Scholarship / PERSONAL STATEMENT - KGSP 2019 - ENGLISH LITERATURE [3]

Hello Everyone,
I hope you help me to give your opinion, correction, suggestion and maybe some ideas for my personal statement below.

a golden gate for my future education

It is such in a passionate time typing this statement because I do hope that it will be a golden gate for my future education. This brought me back to the time before I enrolled in college as a student of English Literature. It was a difficult time for me because I could not immediately continue my studies after graduating from high school. This happened not because I was lazy, but because of the economic situation of my parents who were unable to finance my studies to college. To pursue my study in college, I decided to work first. Then I was accepted to work in a flexible packaging factory as an accounting and financial staff. Even, I didn't have any basics on it. My first main job was creating invoice and tax. I spent one and a half year to get enough money to pursue my higher education in college.

Before I enrolled in college, I thought of majoring in accounting and finance, but I asked myself about what I want to be in the future, what I like most and think what things cannot be done by most of workers and people around me. The answer is English. I really love studying English when others think English is difficult to learn. Someday, I want to be an educator when other people think about getting a big salary and a higher position. Then, I chose English literature even I didn't know exactly what English Literature was, I thought it was a major that will be brought me to learn English deeper because it was related to English, novels, and poetry.

At first, going through two different things at the same time is not easy. Working in the morning and studying on campus in the evening until night really gave me big pressure towards my psychology condition. Many people also called me crazy, they asked me about how to be able to go through two different fields which are not matched at all. But, who knows, after some semesters, after learning the basics of English - grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary etc., and learning about analyzing literary works, and my job responsibility is also changing to handle customer's payment, follow up them by phone, making an income report etc., I can feel that I can apply my English Literature knowledge in my daily and job activities. For example, when there are import and export transactions which require communicating with foreign people using English - with Chinese, Indians, Italians etc., they rely on me to translate and reply to emails. In addition, as well as analyzing character, characteristics, and conflicts that occur in novels and other literary works, I also instinctively analyzed the characters and characteristics of my customers one by one. So, when there is a problem with one of my customers, I know how I should behave and I know how to solve the problem based on their own characteristics.

Because of all of my experiences, therefore, I realized that English Literature is really closely related to some extrinsic elements of literature - such as psychology, environment, culture, history, and social life of the mankind. Because literary works are created from the external elements of the author which are portrayed in figures with the aim of influencing and even changing the views of the reader. That kind of things will be very useful to be studied in-depth not only for me but I hope also for other people in the future. Besides that, I also realized that my knowledge is really lacking to be able to actualize all my ideas and dreams which makes me decide that I need to continue my study to the master degree and if it is possible until Ph.D.

Imagining and planning to study English Literature in Korea will be very challenging for me. Because I will learn two different languages at the same time. In my knowledge, Korea is a developed country which has a very good education system. Some proofs are the rapid technological development, the expansion of Korean culture through its entertainment industry - k-pop & k-drama throughout the world and this scholarship program - GKS. Through NIIED and collaborated with the universities, Korea has been consistently inviting hundreds of talented students from all over the world. It means I was a student from Indonesia who will study in Korea together with a lot of students who mostly comes from English speaking country that will help me to improve my English skill, especially for my speaking skills. Then, I believe, behind the advancement of a country cannot be separated from the role of a good education system and Korea has it.