With adventure as my nature and travelling as my favourite, I was on track to be an urbanist from an early age. I have travelled more than thirty cities. Visiting urban planning exhibition halls is always on my to-do list when traveling. For me, those cities are not only where I live or travel but also a school from which, by maintaining a social scientist's and urbanist's eye, I gain much knowledge of its architecture, customs, communities, space structures and so on. I have always held the idea that one day I would become a city planner who learns from advanced cities and help design less developed cities and create their own urban characteristics. Confirmed that I was eager to devote myself to urban research area, I applied for the Urban Management programme in Nankai University and was fortunately admitted to it.
Four years' undergraduate study has helped me develop a comprehensive understanding of urban theory, politics, economics, housing, policies and social research methods. The methodological and theological courses help me lay a solid foundation of urban study which gives me perfect advantages in learning urban design theory and social science. Besides, I have gradually developed the ability of analysing data accurately and using cartographic software like AutoCAD and SolidWorks in accordance with specific cases.
Last year, I exchanged to the college of Social Sciences at University of Glasgow. At the very beginning, five-week pre-sessional course in academic writing helped me improve my essay writing skills with clearer organization and more proper use of language. Besides, the knowledge of British social and public policy, history of housing policy and urban planning policy I have learned from University of Glasgow will help me a lot in the future UK-based study. After one-year exchange experience, I am confident that there is no problem for me to adapt to British way of living, learning and researching. And I am sure it will benefit my graduate study in the UK.
However, there are still gaps in city design knowledge and skill set which I would like to fill in with targeted coursework in graduate school at the LSE. In addition, when I exchange to Department of Land Economics at National Chengchi University in the next term, I plan to take courses in introduction to architecture, current urban design- conception and international examples, spatial mapping and computer drawing to equip myself for the future graduate study.
As for research experience, I took participate in a research project about the investigation of Tianjin seashore new district's business costs when I a freshman. This research provided me with a good opportunity to communicate with companies there, which was also a tough work to gather wanted statistics due to their concerns about trade secrets. Through unremitting efforts, I completed the most questionnaires in the team about a hundred after interviewing over 320 companies. It largely improved my interpersonal and social skills and taught me the importance of well-designed questionnaires.
In this summer, to further my understanding of city planning, I took an internship job at Quzhou Planning Bureau, during which I have gained practical experiences and knowledge. I took participate in the revision process of Quzhou General Urban Plan (2006-2020) which was quite complicated. During the investment of public's opinion on this Plan, we completed 1418 semi-structure questionnaires within three days and formed a report reflecting public's expectation on the city construction. What impressed me most is people's enthusiasm about expressing their opinions on city development which encouraged me to think more deeply on public participation in urban planning. I also attended the expert review meeting from which I had the opportunity to compare my advice on the revision to experts' opinions from different departments. This work helped me form a picture of the formulation of such urban policies.
To practice what I have learned from the internship, I entered Professor Zhang's workshop to draft Master Plan (2016-2030) in Xujiatai which is a small town in Tianjin. I conducted a field research with other team members and draw current situation maps by using AutoCAD. I was really excited about this hands on practice and more determined to become an urbanist one day.
After class, I am also an honoured City Youth Volunteer of Tianjin. I spent a whole summer vacation volunteering in Tianjin Cultural Centre which contains museums, a library, a theatre and shopping malls, providing the coming visitors and citizens with considerate services. I really enjoyed the voluntary time observing their activities in this open space. It always reminds me of my dream to create and design a liveable city for people. All these experiences as mentioned above have helped me build a better foundation with city design, operation and sustainable development.
Dreaming to be an outstanding urbanist, I would like to apply to MSc City Design and Social Science and MSc Urbanisation and Development at the LSE. The City Design and Social Science programme provides studio-based urban design curriculum which is so appealing to me for I really want to get hands-on studio experience. The Urbanisation and Development programme offers advanced research on urban theory and policy in the Global South allowing me to think more deeply and creatively in urbanization process of the Global South cities. Above all, the structure and content of these two programmes combined with high teaching quality would give me a good opportunity to expose myself to the latest theoretical and practical development in urban studies area.
