best application award 2022
At our inaugural 2022 summer school, we introduced the award for “the best application”. The best application award aims to reward the applicant who has spent time and effort considering and writing their application. The award is given to the application that is not only well written, but also demonstrates a level of self-awareness: the applicant knows where they are now in their career and where they want to be, and uses specific examples to show how the school can help them reach their goals.
The 2022 best application award went to Romana Burgess (you can read our posts about it on LinkedIn). At the time, Romana was a 3rd year PhD student, studying Digital Health and Care in Bristol (UK). Our lecturers spoke highly of her application:
“Romana’s application demonstrated a strong level of self-awareness as well as self-motivated belief and drive to build the necessary complementary skills (communication, influence) to ensure she can create meaningful impact for patients.” - Miriam Donaldson, head of digital commercial transformation, Novartis
“Her responses showed insight both about what skills and understanding she’d seek to gain from the summer school, and what she could contribute to her fellow participants through collaborative approaches.” - Natalie Banner, director of ethics, Genomics England
Motivated by the high quality of Romana’s application in 2022, we will again be searching for and giving out the best application award in 2024. We are looking forward to reading more equally excellent (& even better ;)) applications this year!
application example
Here, we have teamed up with Romana to share her application with you! We (at Bumblekite) have provided our own annotations, describing which aspects of Romana’s application made it our favourite, while Romana has provided details on her thinking behind each of her responses. We hope that by sharing this with you, you will feel more supported throughout the application process, with a better understanding of what we are looking for.
CV
personal statement
You could start by telling us about yourself!
Use a personal statement to tell us who you are - “I am a final year PhD student” - and what you’re working on - “my thesis applies computational approaches to videos of parent-infant interactions”. We would like to hear a little about the kind of person you are, and your long term goals for the future.
your educational background
Then, you could share with us an overview of your educational background, including grades, achievements (e.g., awards, roles within university societies) and the titles of any projects. Which institution(s) you have attended does not impact our decision, we are just interested in where you come from. :-)
your current role
If different from the above - specifically, you are not a student now - we would like to also know your current employment!
We would like to understand what position you hold in the company, what field you are working in, and some idea of your day-to-day tasks.
your practical experience
We would also like to see examples of your practical experience; this does not have to be in any specific domain or field related to the summer school, if you don’t have any prior experience in them. Examples might include university modules, specific projects, online courses, or something else.
In the example shared, Romana separated both her technical and health based university modules, and provided a brief summary of each: “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence - Including supervised and unsupervised models, neural networks, and ethics in AI”, “People and Systems in Healthcare - An introduction to UK and worldwide healthcare systems and the impact of digital technologies”.
Romana writes: “I did this because I wanted to draw attention to both sets of domain-specific knowledge - I wanted to highlight that I had skills in both areas!”
You might include a list of any publications, or links to any papers, projects, articles or repositories - anything that helps to show off your background!
your additional skills
Finally, you might like to highlight any additional technical, design and/or communication skills.
This might include e.g. any programming knowledge, experience with software development, or examples of any written or verbal communication you excelled at in the past.
If you can demonstrate these skills through examples of projects, presentations or awards - even better! The example CV had exactly this: “Strong knowledge of Python - used for undergraduate dissertation and PhD thesis”.
cover letter
your design and communication skills
Your technical experience will be covered by the CV. While we expect that this will also be discussed here, the cover letter also offers a place for you to demonstrate your design and communication skills.
For example, you might show that you are good at problem solving - “we initially scrambled to understand the topic [...] we learned to utilise each persons’ strength and background” - communication - “this project not only resulted in successful publication” - or critical thinking - “I was the youngest, and my background (mathematics) was the least related to the project”.
Where these skills don’t exist yet, you can acknowledge this, and show a willingness to gain them! In the example, Romana writes: “I am lacking in professional communication skills [...]” and “[after the MLSS] I will be able to network better with other academics, researchers, or industry professionals”.
We understand that sharing where you are lacking in skills may leave you feeling vulnerable; however, we want to emphasize that this vulnerability is not a weakness. Rather, by allowing us to know which of your skills need refining, you are helping us to understand your needs, and to build a better programme for you.
Romana writes: “I included this because I feel it’s important to acknowledge where skills are lacking - it shows a level of self-awareness. If you can back this up by demonstrating how you plan to acquire these skills, you are also demonstrating that you are motivated and willing to learn.”
an appreciation of interdisciplinary collaborations
The very nature of our field means that anybody working within it should appreciate the value of interdisciplinary work, and of working with people from diverse backgrounds. For us, it is important that you share this same value!
You could demonstrate this through your work - “I targeted my PhD course specifically for its interdisciplinary nature” - and show that you understand the benefits of interdisciplinary work - “... utilise each persons’ strength and background”.
It is very helpful to us if this is described through an example: “I was involved in a group project [...] My group members studied psychology, health, and robotics”.
Romana writes: “I wanted to be very specific here, because it helped to paint a vivid picture of the project background, and the issues we faced as an interdisciplinary team.”
your aspirations
We are also eager to understand your future aspirations, and how we can help with them. :-)
In the example, Romana shares with us her goals for the future - “I am struggling to choose between a career in industry or academia” and “with specific healthcare goals based in [this domain], I would ultimately like to research, educate, and advance this area”. She also shares how she feels the summer school can impact her longer term goals: “... my ideal takeaway from the MLSS would be improved technical knowledge in both domains, and a profound understanding of how this will look in my future” and “the MLSS will leave me more accurately informed as to how to proceed professionally”.
Romana writes: “I tried to be extremely open and honest throughout the cover letter. I wanted to express the position I was in at the time - struggling to make career choices. I always feel like giving personal detail helps you to come across as genuine in your intentions.”
your interest and enthusiasm
At Bumblekite, we want to connect with people who have a genuine interest in the field that we work in.
If you speak honestly about your projects, aspirations and goals for the summer school - and how you feel about them - then your interest will shine through!
In the example, Romana gave specific career interests and goals, sharing that she “would ultimately like to research, educate, and advance [certain field] (aiming to influence [...] policy and optimise care)” and “would like to work wherever I can make the most impact for patients”.
Romana writes: “Again, I feel like detail is the key here. I tried to give as much detail as I could fit in about the specific domain I was working in, and how I saw myself working within the field in the future. I hoped that specific comments like this would help the person reading the application to imagine how I could fit into the summer school community, and how I could benefit from sessions.”
how can we be of help?
Finally, and most importantly, we want to understand how we - as a learning space - can benefit you as a participant.
The summer school experience works both ways: together, we share new knowledge, develop our skills and evolve as people. In your cover letter, we would love if you could highlight any gaps in your knowledge or experience that we can help you with.
In the example, Romana writes: “I have struggled to find [...] conferences that combine the two domains [healthcare and machine learning] so definitively” and “I am lacking in professional communication skills”. By sharing her needs and expectations, Romana helps us to develop a programme that will best benefit herself and the other participants.
Romana writes: “This question is the one that I had to think about the most. I was sure at first how the summer school would benefit me beyond the obvious “I will learn new models/algorithms/applications”. But actually, I think if you consider the different types of summer school sessions - the communication workshops, the leadership conversations, even the office hours - it becomes obvious how the school can be more than just a top up of technical knowledge.”