English Language & Usage Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Is this sentence correct, or are there better ways to express it:
In seek of an ideal start for my career, I am applying for the PhD program at your school.
Am I using the wrong verb here, should I use instead, in search of ?
What formulaic expressions or phrases could I use in place of in seek of?
I am looking for something formal, but also native-like.
"In seek of" is not a common expression.
You could either say:
In search of an ideal start for my career, ...
This uses the verb search and is a common expression.
or you can use
Seeking an ideal start for my career, ...
This uses the verb seek as a gerund. Seek doesn't sound right with an indirect object, which is why in seek of sounds wrong to me, I think.
Also, you wouldn't use "searching an ideal start ... " but you could use
Searching for an ideal start for my career, ...
Seek sounds a little more formal to me than search, but it's probably personal preference. None of these choices is informal or slang; they will all suit for an application letter.
I am applying for the PhD program at your school, as I consider it the ideal qualification for my proposed career in rocket science.