London may be far away from China, but I think LSE will prove to be an essential step on my winding path back to my country. I am sure that one-year study at the LSE would enable me to contribute to city designing in China when I start to work in a planning bureau or a think tank playing the role of public intellectual and expert on Chinese cities. I am quite confident of doing exceptionally well in my future postgraduate studies. Finally, I really appreciate your time for reading my personal statement and considering my application.
Four years' undergraduate study has helped me develop a comprehensive understanding of urban theory, politics, economics, housing, policies and social research methods. The methodological and theological courses help me lay a solid foundation of urban study which gives me perfect advantages in learning urban design theory and social science. Besides, I have gradually developed the ability of analysing data accurately and using cartographic software like AutoCAD and SolidWorks in accordance with specific cases.
Last year, I exchanged to the college of Social Sciences at University of Glasgow. At the very beginning, five-week pre-sessional course in academic writing helped me improve my essay writing skills with clearer organization and more proper use of language. Besides, the knowledge of British social and public policy, history of housing policy and urban planning policy I have learned from University of Glasgow will help me a lot in the future UK-based study. After one-year exchange experience, I am confident that there is no problem for me to adapt to British way of living, learning and researching. And I am sure it will benefit my graduate study in the UK.
However, there are still gaps in city design knowledge and skill set which I would like to fill in with targeted coursework in graduate school at the LSE. In addition, when I exchange to Department of Land Economics at National Chengchi University in the next term, I plan to take courses in introduction to architecture, current urban design- conception and international examples, spatial mapping and computer drawing to equip myself for the future graduate study.
As for research experience, I took participate in a research project about the investigation of Tianjin seashore new district's business costs when I a freshman. This research provided me with a good opportunity to communicate with companies there, which was also a tough work to gather wanted statistics due to their concerns about trade secrets. Through unremitting efforts, I completed the most questionnaires in the team about a hundred after interviewing over 320 companies. It largely improved my interpersonal and social skills and taught me the importance of well-designed questionnaires.
In this summer, to further my understanding of city planning, I took an internship job at Quzhou Planning Bureau, during which I have gained practical experiences and knowledge. I took participate in the revision process of Quzhou General Urban Plan (2006-2020) which was quite complicated. During the investment of public's opinion on this Plan, we completed 1418 semi-structure questionnaires within three days and formed a report reflecting public's expectation on the city construction. What impressed me most is people's enthusiasm about expressing their opinions on city development which encouraged me to think more deeply on public participation in urban planning. I also attended the expert review meeting from which I had the opportunity to compare my advice on the revision to experts' opinions from different departments. This work helped me form a picture of the formulation of such urban policies.
To practice what I have learned from the internship, I entered Professor Zhang's workshop to draft Master Plan (2016-2030) in Xujiatai which is a small town in Tianjin. I conducted a field research with other team members and draw current situation maps by using AutoCAD. I was really excited about this hands on practice and more determined to become an urbanist one day.
After class, I am also an honoured City Youth Volunteer of Tianjin. I spent a whole summer vacation volunteering in Tianjin Cultural Centre which contains museums, a library, a theatre and shopping malls, providing the coming visitors and citizens with considerate services. I really enjoyed the voluntary time observing their activities in this open space. It always reminds me of my dream to create and design a liveable city for people. All these experiences as mentioned above have helped me build a better foundation with city design, operation and sustainable development.
Dreaming to be an outstanding urbanist, I would like to apply to MSc City Design and Social Science and MSc Urbanisation and Development at the LSE. The City Design and Social Science programme provides studio-based urban design curriculum which is so appealing to me for I really want to get hands-on studio experience. The Urbanisation and Development programme offers advanced research on urban theory and policy in the Global South allowing me to think more deeply and creatively in urbanization process of the Global South cities. Above all, the structure and content of these two programmes combined with high teaching quality would give me a good opportunity to expose myself to the latest theoretical and practical development in urban studies area.
London may be far away from China, but I think LSE will prove to be an essential step on my winding path back to my country. I am sure that one-year study at the LSE would enable me to contribute to city designing in China when I start to work in a planning bureau or a think tank playing the role of public intellectual and expert on Chinese cities. I am quite confident of doing exceptionally well in my future postgraduate studies. Finally, I really appreciate your time for reading my personal statement and considering my application.
