Posts by blueknightiris

blueknightiris

Jan 3, 2017

Scholarship / The link between my desire for contributions and my current career [4]

Australian Award Essay, Part 1: How Did You Choose Your Proposed Course and Institution?

Hi, I am a new member here. Upon reading a moderator's post on the "Question about UBC Personal Profile - admission essay" thread in this forum, I knew that I should submit one part of essay at one time. Since the scholarship consists of four essays, I'll divide it into part 1, 2, 3, and 4--in this thread, I'm going to start with the first part.

Pertaining on the question that is already stated on this thread's subject, my answer is as following (up to 2,000 characters limit, according to the Online Information Systems' rule as noted by many people on many different forums and blogs):

My passion for giving

Since I was in Elementary School, I had been familiar with children-related philanthropic activities that it ignited my passion to do more to societies as a whole. Of course I was looked down at that time, however, it didn't stop me to believe that even children can change the world for a better future. When I went to university, I learned more about non-profit organisations and accounting for non-profit organisation, which made me fell in love more with non-profit organisations.

Of course, my journey didn't stop there. Not long after I graduated, I took an online Philanthropy course called "Giving MOOC 2.0". At that time, the instructor challenged all of the participants to focus on one philanthropy issue. Considering that Indonesia and Australia have a sustained relationship on education and training, I chose education, specifically, children's education as my central philanthropy issue at that time, since I believe that children are crucial assets of a nation to help build a nation's reputation internationally. However, given that I have graduated from a finance-related (Accounting, to be precise) Bachelor degree, educating finance for children became a more specific central issue. I believe by educating children about finance, children will learn to manage their money from early ages, which will prevent them from being consumptive, encourage them to learn to lead and manage themselves since early ages, and finally, can cooperate with people from all over the world to be the world's agent of change.

Not to forget that I also link my desired contributions with my current career as a freelance writer, in which I learn to transport readers to the descriptive sentences in my writings as I work. All of this leads me to the desire to contribute in financial teachings (related to my educational background) to children through their writings (related to my current career). Upon knowing that Australia has cooperated with Indonesia in education sector and Australia has one of the world's best finance-related subjects, and I have also obtained a Bachelor degree, I chose to continue my study in Australia.

In addition, I had begun on searching Australian universities that offer philanthropy-related courses, in which I later found out that UTS and QUT are the two emerging universities in their philanthropy program that can accommodate my needs to contribute in building a non-profit organisation that work in increasing children's financial literacy by storytelling and article writing.

Should there anything that I have to elaborate, clarify, correct, or parts that I have to delete, please let me know. In addition, some of you might also want to comment about my overall ideas, leadership potential, professionalism, and/or my potential to contribute to the society I live in, and that will be appreciated as well. I am open to any constructive feedback regarding on my current and future scholarship essay's parts. Please do not hesitate to ask if any of you have any questions regarding on my essay.

Thank you very much for all of your efforts in reading my essay. :)

blueknightiris

Jan 3, 2017

Writing Feedback / Ielts task 1 - Information about the sales during an ordinary October week at a small restaurant [2]

Hi @krempetkov ,

Based on what I know, had experienced, and what has been told many times to me about the IELTS test, I will help in providing some feedback for you to consider upon:

First and foremost, please pay attention to your spelling. Spelling might look like a minor problem, however, IELTS is an exacting test where you have to spell all words correctly (I have taken IELTS prediction tests, watched IELTS video, and done many mini-IELTS seminars, workshops, and trials for at least 6 months, so, I can say these). I notice in paragraph 2, you wrote, "Fryday", while it should be "Friday". In paragraph 4 when you described about the degrading part of Sunday's sales revenue, it should be, "...Respectively for the lunch and dinner," and not, "...Resprectevely for the lunch and dinner,"

Another thing is the way you write dollar: As far as I know, dollar symbols never got written at the back, instead, we write it in front of numbers. So, instead of writing 3600$, 2400$, and so on, will it be better if you change it into $3600, $2400, and so on? You can even add comma for every thousands, so, it'll be like: $3,600; $2,400; and so on.

"The sale volumes" on paragraph 3 should be replaced with, "The volume of sales" or "The amount of lunch and dinner sold". Remember not to write the same phrase on different sentences/paragraphs to increase your coherence and cohesion, as told by the UQx on the EDX platform (edx.org/ ; in case you want to enrol on the course, the name of the course is: "IELTS Academic Test Preparation". Trust me, it's very useful :) I had jumped by 1-band in just 2-3 months.)

Finally, I can't comment more on your essay's trend description (decreasing, increasing, etc) since there were no pictures provided. Do you still save the picture? If yes, I encourage you to show it to all of us, so that hopefully, all of us will be able to give more comprehensive feedback on your essay.

