Graduate / 'Becomeing a university professor' - personal statement for PhD Economics [7]

Hi everyone, thanks a lot in advance for reviewing/commenting on my essay.

I am, by nature, extremely curious and inquisitive. I feel very fortunate to have a broad collection of interests, and to have had parents who always instilled uncompromising personal values, love for learning, and well-rounded personal advancement. I wholeheartedly believe my entire background makes me an ideal applicant for the PhD in Mineral Economics at ABC University.

Growing up in a mining town, I was inducted into the mining industry, and its lifestyle and particularities, from birth. I am in fact a third generation miner, and count my father, a former Fulbright scholar and senior engineering executive in the iron ore sector, as my main source of inspiration. Thanks to him I was exposed to advanced science and engineering literature and concepts from an early age, and loved to delve in abstract thinking and find solutions to complex problems ever since. With his example, my evident early aptitudes at exact sciences, and the fast and impressive technological developments of our era, I chose to embark in an engineering career. At DEF University -which has one of the two most prestigious and sought after engineering schools in my country of origin- I acquired very rigorous and comprehensive education in subjects including mathematical analysis, statistics, programming, among others. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, the access to seemingly endless amounts of knowledge, the academic and personal day-to-day growth.

A few years following my graduation and while working for a major American telecommunications multinational in GHI, I realised that my main intellectual focus had shifted. Still avidly interested in the technical aspects of my career, I had become more intrigued towards questions such as 'with a given amount of resources, what makes some organisations more successful than others?', 'how can the use of these resources be improved?', 'how can key indicators such as revenue or return on investment be optimised?'. Aware of the long and well-deserved worldwide predominance of the United Kingdom in the fields of economics and finance, I decided to pursue postgraduate studies at JKL University, famed throughout Europe for its research-intensive Economics Department. Studying with some of the leading scholars in their respective branches of economics, I concentrated in the international and managerial aspects of this science, while at the same time establishing a solid grounding in its mathematical methods and econometrics.

After returning to GHI, and as a complement to my economics degree, I attended MNO University -highly-regarded locally for its business school- to obtain a postgraduate diploma in Corporate Finances, in which I equipped myself as best as I could with tools such as company and project valuation, investments and value creation in a corporate environment, international investment instruments, and portfolio theory and management. Some of these topics would prove useful during my work at a mining exploration startup, where I got acquainted first hand with the financial issues and tribulations of this area of the mining industry. A major concern is how to ensure steady financing. In particular, even though junior exploration companies usually account for a significant share of the greenfield discoveries -as opposed to brownfield ones- they are invariably too dependant on equity investment, a situation sometimes not fully contemplated in local legislations. Furthermore, exploration costs keep rising around the clock as finding new large deposits is getting increasingly more difficult. Some subsectors -such as gold mining- may even face a shortage of supply in the medium to large run due to not enough proven reserves being inventoried in the last decades. Recently I have been researching and commenting on these and other industry-related topics on my blog www dot miningABC dot com. All in all, the current predicaments of the mining exploration sector are as pressing as fascinating.

Several key factors make ABC University one of the most outstanding places in the world for me to undertake the PhD in Mineral Economics. Of utmost importance is the very-high caliber of human capital in the department, reflected in its solid reputation in Australia and abroad. Likewise essential is the great affinity in research interests with some faculty members, especially Doctor PQR, with whom I have exchanged ideas and opinions in the last months; we have many similar views on what the priorities are in mining exploration research, and I will be delighted and honoured to work with him. Strongly appealing as well are the school's broad academic focus -with emphasis in the resources sector- and diverse student body, together with its advantageous centric location and close ties with industry and other reknowned academic centres such as STU, VWX, and YZ. The preeminence of Australia in the international mining and resources arena is also crucial to my decision.

Apart from working as academic researcher upon completing my doctoral studies, I plan to become a university professor. Through my stints as private maths tutor, I have realised in recent years that one of my core passions is the transmission of knowledge, the enlightening of others' minds and lives. From my finest teachers I have learned to instill curiosity and zest for learning, to concentrate on key concepts and develop them clearly, to be organised, to be relaxed but firm with the objectives, and to connect and be personally involved with my students' advancement. Besides, I also aim to do consulting work as it would be a gateway to a variety of projects and environments where I could both enrich my experience and broaden my contribution in the industry; to that end I plan to capitalise on the numerous large mining ventures as well as my professional contacts in Australia and my country of origin. I am confident my current personal and academic background, together with the exhaustive, world-class research work at ABC, will allow me to become a distinguished expert in the ever-exciting field of Mineral Economics.