Posts by fp2014

fp2014

Oct 20, 2014

Scholarship / Chevening Scholarships: 4 questions essay. Personal statement and Academic Background [8]

Hello, I'm applying to a Chevening scholarship and would like some feedback on my essays
1.Your personal statement: Explain why you are applying to the Chevening programme and describe the personal, intellectual and interpersonal qualities that make you well placed to be a future leader in your home country. 300 max

Since I was old enough to remember, my mother has always said to me this three words: faith, confidence and judgment; faith that things will resolve themselves, confidence in your abilities and trust in your judgment. This kind and strong words have led me through the easiest and most difficult decisions in my life. It took one biology class during senior year of high school to define that my undergraduate degree would be biotechnology. By the end of sophomore year, I became a volunteer at the Molecular Multi-users laboratory of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and had the chance to experience first-hand how a research project is conducted. Achieving this on my free time around college classes help me developed a strong work ethic, organizational and communications skills with my fellow volunteers and supervisor. This volunteering work was the reason I decided to complete the mandatory professional practice requisite abroad in Argentina.

Being away from home made me stronger and more independent, it also help me deal with overcoming the adversity during the initials steps for obtaining an antibody against our target protein. This experience made me realize that developing a critical thinking train of thought is the key for success.

The main reason why I'm applying to this programme is because studying in the UK, specifically in London, has always been my dream; it's the home of the majority of top rank colleges in the field of life sciences and it has the type of multicultural environment and ancient history that I would like to get to know of. The second reason is because Panama is still lacking in diversity of postgraduates programmes for life sciences and it would definitely set my apart from my peers on my way to becoming a leader in my country.

2. Your academic background: Describe your educational achievements to date. You should explain why you feel confident in your ability to successfully complete your proposed courses of study in the UK, and specify why your courses were chosen. 300max

In a world where nothing can be under complete control, I took the one thing that I could control about my education: my achievements. I graduated high school ranking first of the class and got two scholarships to support my undergraduate education, one from a government institution and the other from the university itself.

My undergraduate education also finished with me ranking first of the graduating class, with the option to a postgraduate scholarship to be use at a local programme, which meant that I couldn't use it because none of the programmes encouraged to the right path.

I feel that with my determination and proven track record of academic achievements I can complete successfully any of the three programmes I have selected: 1. Pharmacogenetics and Stratified Medicine, 2. Drug research and development and 3. Applied biosciences and biotechnology. I choose these 3 programmes because of the way they are designed and they would help me achieve my potential as a research scientist in the pharmaceutical industry. The skills that I would learn in these programmes are universal and would be of great help to the Panamanian industry.

I'm currently working on the other two questions:
3. Your leadership and networking skills: Outline your experience and style of leadership. You should discuss your commitment to networking within the Chevening community, and beyond, in order to find solutions or bring about beneficial change. 300 max

4. Your career plan and benefit to your home country: Describe your immediate plans upon completion of your Chevening award. You should explain your longer-term (5-10 year) career objectives and describe how your time in the UK will help you achieve these. You should also discuss how a Chevening award would benefit you and your home country. 300 max

fp2014

Oct 20, 2014

Undergraduate / UF admissions essay, my notion of 'the good life' [5]

I think is a pretty good essay, but you should write more about the outcome you expect to gain from your undergraduate education at this university to be able to live "the good life"

fp2014

Oct 20, 2014

Scholarship / Chevening Scholarships: 4 questions essay. Personal statement and Academic Background [8]

Thanks ksinger, I will work on it and post a newer version of question 2 and my answers to question 3 and 4

fp2014

Oct 25, 2014

Scholarship / Chevening Scholarships: 4 questions essay. Personal statement and Academic Background [8]

"My mother's words of wisdom" Chevening applications essays

4. Panama is in need of drugs that are safer, cheaper and better suit it to its population.Your career plan and benefit to your home country: Describe your immediate plans upon completion of your Chevening award. You should explain your longer-term (5-10 year) career objectives and describe how your time in the UK will help you achieve these. You should also discuss how a Chevening award would benefit you and your home country. 300 max

My immediate plan at the time of my return to Panama is to start working for the pharmaceutical industry or research laboratory where I would put my new abilities to good use in the process of developing new drugs, test systems and troubleshooting for the industry. I believe that the experience I would gain by doing a master's degree on the UK would set me apart from my peers as a highly motivated individual with the sufficient knowledge to become a successful scientist.

