Hi Friends,
Would appreciate any help or feedback on my essay to Columbia's IR program. It's a tad too long (over 15-20 words), so I'm trying to shorten it.
Thanks in Advance!
Best,
jlr321
Prompt: Please elaborate upon your professional goals and how has your prior employment/volunteer experience helped to prepare you to meet these goals? Your response should be no more than 400 words. --> (career-focused, future goals)
Hello, Development: Change Through Mobile Phones
Mobile telecommunications appears to be emerging from the global economic crisis comparatively well. In 2009, there were 4 billion mobile subscribers worldwide, eight times higher than at the turn of the century. Developing countries reportedly account for three-quarters of the explosive growth. This means many people in the developing world already possess what Columbia University's Earth Institute development guru Jeffrey Sachs calls "the most transformative tool for development".
In the Philippines, mobile phones connect 72 million mobile subscribers across the archipelago and 11 million Filipinos living abroad. Outperforming richer countries like China (60%) and India (50%) in mobile coverage (99%), the Philippines is a mature market at the forefront of mobile-led economic development in the region. Innovative mobile services - m-banking, micro-credit loaning, remittance transfers and disaster relief communications - illustrate how a nation with a modest GNI per capita of $3,900 US has pioneered low-cost telecom services and is finding homegrown (albeit, indirect) solutions to social and economic development.
However, poverty-alleviating mobile-driven benefits could still be maximized further, particularly when many phone owners in the Philippines are among the 23 million people the World Bank reports lives under $1.25 US a day. At Columbia, I wish to specialize in mobile-led development in emerging Southeast Asian countries, particularly those under the maximum of constraints and with the minimum of resources. I also hope to broaden my understanding around the world of other
cultures, the experiences of the rural poor and different modes of thought.
With a ______ media background and 18 years living and communicating in the spoken and mobile-text language of the country - famously called the "text messaging capital of the world" - I uniquely understand how media technologies can affect Filipinos from a domestic and international perspective. My training in various media and in self-learned multimedia mobile reporting, documented through my photo blog, published articles and video work, portrays the expertise and aptitude from which I seek to use media for advancement.
While policymakers rely on journalists to inform, translate and publicize their macroeconomic analyses and policies, journalists use this information to measure and contextualize the significance of their stories. A journalism career has taught me to consider multiple variables, research and solve problems creatively, which will serve me well in a development career through the effective use of technology.
Just as mobile phones are connecting people for the very first time, I aspire to connect them to the world.
Mobile telecommunications appears to ...
In the Philippines, mobile phones connect ...
^These are just facts that you have listed, that are unnecessarily taking up your word count. How do these facts pertain to the essay prompt?
^Therefore, I would suggest removing these facts and perhaps writing directly what are your professional goals and previous employment experience.
In fact, your whole essay needs to be worked on again from scratch because you do not answer the question. You do not give enough detail about your professional goals, or even how Columbia will help you meet them, nor do you link in enough, let alone any, detail as to how your past work experience has helped you shape your professional goals.
