Persevering my dream. Self Introduction Letter for Graduate School.

Hello, I am new here. I will apply for Master Degree and I would like you to share with me your thoughts about my Self-Introduction Letter.

These are the topics I must to include, and it must be 1 page long.
o Your course of life, your view of life, study background, your hopes & wishes, etc
o Your education and work experience, etc., in relation to the KGSP program
o Your motivations for applying for this program
o Reason for study in Korea
Thanks in advance! :)

the country that mesmerized me

My name is Ana, a graduate in Nutrition and Education majors at Colegio de San Juan. I was born in 1991 in the northern area of Belize, in a city that has embraced different cultures since its origins (Mennonite, Japanese and Chinese's descendants, Native Americans and Mormon pioneers). Since kid I was used to this fact which influenced me to be a person open to cultural diversity. My parents educated me to appraise these cultural differences, they taught me to incorporate into my life those different traits that would help me to become a better person. I always thank to my parents for their valuable time and support to me and my younger brother which helped us to develop satisfying and excellent academic performances.

During my early studies I participated in knowledge competitions and I got ranked 1st place during my Middle School entrance examination. Three years later I was accepted in the most prestigious bilingual High School of the State. It was in High School when I developed interest for health science field. This interest swayed me to register in an Emergency Medical Technician course at the Belize Red Cross where I volunteered for a year. I found that I wanted to keep learning about human body functioning but, also be able to transmit that knowledge to other people. My interest in health science as well as educational field gave me some trouble when I had to choose my major area for University. It was a difficult decision but I did not want to give up to any of them.

After some meetings and phone calls with my desired future University regarding admission and curricular regulations I found out that it was not prohibited studying both majors. Therefore, I chose to study them simultaneously. With trust in myself I prepared and applied to University to major in Education and next semester I applied again as a new student to the Nutrition Department. Gladly, I was admitted into each department with the highest score among the other students.

Eventually, for the next years I attended my Education major courses during the mornings and my Nutrition courses during the afternoons from Monday to Saturday. I tried to spend quality time in both majors and participate in extracurricular activities as much as my tight schedule allowed me. During my undergraduate first 2 years I registered in a French language class as extracurricular activity. After that, I joined a research project with the intention to get closer with the investigation area. My tasks involved work at the chemical sciences and food laboratories to develop a new food with functional ingredients related to chronic metabolisms diseases. Our project was presented in several contests, forums and even one national congress. We were awarded with 1st Place among more than 80 participating projects at this congress. On 2016, during one semester I did my professional training at a community center. My tasks were performing nutritional assessments and elaborating meal plans for citizens who wished to acquire healthier lifestyle habits and to patients referred by the medical department, specially dyslipidemic, hypertensive or during pregnancy. My experiences after the professional training and research project helped me to realize how important is to investigate and divulge any knowledge you achieve to help improve people's health. Due to the chronic metabolic diseases' high incidence in most of the countries I choose it as my research topic. I focused in diabetes disease because is the leading cause of death in Belize and sadly I was not able to meet my grandfather for longer than 5 years old because of this reason. My hopes are not only to learn but also apply that knowledge in benefit of the society wishing people can expand their quality life time.

I knew about KGSP after my stay in Seoul as exchange student. The limited options my home university gave me to study in Korea took me to apply through my Education major. Thanks to that I was able to learn in a deeper way about the high quality of the Korean educational system. After my first exchange semester I was captivated by the tenacious and hard working Korean society. I think that was when I started to understand a little bit what the books referred as "한강의 기적". I applied for an extension to my studies in Korea in order to immerse myself in the culture and language because all my courses were taught in English. Definitely, I consider language as the main gate to get closer and empathize with a different culture; that is what makes KGSP special. Unlike other programs KGSP not only allow you to study in your academic field but, it also gives its scholars the opportunity to approach to Korean language and to the different metropolitan and local Korean culture.

Before I came back home from my exchange stay and having all this in mind, I set myself one new goal. As soon as I get my Bachelor Degrees I will apply to KGSP to go back to the country that mesmerized me before. Besides this, one part of the Korean essence as it is its healthy and delicious gastronomy contributes significantly to my academic field knowledge. My objective this time is to pursue a high graduate quality education and to strength the integral learning that provides the cultural differences.

There is an anonymous quote that has marked me: "If we do not set goals we will call a success to whatever we do". I truly believe success is the result of perseverance in our dreams and each person has the power to make her/his goals a reality. Today, I am persevering my dream and I can promise I will focus all my mind, will and heart to successfully achieve my study goals if you consider my petition. I appreciate reader's attention spent on this letter. Ü

@pb1013
I think this sentence: "I always thank to my parents for their valuable time and support to me and ..." sounds a bit awkward. I would condense it a little and rearrange the wording. Maybe start with something like "I am grateful that my parents raised me and my brother...."

In the second paragraph you mention that you started to gain interest in health science while you were in high school. Was there something specific that made you interested? You should expand on exactly why you are interested in the field.

In the third paragraph, you say "not prohibited". Maybe just say that once you got to the University, you realized two courses of study were possible which meant you didn't have to choose.

I would just go back over the essay and really focus on sentence structure and proper grammar. Like in the first sentence "My name is Ana, a graduate in..". I don't think a comma works well here. It should just be My name is Ana and I am a graduate.... Just basic fixes like that.

Ana, there is entirely too much focus on your academic studies. I am not sure if you missed it in the prompt requirement but you have to present some sort of professional experience in the field of education and nutrition as well. The reason for the double professional references? You mentioned that you are a double major and therefore, should have experience in both fields to present to the reviewer. You must limit the focus of your educational background to only the development of your interest in nutrition and education. There is no requirement for you to present your high school background because that is irrelevant at this point. You do not need to explain how you chose your major for college either. It is sufficient to say that you graduated as a double major in education and nutrition from your university. After that, explain how you put your major to use as a professional. Specifically, discuss in detail, the responsibilities that you have at the moment which have motivated you to apply for this scholarship. At the moment, you missing both the professional and motivational discussions in your essay, which has led to a huge information gap in your application. You need to add the information so that the essay can be considered a completed draft which is ready for further editing.

Hi Ana,

I understand that we want to prove our candidacy with details. But given that the adult attention span(8 seconds), and the time that the reviewer spends on each essay, I think it could work better if you curtail the unnecessary details and enrich the part that mostly relates to the program.

Try to start with how your family and experience made you want to prosper in this field. (be interesting yet concise)
Why choose a dual major(briefly)?
How you manage 2 subjects(prove your academic capacity) while determining to further in Nutrition( the motivation for master degree)?
What have you done professionally to prepare you entering the master program? (working experience)
Then, doing some researches on this school so you can write a persuasive " why school" part.

P.S. I find that the PS writing tips offered by JUH Pre-health are extremely insightful, skewer the problem in essay writing.

@pb1013
I think you don't need to mention your name and age as you will be mentioning it on your application.
I believe it is better to mention just about your dual degree program without telling how you got it. I mean the discussion about phone calls and meetings with your university is not something that the reader is interested about.

I think you can use your exposure to cultural diversity as a plus point as it will be helpful when you start studying in Korea. like you can mention that you will be easily get used to new culture.

hope this is helpful. good luck