟炬成灰淚始干”寫到文書標(biāo)題里……

小智很負(fù)責(zé)任的告訴大家，即使你小時(shí)候各種開掛，各類競賽第一名，也千萬不要寫，沒用！凡是大學(xué)之前的經(jīng)歷，就沒用。

?失敗開頭第二類：空泛+喊口號

?失敗開頭第三類：強(qiáng)行引用名人名言

終于找到一句極富哲理的名言，寫上去。但請問，這句話和你有什么關(guān)系？和你的文章下文又有什么關(guān)系？如果沒有，請不要用。

Stop！

我們要看好開頭！

小智節(jié)選一些智友學(xué)子的優(yōu)秀文書，權(quán)當(dāng)拋磚引玉，給大家開拓思路。我們要做的就是讓你感受到，哇，原來文書還能這么開頭？！

?自我否定式開頭

In my junior year, a conversation between me and a PhD candidate completely drew my petite complacency to a close. By that time, one of his paper had passed the first-round selection and proceeded to the second-round review by SCIENCE. On the contrary of speaking highly of my scientific research abilities like the fellows of my cohort did, he pointedly brought force many doubts and questioned lots of my achievements. Back then, I was ranked first in GPA and was elected as the President of Student Union of the Biology Department. This impressive conversation urged me to thoroughly reflect on myself.

身披著專業(yè)成績第一和學(xué)生會主席的光環(huán)，卻被別人徹底否定。這個(gè)開頭吸引人的地方在于，你一定會有欲知后事如何，且聽下文分解的感覺。

?一段見微知著的經(jīng)歷

I started to learn piano in 2012 and passed the piano test level 9 three years later. I only knew some simple music notations and fingering at the beginning, but now I can play piano very fluently, and during this period I have made great efforts. Since I started to learn piano at 20, my arms and fingers were very stiff at the beginning, so for quite a while, I concentrated on practicing how to properly manipulate muscles on fingers and arms, and in this way I made obvious progress. This experience makes me more convinced of my definition of pursuing excellence, i.e. applying sustained actions, skillfully solving problems through thinking and never giving up on a dream.

事實(shí)上，這個(gè)開頭也是對整篇文書的總起和概括，這段的最后一句談了三點(diǎn)：持之以恒的行動力，通過思考來靈活解決問題，以及永不放棄對夢想的堅(jiān)持，這就是對后續(xù)文書主體要談?wù)摰膬?nèi)容的概括，也就是后文會緊扣這第一段。

?通過一個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)折來引起話題

Those who are in constant pursuit of excellence will strive to be outstanding in all circumstances. With a particular interest in mathematics and the curiosity for knowledge, I was among the top 5 in my Department, scoring over 90 on most major courses and even 99 for Ordinary Differential Equation.

Nevertheless, I kind of lost myself in simply striving for high scores. It downed on me that an outstanding undergraduate should also explore a clear plan for the future…

先陳述自己的興趣和成績好，但在第二段，峰回路轉(zhuǎn)，意識到單純的追求課程分?jǐn)?shù)高是遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)不夠的，優(yōu)秀的學(xué)生還應(yīng)該對自己的未來探索出一條清晰的路線。同學(xué)們也可以多嘗試一下這種在上一段做陳述，然后在下一段做轉(zhuǎn)折的寫作技巧。

?一段有畫面感的描述

In the future, perhaps you will find me in a remote village of China, talking to farmers, researching their demand for loans and meticulously collecting data. I shall work hard with the faith that I’m making my contribution to financial institutions in rural China in risk control as well as to Chinese farmers to solve their financial demands for development.

描述一個(gè)場景做為開頭。同時(shí)，這篇文書也開門見山地點(diǎn)明了自己的career goal。相信很多商科的同學(xué)都知道要在文書當(dāng)中闡述自己的career goal，但你是否嘗試過用具象化、場景化的手法來進(jìn)行描述呢？

?畫面感？直接上圖怎么樣！

什么？這是文章的開頭！？ 沒錯(cuò)，這是一個(gè)ME申P(guān)HD的學(xué)生，研究方向?yàn)闄C(jī)器人，而且內(nèi)容上偏實(shí)操，所以我們在文章的最開頭直接上的照片，照片中所有內(nèi)容均為學(xué)生之前完成的機(jī)器人。智友團(tuán)隊(duì)老師總是這么認(rèn)真+睿智的幫助每一位學(xué)子創(chuàng)作符合其特點(diǎn)的個(gè)性化文書~不過這個(gè)創(chuàng)新的方式更適合于偏實(shí)操類的理工科專業(yè)。

?技術(shù)流

It had been three days since I started running the Matlab code for Barra model which was the first project I worked on as a full-time quant in the algorithmic trading hedge fund, called Stas Asset Management Corp., even though I had optimized the code by replacing for-loops with matrix operations. After all, it was a tremendous task analyzing 10-year daily data of all A shares in China. In the big-data era, the capability of processing large data set is vital for success. The massive amount of data analysis for modeling highly motivated me to learn more powerful languages, like C++, and to dig into unfamiliar concept of multi-threading. Hence, I completed the Quantnet C++ certificate with distinction, but it still cannot fully satisfy the demand of programming and modeling skills at work. Through these projects in workplace, I realized the importance of programming capability and gained great exposure to sophisticated concepts in modeling and strategy construction, which motivated me to pursue graduate level training in Financial Engineering. With the strong desire to be successful in the financial industry, I decided to apply for the world-class master program of Financial Engineering in Baruch College with a focus on computational skills.

扎扎實(shí)實(shí)的談技術(shù)、講事情~這其實(shí)是很不錯(cuò)的方法之一。說到底，內(nèi)容還是最重要的，可以是你現(xiàn)階段的經(jīng)歷、正在做的實(shí)驗(yàn)、目前的實(shí)習(xí)工作等等，放在開頭，也順帶能使整篇文書的結(jié)構(gòu)成為倒敘的方式。

?大神學(xué)霸流，用數(shù)字說話

As an undergraduate student, I have issued more than 10 SCI papers, which makes IF exceeds 30. I am the first student that succeeded in designing the primer and testing the RNAi effects of its STAT3 gene in our lab. Currently, I am leading two doctoral students and three undergraduates to wok on the projects of ‘Inflammation on DNA Damage of the Distal Tissues’ and ‘Study of Fibroblast as Potential Cancer Cell Vaccine,’ which are promising research concentrations nowadays, and the upstream part has been completed.

如果你有在專業(yè)領(lǐng)域內(nèi)世人所無法企及的成就，不要吝嗇，絕對要放到第一段。而且一定要用數(shù)字說話，即使有些內(nèi)容難以量化，也要盡力這樣做，例如，“我發(fā)表的文章，應(yīng)該已經(jīng)夠5個(gè)博士生畢業(yè)”。

?一段小眾經(jīng)歷

You might be surprised hearing that as a Top 10% student with a cumulative grade point average of almost 3.8, especially as a female, I am at the same time a game whiz at Dota. I enjoy studying every detail of the game and have reached a level of semi-professional already. In the past four years in my college life, I had a total of 200 games experience. For now, I’m even invited to participate in some professional tournaments. 

但是一定要個(gè)性化，文中獨(dú)到的地方還是在于一個(gè)能打進(jìn)職業(yè)聯(lián)賽的游戲高手居然是一個(gè)女學(xué)霸，讓人感受到確實(shí)你有某個(gè)與眾不同的地方。

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