Anyone can help me with my SOP? Thanks very much!!!
My purpose of applying to graduate school is to enhancing my academic research skill from all extend and become a great economist in my future career.
Macroeconomics is one of the areas that I am most interested in. Understanding how the whole economy functions by manipulating complex mathematic models to generate the simple and straightforward result is the greatest attraction. Also, international trade is the other great fancy areas for me.
My macroeconomics interest or even the interest of economics came from a book called "Friedrich Hayek, A biography" at the time of my high school. Grew up in a socialism country, originally I was really curious about why he argued in "the Road to Serfdom" that no matter whether the leader of the state is a true believer in socialist society or not, the mechanism of socialism will eventually lead to dictatorship. But soon my attention was dragged to his anecdotes with Keynes and their economics theory battles on government intervention in economics, business cycle and the cause of great depression. It was a great journey in new intellectual enlighten and much more fascinating than the story that "evil capitalists caused the great depression by dumping abundant commodities to the rivers in order to raise price." That was my first macroeconomics exposure and I loved it. My thought about becoming an economist also grew at that time.
Later in the lecture of Professor A, my passion for the macroeconomics raises in an academic way. Topics in recent financial crisis and the Great Depression and reading vast of up-to-date academic papers expose me to the most cutting-edge research areas in macroeconomics. I found the shadow banking system especially intriguing. On one hand, the spread of risk from single debtor to a pool of debtors lowers the risk of default and securitization increases the market liquidity. On the other hand, the risk shifting from banks to the investors creates moral hazard problem. Through high leverage ratio and complicated mechanism, the actual risk of default rises. There are still debates on these financial innovations and I treat it as an academic area that I will work into in my future academic career.
During my undergraduate study in mathematics, I equipped myself with analytical and research capacity to conduct complicated research through advanced mathematical tools as Stata and Matlab. Being a research assistant with Professor B in summer, I applied these skills into the research of borders effects in China among provinces, by handling 10 years cross-provincial data (Panel data) with Stata. My interest of International trade rose sharply during this period.
In my recent research paper which is also my dissertation, I continued my empirical research in international trade study. My dissertation title is "Impact of genetic distance on income per capita difference in China". Under the guidance of Professor C, I was put into a self-oriented research situation under which I need to not only conduct empirical analysis with the Chinese panel data, but also handle the whole topic, hypothesis, methodology and interpretation of result myself. It pushed me to do an original research and think as an independent economist.
The core paper as conducting the dissertation, I used is written by Professor D. I found this topic particular interesting to test the relationship between genetic distance and the diffusion of development. And during my research, I sent him several emails to consult about the problem I encountered and he was very patient about problem and gave me some very enlightening advices. It raised my great interest to do further international trade studies under his guidance and that is also an important part of the reasons why I want to apply UCLA's Phd program.
I want to study at UCLA under this most rigorous academic training to become not just a good economist but the best among them. I have already a well-developed analytical skill and self-oriented research skills. The program and the distinguished faculties can exploit my capacity of handling these skills to the greatest extend.
My purpose of applying to graduate school is to enhancing my academic research skill from all extend and become a great economist in my future career.
Macroeconomics is one of the areas that I am most interested in. Understanding how the whole economy functions by manipulating complex mathematic models to generate the simple and straightforward result is the greatest attraction. Also, international trade is the other great fancy areas for me.
My macroeconomics interest or even the interest of economics came from a book called "Friedrich Hayek, A biography" at the time of my high school. Grew up in a socialism country, originally I was really curious about why he argued in "the Road to Serfdom" that no matter whether the leader of the state is a true believer in socialist society or not, the mechanism of socialism will eventually lead to dictatorship. But soon my attention was dragged to his anecdotes with Keynes and their economics theory battles on government intervention in economics, business cycle and the cause of great depression. It was a great journey in new intellectual enlighten and much more fascinating than the story that "evil capitalists caused the great depression by dumping abundant commodities to the rivers in order to raise price." That was my first macroeconomics exposure and I loved it. My thought about becoming an economist also grew at that time.
Later in the lecture of Professor A, my passion for the macroeconomics raises in an academic way. Topics in recent financial crisis and the Great Depression and reading vast of up-to-date academic papers expose me to the most cutting-edge research areas in macroeconomics. I found the shadow banking system especially intriguing. On one hand, the spread of risk from single debtor to a pool of debtors lowers the risk of default and securitization increases the market liquidity. On the other hand, the risk shifting from banks to the investors creates moral hazard problem. Through high leverage ratio and complicated mechanism, the actual risk of default rises. There are still debates on these financial innovations and I treat it as an academic area that I will work into in my future academic career.
During my undergraduate study in mathematics, I equipped myself with analytical and research capacity to conduct complicated research through advanced mathematical tools as Stata and Matlab. Being a research assistant with Professor B in summer, I applied these skills into the research of borders effects in China among provinces, by handling 10 years cross-provincial data (Panel data) with Stata. My interest of International trade rose sharply during this period.
In my recent research paper which is also my dissertation, I continued my empirical research in international trade study. My dissertation title is "Impact of genetic distance on income per capita difference in China". Under the guidance of Professor C, I was put into a self-oriented research situation under which I need to not only conduct empirical analysis with the Chinese panel data, but also handle the whole topic, hypothesis, methodology and interpretation of result myself. It pushed me to do an original research and think as an independent economist.
The core paper as conducting the dissertation, I used is written by Professor D. I found this topic particular interesting to test the relationship between genetic distance and the diffusion of development. And during my research, I sent him several emails to consult about the problem I encountered and he was very patient about problem and gave me some very enlightening advices. It raised my great interest to do further international trade studies under his guidance and that is also an important part of the reasons why I want to apply UCLA's Phd program.
I want to study at UCLA under this most rigorous academic training to become not just a good economist but the best among them. I have already a well-developed analytical skill and self-oriented research skills. The program and the distinguished faculties can exploit my capacity of handling these skills to the greatest extend.