EssayLens

SNU  /  Essays  /  Prompt 3

SNU: Study plan

4000 bytes (about 600-700 English words)

Explain in detail your purpose in studying at Seoul National University and your plans for study. Be as specific as possible regarding your academic interests and the curriculum you expect to follow in achieving your goals.
What it’s really asking

SNU wants a concrete map: what you intend to study within the department, how you will use the curriculum, and where it leads after graduation. This is the most forward-looking and the most often neglected section.

Why they ask it

A specific study plan proves you have actually looked at this department and thought past admission. It is the clearest evidence that you are choosing SNU deliberately rather than applying to a name, and it is where strong applicants separate from the pack.

Three ways in
Read the real curriculum

Read the real SNU department curriculum and name the specific tracks, courses, or labs you want to pursue.

Bridge interest to goal

Connect a current interest to a future goal, and use the SNU curriculum as the bridge between them.

Sketch a timeline

Sketch a rough timeline: early focus, later specialization, and what you want to do with the degree.

✕  Weak opening

“At Seoul National University, I will study hard, learn from excellent professors, and contribute to society after I graduate.”

✓  Strong opening

“I want to use SNU's strength in semiconductor process engineering to move from understanding why thin films fail to designing ones that do not.”

✦ Annotated example · Study plan: a four-year route through SNU materials science. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →
My purpose in studying at Seoul National University is specific: I want to train as a battery materials researcher, focusing on why cathode materials degrade and how their structure can be engineered to age more slowly. 1I am choosing the Department of Materials Science and Engineering rather than chemistry or electrical engineering because the question I care about, capacity fade, lives at the boundary where crystal structure, electrochemistry, and processing meet, and materials science is the only discipline that holds all three at once. 2In my first two years I expect to build the foundation the field assumes. I plan to take the core sequence in thermodynamics of materials, crystallography and diffraction, and phase transformations, alongside the required mathematics and general chemistry. 3I am most eager for the structure and bonding courses, because my self-study left me able to read a diffraction pattern but unable to derive why a layered oxide loses its layers as it cycles. I want the formal grounding that turns my pattern-matching into real understanding. 4I would also use these years to reach working fluency in the laboratory tools I have only read about, particularly electron microscopy and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. 5From my third year I intend to specialize toward energy and electrochemical materials. I hope to take advanced electives in solid-state electrochemistry and electronic and ionic transport in solids, and to begin undergraduate research in a laboratory working on rechargeable battery materials, of which SNU has several. 6My near-term research goal is concrete enough to state now: I want to study how the upper cutoff voltage during charging accelerates structural disorder in nickel-rich cathodes, extending a crude experiment I once ran with coin cells and a borrowed multimeter into something done properly, with real characterization behind it. 7I would like to spend my fourth year on an undergraduate thesis built from that work, and to present it at an undergraduate research forum so that I learn to defend a result, not just produce one. 8I am drawn to SNU specifically because its materials science department couples strong fundamental coursework with active battery and energy-materials research, and because doing this work in Korea, near the companies that manufacture these cells at scale, means my questions will stay tethered to real ones. 9After graduation I plan to continue into a master's program and then doctoral research in battery materials, with the long-term aim of joining a research group, in academia or industry, that works on extending battery lifetime. 10I am not arriving with a finished answer. I am arriving with a well-defined question, a record of having already chased it as far as my resources allowed, and a clear sense of which SNU courses, laboratories, and instruments I will need to chase it the rest of the way. That, more than any single grade, is what I am bringing.11
  1. 1Opens with a sharp, narrow purpose tied to the major. The study-plan prompt rewards specificity over ambition, so the goal is stated as a research focus, not a career fantasy.
  2. 2Justifies the department choice by contrasting it with adjacent ones. This signals the applicant understands the field's boundaries, which reads as preparation rather than guesswork.
  3. 3Names real, plausible coursework areas in the correct order. Mapping the early curriculum concretely shows the applicant has actually studied what an SNU materials degree involves.
  4. 4Connects a known weakness from the applicant's background to a specific course. This continuity across the three essays makes the plan feel honest and personal.
  5. 5Identifies specific instruments by name. Concrete technique vocabulary demonstrates the applicant knows what hands-on battery research actually requires.
  6. 6Shows a clear upper-year trajectory and references SNU's actual research areas. Tying the plan to the university's specific strengths is exactly the fit the prompt rewards.
  7. 7Gives a genuinely specific research question and links it to the applicant's own prior work. The callback shows the plan grows out of real experience, not a brochure.
  8. 8Adds a capstone with a clear purpose (learning to defend findings). It shows the applicant thinks about research as a skill to be developed, not a credential to collect.
  9. 9States a precise, credible reason for choosing SNU in particular, including geography and industry context. This answers "why this university" rather than "why university."
  10. 10Sketches the post-graduate path briefly. Keeping the long term short and proportionate keeps the focus on the undergraduate plan, which is what the prompt asks for in detail.
  11. 11Closes by summarizing the plan as question plus preparation plus specific resources needed, mirroring the prompt's three rewarded qualities. The humble final line keeps the confident plan from sounding arrogant.
Stuck? Start here
  • Which specific SNU courses, tracks, or labs do I actually want, and have I read about them?
  • What is my early-versus-later focus inside this major?
  • What do I want to do after graduation, and how does this curriculum get me there?
Before you submit
  • I named real SNU curriculum elements, not generic study hard language.
  • My plan has a sequence: foundation, specialization, and goal.
  • The plan clearly connects back to my preparation and my stated motivation.

Drafted it? Get an honest, admissions-style read, free.

Score my essay