Back in high school, I started a ten people student company under instruction of Junior Achievement. I had a great souvenir idea for school centenary. However, turning an idea into reality was full of obstacles. Product design, raising fund and promoting campaign all gave me first hand business experience and inspired me to pursue a business major. When it comes to university after I had learnt basic business theory, I ran a project to help the villagers to improve their income in Enactus. My team held agricultural fair that gave the villagers a platform to sell their product. The initial cost must be surpassed by the profit gained from these activities. I realized the importance of financial skills and was determined to become an accounting professional who have more resources to help people.
I set up my career goal in my sophomore year after we won in the Enactus World Cup China Division. My short-term career goal is to secure an entry-level audit position in a public accounting firm, ideally the big four accounting firm, and sit for the AICPA exam. Within five years, I would like to be promoted to a manager position. Within fifteen year or so, an executive position in a mid-to-large size company would be ideal for me. I may even start my own accounting firm. Hopefully, I can become the kind of person who has resources to really make a difference.
With this goal in my mind, I spared no effort to expose myself to accounting courses. In addition to the course required by my major, I audited the accounting major classes. I also read industry insight report from the big four accounting firm. In the second semester of sophomore, I taught myself and passed the exam for Certificate of Accounting Professional issued by Chinese bureau of finance. In junior year, I exchanged to San Diego State University. I intentionally chose accounting as my major and four accounting classes including two upper-level accounting courses with a mixed senior and graduate student. I wanted to participate in the master of accounting program classes and prepared myself for my future program.
In addition to the course work, I took every opportunity to sharpen my skills to better prepare me to become an accounting professional. I became a leader in the student union and played the main role to create a harmonious atmosphere in my department when my partner was hard on our teammate. I formed a study group with a few native students for Taxation of Business class at SDSU and helped them with my mathematic skills. Most of my group members improved their performance. I gained friendship through interaction with my classmate and I got an A in that class.
Outside classroom, I thrive to gain real world experience from accountant, auditor and tax agent positions. In 2013, I started a summer internship in a agricultural enterprise's financial department. As a total newbie, I tried to learn the principle of accounting as well as performing basic task. I watched teaching videos of UFIDA Software after work. By the end of July, I was familiar with making accounting statement using UFIDA Software and I closed the accounts of July.
In 2015, I interned in GP Certified Public Accountants. I went on a business trip to Hong Kong with my manager to audit the subsidiary company of Donlinks Grain & Oil. All the accounting statements are in English. This was a challenge for me to work in a different environment other than Mainland China. I worked overtime for two straight days before going to Hong Kong to sort out the income and cost of every ship the company was operating. In Hong Kong, I helped my manager to write the working paper and to perform other audit procedure, such as vouching and gaining external confirmation. My manager was satisfied with my work.
In order to achieve my career goal, I need an accounting degree that I wasn't able to obtain in undergraduate program. I also need a program that will help me to sit for the CPA exam. The MSA program is no doubt the most appropriate program for me.
Wenli, I really enjoyed reading your statement. It is really informative and covers all of the bases for your interest in accounting. However, what you wrote is not a statement of purpose. Rather, you developed a highly interesting personal statement that generally discusses your interest and goals with regards to accounting. It is really unfortunate that a reviewer will not consider this essay a personal statement. So you will need to write a totally new essay that will you to showcase the information required for an effective statement of purpose. Instead of harping on what you did wrong in the essay, let me inform you about what you did right.
To start off, you informed the reviewer about a relevant internship that you participated in. That is considered a part of "professional" work experience so discussing it in the essay was the right thing to do. However, you could have discussed it better by indicating the kind of work that you did and the lessons that you learned during these stints that helped you realize that you wanted to pursue more advanced studies in accounting. Make sure to fully develop the two paragraphs relating to the internships that you participated in.
If you have any other seminars or relevant programs that you attended or participated in recently, please make sure to draw the attention of the reviewer to the information. The statement of purpose has to build up your image as an accountant and establish that you have been actively pursuing additional training prior to your interest in a masters degree course. Just make sure that you did this as part of the advancement opportunities you sought while already working as a certified accountant.
What you have to better establish in the essay, as that is the most under developed aspect of it, will be the purpose for your interest in the advanced studies. Clarify what your career goals are. Explain how the masters program of this university relates to your goal in terms of course curriculum and other training programs the university offers in relation to your future career plans.
Another positive aspect of your essay, is that you mentioned a definite career plan in terms of long and short term goals. This helps to increase your image as a student who is ready to put in the time and effort that a masters class requires. So we just need to clean up that part a bit in order to make it more effective within the context of the essay.
Since I am suggesting major changes to your SOP, I will not correct the grammar mistakes in the essay at this point. The information is sure to change so I will not waste your time with irrelevant corrections to the essay. I look forward to reading the revised statement soon :-)