My career objectives are, first to gain sufficient industry experience to learn to tackle the problems that can occur during drug design and development. After that, I would go back to graduate school to obtain a doctorate degree to learn to be a full-time researcher.

By the end of my doctorate, I expect to become a Director of research and development department for drugs affected by genetic variations on a research laboratory. I believe that through this position I could make big changes to the current situation in Panama on the drug market. This area of development is very important for my country and is contemplated by the government on their National Strategic Plan for Science Technology and Innovation. Panama is in need of drugs that are safer, cheaper and better suit it to its population.

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fp2014

Oct 25, 2014

Scholarship / Chevening Scholarships: 4 questions essay. Personal statement and Academic Background [8]

If you could give some pointers about the content and if there are any grammatical errors I would be very grateful.

fp2014

Oct 25, 2014

Undergraduate / "One Piece"; "dad's old laptop"; "two years between graduation and moving to US" - essays for MIT [3]

The first line of your third question seems a bit off to me. A bit more detail as to why you didn't start college right away could help a lot.

fp2014

Oct 26, 2014

Writing Feedback / People should find what their talent is, to support what they do, to reach their goal in live [2]

Here's a revision that I think can help you

Many people want to be successful in their life. They always try to accomplish it, but 10 percent of them do the work with their talent and 90 percent of the people do hard work to be successful without talent. For me personally, I agree that to be successful is not only doing hard work but, that people must have the talent also. Be a successful person is a dream that anybody can relate to. For example, the sales or marketing group who work in the company can raise their level position on their job if they do hard work. In this case, when the employees only do lots in one way, it does not give benefits and improvement in their job. They need talent like as skills in speech. It can help them to speak up and make other people more interest in them when they give a presentation. So, it will be able to increase their status in the company.

However, talent is the most important thing which people have to get success in their life. In this case people have to know and understand what their talent is. Besides it will help the people's success, they must do hard work and never give up to try the failed of what they did in the past.

In conclusion, people should find what their talent is, to support what they do to reach their goal in the live and they must struggle to make their live better than other people.

the part in blue I don't understand what you are trying to say with it.
Hope this helps!

fp2014

Nov 9, 2014

Undergraduate / "if only I weren't blind..." - St. Mary college essay about transformative experience [4]

I think you should expand the challenges you experienced getting accustomed to being blind after the surgery.

It was sometime during the late morning on May fifth, 2010 that I woke up and found myself in utter darkness. This abrupt loss of my sight was the opposite of what everyone was expecting after the operation. This was only a couple of days from when the doctors had removed the tumor found in my brain. From that day, my eyesight was supposed to improve, which it did until that morning where it just simply vanished! Even the doctors seemed to be lost for words, so after a few months of no change, everyone seemed to accept silently that my sight may never return.

The loss of my ability to see brought with it an enormous change in my attitude. Surprisingly, I did not have to struggle with accepting my blindness as much as with letting go of my ego. I always have a high standard of myself and like to work alone to achieve it. However, becoming blind, I realized I have also become dependent on others, at least to a certain extent. This thought made the act of asking for helps felt very uncomfortable for me. Moreover, even after succeeding in speaking out my needs, I then often struggled with lowering my standard. Being a perfectionist, as my dad said I am, pushes me to work hard, but in these cases, all it does is to make me even more frustrated. It is just so difficult to make things perfect when you can't do them by yourself!

Nonetheless, when I think about it, I realized these necessary adaptations have helped me to become more flexible and open-minded. I finally accepted that eventually, I would have to learn to work with others. I became aware that, my comfort zone can only expand when I step out of it. As a result, although I still bite my lip from time to time when having to ask for helps, I would finally do it, and with more ease each time.

My blindness also teaches me to be optimistic with life and problems. It is not as if all the problems I faced derived from being blind; Some of them are just teen issues that anyone who are teens have to face. The real issue is the fact it is often easier for me to just blame them all on my disability. I often think, "if only I weren't blind, I would do better, I would not be this stress..." and so on. Unfortunately, I am also aware that I am blaming the problems on something over which I have no control, and often is not even the real cause of the problem. Thus, over time, I have trained my thinking to search for the bright side of things and to appreciate whatever my blindness gives me. Today, whenever the thought of, "if only I weren't blind..." pops up, I would complete it with something positive like, "I wouldn't have such a fantastic life!"