"4cities": promising opportunity to break through my relatively narrow framework of insights; letter

Below is my statement of interest for EM Urban Studies Program. I'm originally from China, have a BA in Sociology and German from Queen's University (Canada) and a year of exchange experience in University of Heidelberg (Germany). Please help me with my motivation letter due JANUARY 14, which is pretty urgent. I've been working on it for almost two weeks but it still isn't ideal to me. First of all, it is too long, and I want some ideas of what should be kept and elaborated and what should be gone; I'm trapped in this weird circle I created. Secondly, English is not my native language so I would appreciate pointing out of grammatical mistakes. Please specially point out mistake I've made with the tenses. I never figure out how to use properly "did"s and "have done"s :/ Thanks a lot! It's supposed to be 1 page and half max. but now it is like 100-150 words too much.

Description of this program (you spend each semester in different cities: Madrid/Copenhagen/Brussels/Vienna; 4 cities in total, hence the name)
4cities.eu/programme

Requirement of the essay:

The motivation letter is an important selection criterium. We are looking for highly motivated students who_show an interest in Urban Studies. The motivation letter should inform us at least about the academic interest in 4Cities of the applicant and what he/she wants to achieve by studying 4CITIES. It can contain information on experiences_like internhips, jobs, project works, etc... . The motivation letter should be one to one and a half page maximum.

Thanks so much! I appreciate any help in advance. =)

Motivation Letter
Born and raised in Shanghai, China and having witnessed its rapid development during the past two decades, I have always been fascinated by how it has evolved from a small fishing village to a global city and curious about how it has been planned and designed to be large in size and population while still maintaining its function and adapting to changes. Later on in my academic career as a sociologist, while recognizing the positive side of urbanization, I am more aware of the negative consequences of urbanization and its social and ecological impacts. For example, a significant part of my undergraduate researches were focused on the massive rural to urban migration in China. Millions of migrant workers have been fueling China's rapid economic growth by moving into large cities on the east coast, filling the increasing demand gap of cheap labour in urban China and providing considerable extra consumption. However, migrant workers with "rural status" are considered second-class citizens in the cities and have limited access to housing, medical care, pensions and labour insurance, and their children had no right to attend urban public schools. They build up and live in "urban villages" at outskirts and have become the urban outcasts whose basic human rights are not guaranteed. The fundamental problem underneath this rural-urban disparity in development is an inefficient planning, leading the extremely unequal distribution of social resources. Nevertheless, migration is only one of the many problems of China's unprecedented urbanization among industrial pollution, gentrification, resource allocation, etc. My direct exposure to growing urban environments in China and my passion in creating more livable and equal cities has together fostered my desire to pursue a career as an urban planner. I want to build up theoretical knowledge and analytical skills in urban studies and transfer them to identifying, analyzing and diagnosing urban issues in fast urbanizing China.

I have chosen 4cities to be the next step of my planning career for its focusing on glocalization, interdisciplinary and internationality reminded me two courses through which I have familiarized myself with urban studies. The first one is an International Studies seminar named "Global Cities: Imagining the City in a Transnational World", where we discussed and compared the representation of global cities in contemporary fiction, film and scholarly criticism. My term paper was on the social impacts of 2008 Beijing Olympics. The second one is a Transcultural Studies seminar at University of Heidelberg, Germany, with the title "Cityscapes - Urban Worlds and Imaginaries in Asia and Europe", where we studied global cities in both continents with combined approaches of ethnography, social anthropology and visual studies. My final-term project was a comparative case study of the gay communities in Mumbai and in Shanghai. What these two courses had in common was that they both attempted to explore the relationship between cities and globalization; moreover, students and instructors all came from different academic and even cultural backgrounds, and thus were able to constantly contribute different insights to the class. I really enjoyed working in interdisciplinary classes and they made it clear to me that urban issues in cities are so complicated that they cannot be addressed by only one single discipline This is exactly quality what makes 4cities such an exciting program to me, for the its well-rounded course structure would provide me not only with firm theoretical foundations, but also two invaluable years of learning with peer international scholars composed by sociologists, economists, geographers, architectures and urban planners, and I can only imagine the great intellectual stimulation and comprehensive understanding of urban processes I would gain from them. 4cities would offer me a promising opportunity to break through my relatively narrow framework of insights as a sociologist and help me build a solid basis of understanding urban issues by not only enhancing my knowledge on social needs and development, but also adding on new components such as political economy, geography, governance, urban planning and decision making.

Furthermore, the European cities that serve as case studies in 4cities have rich historical background and have undergone urban changes that are ongoing in developing countries like China, and learning and drawing on from the valuable experience of urban development of European cities is important to understanding urban processes in China. Through living and studying in each of the 4cities as well as a large number of excursions and fieldworks, 4 cities would offer me real life scenario of an urban planner's career.

Personally, I believe firmly in "better city, better life", and am enthusiastic about contributing my part to the urban development in China and working together with urban planners and policy makers towards a more sustainable and egalitarian urban life. After living in Canada for three years and Germany for another, I am ready to go back to Europe and become "glocalized" yet again with 4cities.

Yes, but you can break out of it when you no longer hesitate to take out the parts that need to be taken out. It's okay to get rid of a lot of sentences! : ) That's the hardest thing for any writer.


'Had done' is what you use when you are writing a sentence about what you 'did' AND you need to let the reader know about something you ALREADY did before.

Example: Yesterday I arrived at school late because I had done my homework in the morning. I had never been late before, so I decided to arrive late and use the extra time to ensure a good grade by completing my homework.

Let's not include 'China' because the reader knows where Shanghai is.
Born and raised in Shanghai, China and having

"Research" should be used like the word 'water'... the plural of water is still water.
For example, a significant part of my undergraduate researches research were was focused on...
or do this:
For example, a significant part some of my undergraduate researches projects were focused on...

My opinion: You can delete all this... "4cities would offer me a promising opportunity to break through ..." Delete the rest of that paragraph. Those sentences are great, but if you need to shorten this they are sentences that can be removed. The other sentences in other parts of the essay are even better.

You write very, very well and I'm really glad I got to offer some ideas for this. Your first paragraph is especially impressive because it is so insightful.