Writing a Motivation Letter

Get ready to do everything from scratch at least two times.

You'll find a lot of advice and tricks on writing motivation letters, but that one was the most useful to me: It helped me get into the mindset for writing a motivation letter that really reflected what I wanted.

At the end of this post I'll upload the Motivation Letters I used.

What isn't a Motivation Letter for?

A Motivation Letter isn't a document you use to trick the election committee into picking you. If you overstate or oversell something, they will know. Yet at the same time, don't undersell yourself. Be honest: you want them to see if you'll do well in the Master's, and if you really believe it, they'll see it through your writing.

It also is not a place to recount how well you did on your courses: that's what course transcripts are for!

 

What is a Motivation Letter for?

A motivation letter will show the election committee what you've done, what you're abilities are, if there are notable parts of your academic history, how do you see the Master's program they're offering, and what do you plan to do with that.

Part zero: Don't wait till last minute.

It is a common mistake to leave the Motivation Letter to the very end. That shows an lack of knowledge about the intensity of this step, and will lead to a bad motivation letter.

Part one: Discovering what you want

Don't jump to write your Motivation letter. 

First you have to face the mirror.

Why do you want to pursue a Master's program? Are you ready to invest those two years? What for? What will you do if you don't get in? What career prospects do you expect?

These questions will accompany all the way till you hit "Send" on the application to the program, and will make you scrap and rewrite a lot.

Of course, you should not wait until you have an exact schedule of what you're going to do with your life, instead, the idea is to get a general sense of what you want for your future.

In my case, something that helped me discover this was to search in LinkedIn for the Alumni of the Master's programs that interested me. I could watch the life and career paths that different Master's programs opened and closed. This was more concrete information than, say, the Wikipedia overview of the topics of the Master's.

Part two: The mindset

Think as if you were in the election committee: You have hundreds of motivation letters to read and grade, the ones who go on tangents, or mention very general things (e.g. "I am good at abstract reasoning"), won't make a good impression and will feel like a waste of time.

Be precise and concrete: point to real evidence that cannot be found in the other documents.

The only part where you're allowed to be kind of vague is when you explain your expectations for your future after the Master's.

Personalize them: Ideally you'll write a different motivation letter for each master.

To do this, you should have a general idea of what the university and the Master's offer. Even if two universities offer Master's with the same name, they'll have different strengths and weakness in research, industry presence, and study areas. So, check them out.

Part three: Structure of the Motivation Letter

I'll go through this one by one. Depending on your writing style, group them in paragraphs as you see fit.

1. Don't lose the attention of the reader: Straight away tell them why are you applying and a general idea of what you want to learn and what to do with it.
   
   
2. Give a general introduction to your background. Apart from mentioning your major, mention the things that don't appear on the other documents: research, academic, or university projects, activities, or events; how those activities impacted you and your abilities, and what particular academic path you've been following.
   
   
3. Talk a little about yourself. There are no other places where the election committee can get a glimpse into your personality. However, don't forget to relate it to the particular Master's program. 
   
   
4. Tell them about your current situation. Are you a student? When are you going to graduate from your Bachelor's? Have you already graduated? What's your job (if it's relevant to the program)? What have you learned recently (life-wise, not academic-wise) that can help you in the Master's?
   
   
5. What would you like to do after finishing your Master's? This part shows them that you do intend to finish it! Do you want to pursue an academic or industry career? Do you not know yet? This in the only part where you are allowed to be vague or a little literary, but don't overdo it!

 (don't worry, there's a way out)

 

Part four: Improve and polish it

At some points you'll have to discard parts that took a lot time to write but that you can no longer fit in the letter, or maybe even discard the whole letter and start over. That's o.k., it's part of the process.

(and again, and again.)

Part five: Send it!

Good luck!

My samples

These are the motivation letters I sent to the Master's programs I applied to

• LCT - Language and Communication Technology Erasmus Master letter
  
• Mathmods - Mathematical Modeling in Engineering letter
  
• KTH Sweden - Computer Simulation for Science and Engineering letter
  
• KTH Sweden - Applied Computational Mathematics letter