Urban Design - PERSONAL STATEMENT FOR GRADUATE APPLICATION FOR MASTERS

Hi everyone, please help me and review this personal statement and give me feedback based the statement and grammar usage. Your suggestions will be gladly accepted.

There is no word limit but I tried to keep it concise and straight to the point.

Urban Design Degree

I have always loved travelling and reading about other cultures since I was a little boy. I have read books about people and places, watched people who live all over the world on television and admired their diverse environments, way of life, and their values. From what I watched and learnt about people who live in diverse worlds, I noticed that most cities like New York City were well planned and structured, while other cities like Bangalore are unplanned and mostly slums. From my perspective, a social divide exists between the planned and unplanned cities where the rich and top middle-class live in planned cities and the poor live in unplanned cities with lots of environmental pollution as if they are undeserved to live on this planet. This influenced me to study urban and regional planning (URP). I will like to pursue a graduate degree in urban design at ******. This opportunity will equip me with the tools to close the social divide between these two classes of cities. I want to plan the unplanned and neglected cities/slums to make the lives of these neglected people better and also to improve our environment.

I carried out a research project on the roles of local government in rural socio-economic development during my undergraduate program and I was able to proffer solutions to the problems of diversity in socio-economic development within rural areas by the local government. Pursuing this degree at **** will expand my horizon and give me opportunities to study other cities and the problems they face, in terms of socio-economic importance, clean and conducive environment, and clean energy.

Humans have a lot of influence on the world, and without adequate planning, we will live in a world where we will face different problems like: polluted environment, traffic congestion-which will cause an increase in air pollution, environmental degradation, increased crime rate and it will also widen the gap between the social class.

My plan is to complete a Masters degree in urban design, work and advocate for clean, conducive and planned environments. I want to see a world where Asia, Africa, Europe, America and so on will be properly and adequately planned. It will be a plus to our society if urban planning will be added to our primary school and high school curriculum. With proper and adequate planning of our environment and cities, we will be equipped with tools to live in a creative, well structured, safe and healthy world.

Chizaram, you will need to adjust the start of your essay. Rather than saying you have been interested in urban planning since childhood, say instead that you developed an interest in urban planning after coming to question the differences in the American cities such as New York and your town of Bangalore. It is important that you make the reviewer believe that you developed this interest in high school because this is the point in time when the bad urban planning of your city will have had a direct impact upon your development as a person and offer you an ambition regarding your profession. You cannot say that you have had this interest since childhood because the reviewer knows for a fact that a child has no ability to see the problems in urban planning and design, but a high school student just might see the potential problems and wish to resolve it.

Aside from the problem with your first paragraph presentation, the rest of the essay provides a good overview of information that you will be developing as talking points within your statement of purpose. You just need to add a quick reference to the university you have chosen and what criteria you used in deciding to attend that university. The reviewer is definitely interested in learning what it was about their university that made you feel that they have the best Urban planning and design graduate school. It is part and parcel of the personal statement. A brief discussion will suffice. You can further build upon the discussion, like I said, in the statement of purpose. Adjusting these parts will help to better focus the discussion of your essay and explain important aspects regarding the development of your interest in Urban Planning and Design.

Thanks Mary. I am not the graduate applicant. I am just helping some people out with their graduate application-pro bono.

Thanks so much for your quick feedback. The applicant will correct the essay and he used Bangalore to give an example, he does not live in Asia. To make it more personal to the connection and motivation to study urban design;I guess you will suggest he uses a town in his country?

I wish the applicant can be here on EF.

Thanks for your feedback, it's really helpful