Graduate / Essay for MS in Commerce at UVA - describe the unique aspects of your background and motivations [3]

Hi All,

I am applying the MS in Commerce program at University of Virginia. I have drafted the first version of the required essay, and will appreciate any advices of yours. Thanks!

The admission committee seeks candidates with a strong academic background whose goals and motivation are a good fit within the culture, content, and opportunities presented by the M.S. in Commerce Program. Please describe the unique aspects of your background and motivations, and how you see them fitting into what you know about the program. Be sure to include in your discussion what you hope to gain by participating in the program and what strengths you feel you have to contribute to the program. (500 word limit)

MS in Commerce program strongly attracts me

An alumni's talk depicting his challenging yet rewarding career path at BCG brought me to the field of consulting. There were many times after that career development workshop I envisioned myself as a professional consultant.

Last year, the internship opportunity at Hejun transformed my dream into reality. Through pitching diverse clients, I enhanced my strength in communication skills. Through desk researches for pinpointing specific solutions, I discovered my ability of quickly forming in-depth understanding of both client companies and various industries. Through interviews with senior executives and in-house professionals, I gained insights on business models and trends. Through putting forward, debating on, and revising proposals, I also managed to paint a bigger picture of business operation. My fast growing capacity at Hejun, and more importantly, my burning passion in consulting, confirmed that this is where my life interest lies.

I then secured my second internship in consulting at Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI). This internship enabled me to scrutinize and evaluate companies' performance through the perspective of the capital market. The quantitative analyses on companies' financial situations, governance structures, and business sustainability revealed to me what the market expects and where the corporate fails. I also mastered to use models to quantify companies' management problems by rating their asset management qualities and long-term systematic risks, which are critical indices for investors. The strong correlation between the capital market and a company's long-term development and its governance showed me the importance of taking management, accounting, and finance aspects of a company into consideration when making business decisions.

The MSCI internship to a great extent cultivated my interest in corporate finance and narrowed down my career path to financial consulting or general consulting with the specialization in the finance industry. I found that the MS in Commerce program at McIntire perfectly fits my career needs by providing a curriculum with a solid business core and a specialty in finance. The core courses will enable me to better understand different functional areas in business; whereas the specialty part will allow me to systematically foster my quantitative skills and critical thinking ability through mastering more decision-making tools and analytical models.

Beyond the academic excellence of UVA and its long-built prestige among consulting employers, the MS in Commerce program also strongly attracts me for its unique global perspective. This is an important factor that tops UVA my dream school list and also the strength I could contribute to the program.

My undergraduate training in liberal arts endowed me with not only mastery of the Japanese language but also a global view. When interning at Ogilvy, I took the challenge of cooperating with a public relations company sponsored by the Dubai government, breaking the stereotyped image of the Emirate of Dubai by re-portraying this country in Chinese people's eyes. And at Reuters, I was entrusted to cover the Japanese market, obtaining precious information on business operations and financial market in Japan. During the presentation session of the course Business Strategy at Imperial College London, I led my 'international' team to accomplish a 'standing out' proposal by detailing different business strategies when targeting different regions. I would like to make the program's global immersion project my best classroom, immersing myself to the dynamics of the global business world while adding value to UVA.

Graduate / Essay for MSF in Carey Business School - Business with humanity. Need your advices [3]

Business with humanity in mind

Hi Everyone,

I am applying the MSF program at the Carey business school of JHU. I have drafted the first version of the required essay, and will appreciate any advices of yours.

1st required essay
Business with humanity in mind means many things to different people. Please explain what business with humanity in mind means to you and how you will apply your knowledge, skills and abilities to advance this ideal over the next five years. (500 word maximum)

My belief that 'business with humanity in mind' means 'to create business sustainability' has been solidified through my internship at the ESG Research Department of Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI). ESG stands for environmental, social, and governance, which summarizes topics including emission, waste, product quality, community impact, and human rights that we produce evaluation reports on. These reports focus on both potential business risks and how companies manage these risks.

At MSCI I have been in charge of following Tokyo Electric Power Company for the aftermath of Fukushima nuclear crisis. It is such a typical example to reveal how business sustainability is associated with humanity. The problems of dealing with the radiation waste, newly discovered exposure of Tokyo Electric employees, and subsequent protests against the restart of the nuclear plant sound the alert that high profit companies may cause severe disasters and even threaten people's life.

Fortunately, nowadays more and more companies begin to realize the importance of business sustainability. An increasing number of phone calls from listed companies in China seeking advices on our evaluation system and hoping to establish communication channels with the international capital market indicate this positive change.

I plan to contribute to this great change by securing a position in a consulting firm in China after graduation from Carey. In coming years, I would like to bring back brilliant business ideas, provide effective managerial advices, and help more companies make strategic determinations while support their business sustainability.

This career plan is well supported by my knowledge, skills, and abilities gained through my internship experiences. Before MSCI, I interned at Hejun Consulting Group, through which I discovered my career aspiration in financial consulting. Taking responsibilities in an equity incentive project for a listed company, I had done the job of helping the company improve salary competitiveness, which is, in nature helping the company develop its business sustainability in the long-run. By accomplishing productive interviews with people from the very top of the organizational hierarchy down to the very bottom and managing to proficiently switch between technical and non-technical terms when investigating from the macro-strategies to executive problems encountered by first-line employees, I also discovered my strength in communication skills, one of the most important professional qualifications required for a successful consultant.

The MSCI internship further endowed me with improvement of research and analytical skills while equipped me with methodologies of evaluating companies' business sustainability and their social impacts. More importantly, this internship has changed the stereotyped image of the finance industry to me from profit-driven to shouldering more social responsibilities. It is again through this internship that I have been cultivated the strategic thinking ability for considering companies' long-term interests and from the perspective of their social impacts.

I am looking forward to advancing my finance knowledge and skills from the MS Finance program at Carey Business School. By taking advantage of Carey's perfect location at Washington, faculty's strengths in both academia and industry, and curriculum focus in managing financial risks and quantitative analysis methods, I will become a well-rounded finance professional, bearing Carey's value of emphasizing humanity deeply in mind.