Scholarship / Professional networking has become an integral to modern life-Chevening [3]

Hello everyone, please someone give me a feedback on my chevening networking essay. i will be glad to receive some feedback guys.

Essay prompt
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.

the power of network

Professional networking has become an integral to modern life and to me, I have cultivated the power of network for career development, self-motivation, skills and expertise development.

I appreciated the power of networking when I met my supervisors while at undergraduate internship. In 2012, I got accepted for an undergraduate internship training at Kiboga Hospital laboratory, Microbiology section. This is where I met Dr. Kevin and Dr. Bosa who were my internal supervisors. Dr. Kevin was working on a Forgaty study on TB patients in Kiboga hospital under infectious diseases institute Uganda. As a biological science student with basic training in microbiology, I asked Dr. Kevin how I could be of help in her research because I realized it was an opportunity to learn more in microbiology. She promised to call me if need be which at first, I took like a rejection.

After 3 weeks of training, she called me in her office and asked me about the course I was pursing. I explained her the units I had studied during that time and she accepted me to be part of her research. She then took me through the literature and asked me to help her on two tasks which were sample Preparations and documentation. This was the beginning of the strong network I built in the whole hospital. She then introduced me to Dr. Grace, the laboratory focal person who also asked me about the course. They had not previously received any student doing another course other than medical laboratory technology, so they all wanted to know about the details of my course.

Dr. Grace allowed me to represent laboratory students in Continuous medical education (CME's) trainings for nurses and doctors where I got a golden opportunity to interact with other professionals. I was later included in the team for community outreaches as the laboratory personnel for voluntary HIV testing.

I have maintained this relationship with them in a professional capacity and in October 2016, I volunteered in Dr. Kevin's project as a research assistant in data collection and analysis when she was assessing the prevalence of malnutrition cases among children admitted in various hospitals around Kampala. My skills in data collection and analysis were improved in this project which I hope to use and develop more in my research career with a chevening scholarship.

I believe that my networking and relationship building skills are strong as portrayed in my leadership positions at work. I have maintained close relationships with my former employers and workmates and still interact in the whatapp groups and personal chats. Currently at work, I have developed my network not only in Quality assurance but also in other departments. As a supervisor, I connect with other departments for support especially engineering and maintenance who give me trainings on systems and machines which I then use while training quality controllers.

Becoming a chevening scholar will further build my network where I hope to engage with other scholars from different parts of the world.