Hi guys, hope you can help me with my personal statement. I'm afraid it is a little boring, and probably too long. I'm applying for a management msc, I am Italian and I still have to do a lot of practice with my English. Thank you all!
They asked to describe my academic background, my personal interests and strength, as well as my ambitions. Here it is:
Some months ago I was reading a short article, which described how a certain thing was easier than the reader would have thought, as I was surprised by a sentence: "hey, it's not rocket science". That made me curious, so I made a little research and discovered it is a typical English phrase referred to any not so complicated thing, as opposed to the real rocket science, which is one of the main subjects of aerospace engineering, the bachelor degree I am currently studying at the university. Through commitment, I have made easy something most of the people consider terrible, and at the same time, I have earned solid quantitative basis. Every time I had to, I succeeded in earning a good comprehension and ability in every distinct field of study, or aspect of live, and I was able to do this through maximum dedication and the willingness to spend the needed time. I do not believe there is something you can not learn to understand.
Engineering had a great influence on my vision of the world, the deep knowledge of mathematics and physics gives me a whole new rationality in seeing things and approach reality. The job of the engineer is to make projects and to bring them to life, the efficiency is a crucial factor of its work and my desire is to convert this knowledge in order to use it for my passion: making things work the best way, reach perfection. I want to leave this cold world of machines and get to the people, making everybody give the best he can through cooperation and hard work, I want to get the satisfaction of bringing a constant enhancement everywhere I go and everyone I work with.
One of my main features is perfectionism. Many times during my life it has proved to be a problem, since it often goes along with an excessive self-criticism and persistent dissatisfaction. Nevertheless, in every academic field, this perfectionism brought me to try to become the best. I always sought the best choice for my career, the most renowned high school, the hardest bachelor: I have always tried to show I can reach the maximum. I am going to bring to my work the good part of my perfectionism, the constant research for ways to get better every day, to become the best.
I am a sporty guy, I have played basketball since I was a child, and at the moment I play it at semi-professional level. This is a field in which competitiveness is essential, both in the individual and in the team-related way. I still remember when, as the captain of the high school team, I contributed to the winning of the regional title. What really made me proud was the way I succeeded in involving my team-mates and earning their full devotion. During the final game of that tournament, I knew that both teams had talent enough, so we had to appeal to something which could go beyond that. We did not need any motivation in our offence, where everybody was determined to contribute, so I decided that we would have won the match on the defensive end, defence is contagious and my hard work brought all my team-mates to focus on it. This may be a futile event, but everybody can learn something from it: if teamwork is a top priority and the environment is the right one, than a group will become much more than just the total of the individuals.
Sport more than anything made me understand that limits are often imposed by our mind and therefore can be overshot, maybe with some difficulties. I was once completely paralysed by fears, but I have become much more confident of what are my possibilities, overcoming what I believed were insurmountable limits. I feel a little predictable in quoting Mahatma Gandhi, but I always try to live my life in order to accomplish and adapt to me what he said: "Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will." Most of the times, in order to have success, more than any other thing it is important to have self-confidence, to be strongly determined and to leave your mind free from any concern.
I do not allow bad news to get me down, it is been a long time since I have decided I will be the master of my emotions and thus even defeats like the one I suffered with the GMAT are just slowing me down but also spurring me to improve. My knowledge of the English language is still not good enough and ruined my performance at the test, surprising me. The result is that I have worked harder at the university and now I will be free for a month and will have time to dedicate myself to deepen the studies of the language, not only to get the sufficient results at the IELTS, but also to show my value with retaking the GMAT sooner or later. In the meantime this 640 score will not let me give up, even if it could prevent me from being admitted. This optimism is one of my most recent features and one of those I am mostly proud of right now.
I started to become fascinated by economics and businesses at high-school, when a great professor made me understand how it has always had a crucial role in the history. The world is ruled by the economics, and I look forward to expanding my (limited) knowledge, so that I can use it alongside with my rationality in order to optimize choices and contribute in the best way to the success of my working group. My knowledge of mathematics and physics lets me understand the basic principles of the universe, but business rules the world, we just need to remember (since I like obvious quotes) the motto of the famous newspaper "we live in financial times".
Each of the themes I have talked about until now leads me more or less directly to the desire to study at LSE, moreover, this is strengthen by the need to leave my country. The Italian system is in crisis, it is compulsory to leave in order to not being hit by the scarce interest of the state in its young citizens' education. I hope I can bring in your prestigious university a student who is different from the Italian stereotype. Today more than ever we are forced to be ashamed of what is happening in our country, where everyday we read about people reaching fame and success in a dirty and immoral way. Most of the people here has no interests, always aims to the minimum sufficient and seeks the easiest way to reach his goals, without any regard to ethic. I want to try to show that there is still something good in our country, people in the world is laughing at us at the moment and that makes me deeply sad, I reluctantly need to move.
If there is a perfect place for my escape, London would be surely my first choice. The efficiency of London has always fascinated me, it will allow me to compare and cooperate in a diverse environment, with people representing the excellence of the world, I would have a huge honour.
Now more than ever I am determined to start your courses because anything else would be a waste of time. Most of the graduates in engineering ends up managing sooner or later, I already know this is my purpose and I will not waste time to get to it.
So this is what I have to say about me, these are also probably the most boring things about me, but these are the ones who made me what I am as far as the academic field. What I am happy about is that I can still manage to conciliate all this with my life out of this context, where my morals are devotion to friendship and respect towards other people.
As you may have noticed, I do not aim at mediocrity, on the contrary, I have never enough if there is room for improvement, and improvement is reached through hard work. I have always worked hard to reach my goals. What I want is the maximum I can get, and in this moment, this is this master's degree, this university, this city. My next step will be to get a good job, and later on we do not know what can happen, but one thing is certain, I will never stop by myself!
In this situation, capitalize:
by a sentence: "Hey, it's not rocket science."----I also moved the period inside the quotes.
I like your approach! At the same time as you reflect on that phrase, you also show multicultural awareness, inquisitiveness, and... then here you show intelligence: ...have earned solid quantitative basis.---The reader will say, "Oh, we have a genius on our hands!"
But...have earned solid quantitative basis.---I think this can be improved. Do you mean to refer to a solid foundation in quantitative analysis? That might be a better way to say it. A "quantitative basis" would be like... a basis that is quantitative...
A great thing to do would be to show WHAT drives and motivates you. If the essay is all just about your superiority, it can seem boastful, but if it is about your effort toward superiority for the sake of contributing to some cause that is important to you, then it is just about perfect. Try to make it so that your dedication to excellence is a result of caring deeply about something.
:-)
