Personal Statement - Management Science / Business Tech / Analytics program

Hello Forum,

I am applying graudate programs in management science / business technologies / business analytics, with business background.

The programs are interdisplinary in nature and under school of engineering, computer science, or biz school.

Thank you in advance for your feedback!

MMSc program - the combination of science and business

My academic and professional life in the field of real estate finance has trained me to work comfortably with numbers electronically. Meanwhile, my appreciation to the importance of science and technology gained through experience always motivates me to dig deeper into the analytical side of business to facilitate better prediction and decision-making.

My experience as an investment and financial analyst in the property industry exposed me to a data-rich environment where understanding the implication of different strategies and market dynamics is crucial in achieving organizational goals and maximizing investors' return. I worked regularly with both external sources such as new supply and movement of capitalization rate for Shanghai decentralized office market from 3rd party data providers to present pictures of the local market, and internal set of worksheets that I established myself and linked to finance reports to generate variance analysis of actual against project P&L by different cost centers.

Of all my tasks, I find the process of gathering, processing and presenting data, despite being the traditional analytical method of historical trend and descriptive statistics, most fulfilling as the process provides insights from abstract market behaviors and bridges business knowledge with the brick and mortar of buildings and property. Even the correct use of spreadsheet, such as pivot table and basic VBA function, could act as a portal of communicating between an analyst and various business departments, such as marketing and leasing team, and significantly increase the effectiveness of organization, allowing leasing managers to focus on making deals rather than spending unnecessary time on internal reporting.

With the availability of big data and advanced software tools, I expect business analytics, especially in traditional industries, will be transformed to become more computerized and data-driven. Therefore, it is a logical step for me to further improve my IT / data capabilities, to understand better the "how" factor to incorporate it with my knowledge and experience previously gained from university and employers to achieve my goal to explore new opportunities and application of analytics in real estate or other sectors in the upcoming era of information and data.

I believe the MMSc program would provide an excellent platform for me to enter into this field as it offers the ideal interdisciplinary combination of science and business process, as well as a strong alumni network, necessary to strengthen my technical background and to firstly become a well-rounded and tech-savvy professional. I also hope my strong interest in both science and management, passion for learning and transferable skills gained from previous work and study would be an asset to the cohort.

tz, this is an almost perfect personal statement. The development of your interest in this field of work is highly interesting and engages the reader. There is actually evident room for career development and growth in the way that you presented your discussion. You have not left any stone un-turned in this discussion. So on the personal side, there is no need to address any changes to the essay. However, you need to add information towards the end regarding your personal interest in the university that you are applying to. Are you planning to submit the same essay to multiple universities? If you are, then you will have to develop a unique paragraph referring to your university of choice in the second to the last paragraph of each essay you will be submitting. Remember, your personal interest in the course offerings of the university will play a direct role in convincing the reviewer that you are someone who is solid in terms of dedication to the completion of the course at the university. So you have to indicate information that proves you know the demands that this course of study at the university requires of its students and that you are more than willing to meet those demands without question.