As for other members and moderators, please do not hesitate to correct my feedback or add your own, should there be any. I promise it'll be so much helpful to both of us :)

-blueknightiris

blueknightiris

Jan 3, 2017

Undergraduate / Innovation and Seeking the Truth [7]

Hi @jiale1029,

Let me be the first person on this thread to give you feedback. I have highlighted the corrected answer with blue and bolded it as well. I have also put additional brackets for some words that can be inserted or omitted (blue colors), and italicized ones for additional explanation. Below is my correction, according to my best knowledge:

I HAVE HOPE FOR THE RIGHT VALUES IN NTU

We, human beings, tends to think out (...) of the ~~impossibleodds~~oddities that may be ~~ahead of~~hindering us. Some of us may think that being imaginative ~~are~~is the same (...), however ~~in reality~~(speaking) , they are not the same~~, not at all~~ .

... is that one ~~must~~should be innovative ...
... important role in our lives. (For example,) I was appointed of being~~the leader of the committee~~the committee's leader for the School ...
In ~~the~~that competition, I found ~~out~~ that innovation (...) anytime ~~and~~, regardless of ...
~~As a matter of fact,there~~There was also a real example that I have seen before~~. A student that is 13 years old~~, which is, a 13 year-old student~~at the time~~whoiswas able to create (...) system that iswas targeted to ...

... seeking truth is a value that everyone tries to adhere ... (How do you know? Are there any references, e.g.: Journals, books, forum posts, blogs, newspaper posts, etc. to support this? Anyway, this is an argumentative sentence, therefore should have theoretical groundings to it).

~~That is the same for me,~~asAs a science stream (...) own curiosity. ~~It may seem weird but that is who I am.~~(For example,) I love asking question ...

Studying in NTU ~~is able~~will enable to help me to be more innovative (...) my parents' burden (Rather than reducing your parents' burden, why don't you opt for 'to sufficiently fund my study'? I can understand your inability to pay the extra-high tuition fee, since I also come from a lower-middle class background, however, it is not wise to explicitly state your financial difficulties unless asked to do so, since doing so will make you appear as if you're begging... While in fact, you might be not!).

I can say that your mistakes are similar to what I've experienced in the past. When I was giving my scholarship essay to my English course teacher, she also said to me that I shouldn't repeat too much on myself. I saw many redundancies on your essay, especially on the first paragraph. It'll be best to avoid redundancies, as this may distract readers and make your essay more difficult to understand. You might also want to study more grammar usages; if you need references on studying grammars, please let me know as I have plenty of them.

Overall, your essay is quite ground-breaking. I see that there were sparkling creativity in the way you write; it is evident from your writing piece that you are an innovative and full-of-idea student, and therefore, have a promising capability to enter NTU through scholarship. Starting from paragraph 3, I can see that you aren't afraid of dreaming high, even though you've gone through difficult situations (in this case, financial situation), which is a definite plus point (especially in terms of hunting scholarship).

You can improve more on specifying what do you want to study in NTU, why do you want to undertake it, and how does it correlate and/or contribute to your creativity flows. Note that based on my knowledge about full scholarships, you may also be asked about what are your future contributing plans after graduating, and you have to clearly state those. Some full scholarships may demand you to go back to your country after studying, hence, you should think about what does your country need and the correlation on your chosen study program in NTU as well as your future contribution in your country.

Good Luck, @jiale1029 ! If you need anything or want to ask me something, please do so, I'll be more than glad to help :)

blueknightiris

Jan 3, 2017

Scholarship / The link between my desire for contributions and my current career [4]

@Holt, thank you for your willingness to review on my essay as well as reminding me on what to be considered upon writing a new thread. I can't deny that I am new to this forum, hence needing more guidance for those who have gotten used by this forum's environment. Therefore, I'm going to reply a comment and ask some follow-up questions on this thread, so that I abide by the forum's rules.

By saying, "You violated the rules of the forum when you used the full prompt for the title instead of developing a creative title for it," did you mean I have to paraphrase the question? For example, this one's full question is: "How did you choose your proposed course and institution?", does it mean that I have to sound like, "My Ways In Choosing My Chosen Subject and University", "My Statements on Intended Subject and University", or something similar as that, as long as it doesn't exactly match the full question? Anyway, I will consider this upon writing my next thread, so that there will be no more similar violations.

In regard to your feedback on this part of essay, I understand that I should omit the "elementary school" part and focus more on my interest in Philanthropy when I was at university or undertaking online course, in which I decided to focus more on both, since both are crucial information regarding on my essay's content and future contribution after graduating.

I have also participated in philanthropic activities relating to children education: I was assigned to teach children about mathematics and English along with one of my other friend to a training center in southern part of Surabaya. We assembled our own creative tools and study materials to get the children's spirit overflowing and enthusiastic about our teachings. Another thing is that where I was participating in children ministry along with other approximately 3-10 other people where I told stories to them (this is pertinent to my future contribution plan which involved on storytelling) and taught them to make jewelry based on the story (for your information, my future contribution will involve things that are similar to this, in which, children are encouraged to produce ready-to-sold books about financial articles they had written prior to publishing). My question will be, are these 2 examples need more improvement or not enough? And, which one will you suggest me to choose, should there be any of them?