Past Educational Challenge and Career related Degree Choice essays for MasterCard Scholarship

MasterCard Foundation scholarship application

These are essay questions and answers in respect to the MasterCard Foundation scholarship application. I am working within a 250 word limit. Please help me review to see if I have addressed the issues posed by the prompts.

Q3. We want to ensure that the Mastercard scholarship is awarded to individuals who will benefit most. Tell us what challenges you have faced in your education and how you have sought to overcome them?

Answer:

After completing secondary education in 2008, I couldn't proceed immediately to higher institution due to paucity of financial resources. I had lost my dad in 1993 at a tender age, since then, I have been raised by an Uncle as my mum hadn't enough financial means to support me. At the point leading up to 2008, my Uncle's three other children had to attend university as well. Fending for all four of us become a huge financial burden for him, I had to sacrifice my ambition of attending university as I waited an extra year so his kids could proceed to instead.

Determined, I eventually gained entry into the University in 2010 to study Mechanical Engineering, after reaching out to a friend of my late dad for financial assistance. At the end of my first year of studies, I performed excellently well, this motivated me to apply for the Agbami Medical and Engineering Professionals Scholarship (AMEPS) which I succeeded in being awarded during the beginning of my second year. This scholarship was worth one hundred thousand naira (N 100,000). It aided me greatly in sorting out my financial issues.

I combined this with help I got from my benefactor in purchasing academic materials, catering for myself and bought a hearing aid for my hearing difficulty which developed at a later stage of my growing up.

I maintained this award the entire duration of my stay at University and I went on to emerge among the best in my department, achieving a 4.096/5.0 CGPA.

Q4. We want to ensure that your studies at the University of Edinburgh benefit you and your community in the future. Tell us how your choice of degree will empower you to pursue a career that addresses any issues in your country.

Answer:

Evidently, epileptic electricity supply has been a recurring decimal since her independence in 1960. The results; economic impoverishment, stagnant social and infrastructural development, poverty and unemployment. The need for Nigeria to take serious the achievement of its 40,000 Mega Watts (MW) of electricity generation target by year 2020, as contained in the Vision 20:2020 document, has become crucial. Attainment of this goal would place Nigeria amongst the top 20 elite economies in the world by then. Aggressively developing its energy mix to include renewable energy resources such as; solar, wind, hydro and bio-mas, has been identified as the surest way to go about this.

The government has employed various strategies in a bid to arrest the situation, the most recent being the privatization of the generation and distribution sub-sectors in 2013. The issues sabotaging growth in this sector have been attributed to; over reliance on fossil fuel (gas), dilapidated power infrastructures and unavailability of skilled human capacity.

Given my enthusiasm to contribute in solving this energy crisis, I have opted to study for an MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems at University of Edinburgh as a MasterCard Foundation Scholar. Through this level of studies, I hope to acquire the right knowledge and skill sets that would help me deploy renewable energy resources in a sustainable manner to address the energy demands especially of rural dwellers.

I look forward to leveraging the expertise garnered in formulating strategies to achieve this goal through the African Energy Advocacy Initiative on my return home.

Hi, in regards to your second answer, it seems like you have spent too many of your 250 words discussing the plans for Nigeria and not enough on what you specifically plan to do and how your university studies will assist you in carrying out your plan. What are the "right knowledge and skill sets" that would help you? And how exactly are you going to deploy renewable energy resources to rural areas? Is there an organization doing this that you plan to join? Or will you start your own organization? Or will you work for a typical utility type company and try to steer them towards rural focused sustainable power from the inside? Also, focusing on the Vision 20:2020 document, seems odd, as you will probably graduate from the MSc program in 2020, right? It seems too late for you to help achieve the Vision 20:2020 goal.

Also, the first sentence of your second answer is very confusing and odd. I would not use "epileptic" in this context and what is a "recurring decimal"?

Ugbashi, please clarify if you were sent by your mother to live with your uncle which is why he seems to have had complete control over your upbringing. Explain how you continued your informal education as you waited for the opportunity to attend college. Explain what pushed you to approach your father's friend because somehow, it seems like your uncle should have sent you to college. The addition of that information makes all the other information in the essay even stronger. You should build on your loss of hearing in the essay. What was the cause of that and how did that adversely affect your ability to learn? Building that story will make the essay emotional and create a more interesting angle for your application.

Your second essay has a very confusing opening sentence. Let me clarify that for you:

The electrical supply of Nigeria has been spotty since the country's independence was declared in 1960. The long term results of this problem includes economic impoverishment...

Aside from the need to clarify that part of the essay, everything seems to be in order for the essay. I am just wondering though, is it 250 words for both essays (125 words per essay) or 250 words per essay? The assignment of the word count will affect how you revise the essay.

@TJLuschen
Thanks for raising those concerns, I will look into it.

@Holt
I appreciate. No, my Uncle took me on voluntarily. Regarding the words count, its actually 250 words per essay. All other points raised would be looked into.