留學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讀下去。在談什么是好的開頭之前，我們先來一起看看幾個典型的不好的開頭。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容也都無濟于事。

?失敗開頭第一類：追憶兒時

When I was a child….

When I was a child….

When I was a child….

當你還是個小屁孩……教授怎么可能關心你小屁孩時候的經歷呢？？講真，把小時候的一段經歷用來開頭，也沒什么錯誤。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，比如一個學化學或者化工的學生：

“小時候我爺爺給自行車補胎，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。啊，從此，我就立志將來要學習化工這個專業！”

還有還有，比如學數學的，When I was a child我就對數字敏感；學生物的，When I was a child我就天天觀察地上的小螞蟻；學金融的，When I was a child我就對錢感興趣；申教育學的，我從小就立志當一名老師，恨不能把“蠟炬成灰淚始干”寫到文書標題里……

小智很負責任的告訴大家，即使你小時候各種開掛，各類競賽第一名，也千萬不要寫，沒用！凡是大學之前的經歷，就沒用。

?失敗開頭第二類：空泛+喊口號

?失敗開頭第三類：強行引用名人名言

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系？和你的文章下文又有什么關系？如果沒有，請不要用。

Stop！

我們要看好開頭！

小智節選一些智友學子的優秀文書，權當拋磚引玉，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.

身披著專業成績第一和學生會主席的光環，卻被別人徹底否定。這個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.

事實上，這個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：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持，這就是對后續文書主體要談論的內容的概括，也就是后文會緊扣這第一段。

?通過一個轉折來引起話題

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，意識到單純的追求課程分數高是遠遠不夠的，優秀的學生還應該對自己的未來探索出一條清晰的路線。同學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.

描述一個場景做為開頭。同時，這篇文書也開門見山地點明了自己的career goal。相信很多商科的同學都知道要在文書當中闡述自己的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，這是一個ME申PHD的學生，研究方向為機器人，而且內容上偏實操，所以我們在文章的最開頭直接上的照片，照片中所有內容均為學生之前完成的機器人。智友團隊老師總是這么認真+睿智的幫助每一位學子創作符合其特點的個性化文書~不過這個創新的方式更適合于偏實操類的理工科專業。

?技術流

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.

扎扎實實的談技術、講事情~這其實是很不錯的方法之一。說到底，內容還是最重要的，可以是你現階段的經歷、正在做的實驗、目前的實習工作等等，放在開頭，也順帶能使整篇文書的結構成為倒敘的方式。

?大神學霸流，用數字說話

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.

如果你有在專業領域內世人所無法企及的成就，不要吝嗇，絕對要放到第一段。而且一定要用數字說話，即使有些內容難以量化，也要盡力這樣做，例如，“我發表的文章，應該已經夠5個博士生畢業”。

?一段小眾經歷

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. 

但是一定要個性化，文中獨到的地方還是在于一個能打進職業聯賽的游戲高手居然是一個女學霸，讓人感受到確實你有某個與眾不同的地方。

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