Sussex: Preparation beyond formal study

Part of the shared 4,000-character total; minimum 350 characters

What else have you done to prepare outside of formal education, and why are these experiences useful?

What it’s really asking

This is where wider reading and relevant experience go: books, podcasts, lectures, documentaries, projects, work experience, or volunteering, but only when they connect to the subject. Sussex explicitly recommends drawing on books, podcasts, documentaries, lectures and TED talks. The question ends with 'why are these experiences useful,' which is your instruction to reflect, not list.

Why they ask it

It separates applicants who are curious about the subject on their own from those who only meet it in class. It is also where the 80-percent-subject rule is most often broken, so it rewards anyone who keeps even their extracurriculars tied to the discipline or to a clear academic skill.

Three ways in

Pick one piece of wider engagement

Choose one book, podcast series, or project and write about what it changed in your thinking.

Lead with the insight, not the duties

If you have relevant experience, focus on the insight or skill it gave you, not the tasks you performed.

Bridge an unrelated activity back

Show a transferable skill from another activity, but spend more time on the subject link than on the activity itself.

✕ Weak opening

“Outside of school I enjoy reading widely and I am captain of the football team.”

✓ Strong opening

“A podcast on replication failures made me realise a single striking study often proves less than it seems.”

✦ Annotated example · Economics applicant: preparation beyond formal study. Written by EssayLens to teach, not a real applicant’s essay. Tap a highlighted line →

Outside the classroom, I have tried to test economics against situations where it might actually break. ¹For two years I have helped run the till and stock orders at my family's corner shop, where I watched demand respond to small price changes in ways no textbook quite captured. Cutting the price of nearly expired bread did not just clear stock; it changed who came through the door, and I started keeping a notebook of these small natural experiments. ²I also completed the Marginal Revolution University online microeconomics course and a short EPQ-style investigation into whether minimum wage rises cost local jobs, which forced me to read actual empirical papers, including Card and Krueger, and to accept that the evidence was more ambiguous than either side of the debate admits. ³These experiences are useful because they taught me the gap between a model and a market, and the discipline of changing my mind when the data refused to cooperate. ⁴I arrive less certain than I was a year ago, which I have come to think is exactly what studying economics seriously requires.

1States the purpose of the extracurricular work upfront and frames it intellectually, keeping the focus on subject relevance rather than activity-listing.
2Turns a part-time job into observed economic behaviour, demonstrating curiosity and the habit of analysis the department values.
3Cites a specific, recognised study and draws a measured conclusion about ambiguity, showing genuine engagement with the literature beyond popular summaries.
4Explicitly answers the 'why are these useful' half of the prompt by linking experience to a transferable academic skill.

Stuck? Start here

What did you read, watch, or listen to about this subject because you wanted to, not because it was assigned?
What did that engagement actually change in how you think about the field?
If you mention an activity unrelated to the subject, what specific academic skill does it prove?

Before you submit

Does every item here connect back to the subject or a clear academic skill?
Have I explained why each experience is useful, not just that I did it?
Is the balance still tilted toward the subject rather than hobbies?

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