Scholarship / Chevening Essay about Network - Professional development through networking [2]

I am applying for Chevening Scholarship. Please kindly help me to improve my essay about network. Thank you.

NETWORKING QUESTION

Chevening is looking for individuals with strong networking skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your networking skills, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future.

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

The basis of networking are information and ideas exchange. As a teacher being involved in different kinds of education institutions, I have gained a wide knowledge about both education systems and teaching skills from networking. My first teaching experience was a voluntary work for International Kindergarten Project by AIESEC Rzeszow in Poland in 2013. The project aimed to promote cross-cultural learning experience for children 3-6 years old. My responsible was to lead daily workshop about Indonesian culture and teach English in interactive way. At the beginning of the project, I attended a preparation seminar which had 50 interns from different countries such as Greece, Egypt, Slovakia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, and many more. Every week I taught in different kindergartens with an interns from different countries. I got to know another interns, local committee, teacher, principals, school admin, etc. Through this network, I was able to develop my networking skill which is very useful to improve my career as a teacher.

In 2015, I became an intern in ISCO (Indonesia Street Children Organization) which is an non-profit organization focused on creating equal education access for underprivileged children and prevent child labor. One of ISCO's programs is CAC (Child Activity Center) in slum areas as a safe and attractive place for children to prevent the children from working on the street. I was a teaching assistant for preschool activities in CAC. During this internship, I got to know the founders of ISCO from Austria and France. They worked for technology sector in Indonesia during monetary crisis which made them concern about child labor and education issues. I also got to know the management of ISCO, supporting donors, and fellow teachers. They are very inspiring for me because they are working to give a better life for vulnerable children.

Currently, I am having full-time employment as a teacher in Kinderfield which is an international school with sixteen centers in Java, Sumatra, and Borneo. Every year Human Resource Department of Kinderfield provides training and curriculum meeting for teachers, vice principals, and principals. I got many group projects during training which helped me to build relationship and exchange knowledge with colleagues. I got so many insight from them because of the differences in each centers and most of them have more teaching experience than me. In addition, I had training about child development with psychologist which enables me to understand my students better. These days, I keep contacting teachers from different centers to discuss about teaching method and materials.

In conclusion, network is an effective resource for my professional development. My teaching experiences in Poland, ISCO, and Kinderfield are really different in terms of curriculum, children's background, and the school's environment which became a great challenge for me. However, building and maintaining relationship have developed my self to unravel the challenges. My broad networking in education sectors could contribute to Chevening networks. Moreover, I would be glad to share my experience and expand my networking with Chevening scholars.

Scholarship / Every individual has their own leadership potential. Chevening Essay about Leadership and Influence [2]

I am applying for Chevening Scholarship. Please kindly help me to improve my essay about leadership and influence. Thank you.

LEADERSHIP & INFLUENCE QUESTION

Chevening is looking for individuals who will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer.

(minimum word count: 100 words, maximum word count: 500 words)

Every individual has their own leadership potential. However, I believe that leadership needs to be sharpen through experience. My leadership skills have changed a lot since I joined student organizations. I was interested in joining student council in my secondary school, in spite of my quiet personality. I had gone several nerve-wracking interviews until I finally got accepted. I tried to do all the responsibilities that I got in every school events such as students orientation, competition, school concert, etc. On the other hand, I did not mingle very well because I was really quite. I felt like the other members did not care about my presence. When one year period ended, I decided to leave the organization. Every member had individual assessment by the seniors in the end of period. It turned out that my seniors were satisfied with my performance and they want me to lead the juniors in the next period. After the assessment, I cried by myself because I regretted doubting myself. In result, I knew that self-esteem and appreciation are important for a leader.

I kept joining student organizations in college. During my second year in the university, I was chosen to be the head of human resource development division in Social Welfare Student Association. My division's objective is developing the member's performance. One of my programs is to choose the best member and the best division of the month. It was a great motivation to boost the organization's performance. I had six staffs and we worked together for one year. We had been through a lot of struggles in making team building, trainings, monthly plenary, assessment, etc. I always gave them appreciation after each program that we made and gave them chance to express themselves during evaluation. Most of my staffs had difficulties in public speaking, I tried to improve their confidence through simulations. I felt content to watch their incredible development in a year. One of my staffs became the chairman of the association which made me extremely proud. On my graduation day, my staffs gave me a flowers bouquet to express their appreciation. This made me realize that I gave influence to my staffs about the importance of giving appreciation.

Now I am working as a kindergarten teacher. My students are my best followers because children are the fastest learners who are always curious about everything. It is my responsibility to be a good influencer for my students. I try to give my students character development every day. For example, I teach my student to be responsible. If my students who spill their water or food to the floor, they must clean up by themselves.

To sum up, I have made choices to join organizations and those choices have made who I am today. Being a great leader and influencer is not an instant process. I would like develop myself with further education and organizational experiences to be a better leader for bigger community in the future. (495 words)