After the nuclear meltdown happened , I shockingly viewed the #Fukushima trend on twitter

Inspiring Profession Experience - Describe a specific experience that inspired your professional plans and prompted you to explore the MBA.

"After the nuclear meltdown happened , I shockingly viewed the #Fukushima trend on twitter . As the online news poured in from Japan , I saw an opportunity to create an unforgettable experience for the participants as most Model UN events never get to discuss real time crises. I earnestly presented my idea to the chairperson , who happily agreed to debate on this ."

In my sophomore year I co-created a Model UN conference , first of its kind to be held in the NITs, with a vision of starting a new community where students can discuss and debate global current affairs within the framework of UN. We were well aware that our event will not attract any of those students as it didn't offer neither the geeky fame of tech events nor the glamour of the dance and fashion shows. Also to be a good participant one needs good interpersonal and debating skills ; but most Indian engineering students are known to lack such capabilities . But we took it as a challenge and made an action plan for how our event must grow over the next 3 years. We started holding focus group meetings where we invited students who had the potential to become good participants. To test the waters we decided to conduct an event by involving participants from our college . We were impressed by the interest generated and this set the ground for expanding our event to include colleges from across the country.

Since I handled the marketing communication I created a logo that wasn't a cliché , using it as a creative hook to establish our brand . By 2009 social media took off and by using facebook and twitter, we reached out to the Model UN community effectively. . I also ran promotion campaigns in different colleges to spread word of the event. We linked our event with the college cultural festival because of the coolness factor and the extra awareness the festival will bring to it . I became the chief designer and editor of the conference newsletter , which kept all the participants updated on the developments of the event. We even got accreditation from UN through the UN Information Centre .

Because of the success , our conference became a spotlight event leading to 100% growth in funding and 50% rise in no. of volunteers . My team ramped up the marketing efforts such that we had a 150% increase in participants over the 3 years. The experience of discussing Fukushima disaster as it happened , made the participants spread good views of our event across the community. We were able to build the mindshare , making it attain critical mass. 3 years later the Conference is still running brilliantly and I am proud of what we did to start this distinctive event for our college.

The experience I had running the event made me realize that I have the potential to become a manager who can create a vision for a product (my event ), implement a roadmap , understand the targeted market and utilize all the resources possible to sell the product . Thus I learned that I can become a successful VP of Product marketing in the future.

Vincen, look out for punctuation errors within the essay. You started off your paragraph with an unfinished quotation mark. I was wondering if you are a fresh college graduate? The reason I ask is because you are referring to an academic rather than professional work experience as the inspiration for your desire to complete and MBA. Normally, people who apply for an MBA are already professionals who enroll in masters studies because it is required by their current positions in order to advance to the next promotional level. While your experience with the U.N. Model Nations is a good experience to relate your interests to, I feel that it does not represent the true professional experience that would inspire an MBA enrollment. The UN model nations was conducted under a highly controlled environment that you did not really have direct control over. You had other people in full control of the event so you dealt with minor problems at the most. This is most certainly not VP for marketing profession experience. A vice president for marketing would be dealing with real life business situations on a day to day basis. Not a twitter trend. If you noticed, you always spoke in plural form in the essay, saying "we" for every aspect of the project that you worked on. Therefore, you were not alone in this undertaking and thus, cannot prove that you have the mettle to handle the future position you are aspiring to. My advice is to find another professional experience to use with this essay. One that truly shows you aptitude for marketing on a professional rather than academic level in order to show how you truly work under pressure and what real world experiences have contributed to your ambition to complete an MBA.

Hi

I was confused as the prompt contained an ' experience ' . So I gave it a try ,

Thanks for your reply. It helped.

Hi vangiespen

I confirmed with the adcom of the college and they want to know the experience , irrepsective of where and whne I had it , that defined my long term career goal.

Basically this experience make me realise that i have potential to make it in the marketing field. My short term goal is to work as product manager balancing both technical side and marketing side of the work. I want to transition to marketing completely within 15 years and become a VP .

Also the reason of 'we' being used a lot is because I was advised by Bschool students to emphasize that I am a team player . If I use 'I' everywhere in the essay they will think that I am disingenuous.

I do like your analysis , and I really wish I could use a professional experience but my technical roles only helped me develop my leadership and business skills. But I never could express my raw potential for marketing.

I would like to hear your opinion on how I can work with this ? :)

Thanks in advance.

That being the case, I suggest that you combine the "we" and the "I" scenarios in your essay. While it is important for you to display your team spirit and cooperation in the essay, it is more important to highlight your personal attributes that will help you in achieving your short and long term goals. After all, if you plan on becoming a vice president in the future, you need to show that you are capable of taking command responsibility for all the results of the team undertakings. This means that good or bad, you are willing to stand by your team and take the greatest risk and responsibility for the success or failure of your tasks. Can you try to do that with the essay? We need to display both sides of your ability to work. While you can work with a team, you need to prove that you are capable of leading the team and also working alone if necessary. Is there a possibility that you will be able to revise the essay in such a manner? We can try to develop the essay from that angle if you wish. I will of course, assist you with it :-)

Thanks for the advice. I will try to incorporate more 'I' s to work like you mentioned.

We were well aware that our event would not attract any of those students as it didn't offer neither the geeky fame of tech events nor the glamour of the dance and fashion shows.

However we took it as a challenge and made an action plan for how our event must grow over the next 3 years.

We linked our event with the college cultural festival for the coolness factor and the extra awareness the festival would bring to it .

Sorry I couldn't contribute as much. However, i do feel that your essay shows that you are a person with initiative and great leadership skills! Good Luck!

Hi Vangiespen

I know it may seem forced or something but I really would like you to review my other essay as well ('Prince of Qatar Anecdote- An International experience essay for Foster Bschool' )

You are the top contributor on this site and I really appreciate your opinion .

No pressure. Keep up your contribution.