Scholarship / Fulbright Study Objective - psychology and business administration student [3]

STUDY OBJECTIVE - PhD in economy

At the beginning of the last decade when I was in high school, declining in Turk's economy was becoming visible and everyone talked about it, therefore I starting to be interested in economy. Over a last decade prognosticatively Turkey's economy is faced with various problems. During my college years, I noticed that current economical interventions and policies are not enough to recover, and it is needed for new viewpoints. So, I determined my further career goal because of these reasons.

I decided to pursue PhD in economy, and to specialize in Behavioral Economics. During my college education, my interest in behavioral economics led me to do double major in psychology. As a student in business administration department, I gain knowledge about both economy and finance, and as a student in psychology department, I learned about cognitive essentials of human behavior. Therefore, I believe that I have achieved the essential education required to study behavioral economics during my undergraduate process. In order to extend my theoretical knowledge with the practical experience, I did an internship for 6 months in Behavioral Public Policy Department in Ministry of Economy. During my internship, I have assisted in every phase of experiments designed to improve effectiveness of public policies. In these processes, designing experimental groups, integration of behavioral elements into trials, random control trials were carried out, and the results were analyzed.

During my PhD education, in addition to courses offered by the university I aim to develop and specialize in conducting research in behavioral economics lab and offering evidence-based practices to literature. I aim to be academician who works behavioral economics in a scientific manner and fills the lack of knowledge about this field as far as I can. In particularly, my purpose is to become an expert who can integrate behavioral elements into public economic policies and offer an evidence-based behavioral economics practices to governmental organizations. Even an economy model supported by behavioral implication attracts great attention from all over the world, but this model has not been considered by academia and governments in Turkey. Therefore, I have determined my career goals due to these reasons.

Personally, there are certain reasons for studying economics in US. Firs of all, best universities in which qualified economics education is given are in USA, regarding this last Nobel Prizes given for behavioral economics studies are created by scientists working in US universities. This achievement of these universities inspired me to study in US. In addition to having one of the largest economies, USA has a significant economic background and knowledge, I believe that I benefit from accumulation of this information. Additionally, USA-Turkey relationship and Turkey's economic condition are also critical for safety of middle eastern, I aim to benefit from studying in the United States to understand the dynamics of both countries, also help to build secure relationship between two countries.

In conclusion, as a both psychology and business administration student, I have a strong educational background and motivation to study economics and specialize in behavioral economics. Thank to my experience in Behavioral Public Policy Unit in Ministry of Economy, I gained insight about behavioral economics practices and behavioral public policies, I also acquired ability to conduct a research systematically and to integrate behavioral elements into experiments. My motivation to obtain PhD degree in this field is that becoming a scientist who raise awareness of behavioral economics implications and evidence-based policies. Also, I want to motivate new generation to have a more open world view and encourage them to benefit from programs such as Fulbright.

Scholarship / Fulbright Personal Statement - study in the USA would be beneficial [3]

Hello, this is my personal statement for Fulbright, but I need serious help. I put some ?? for the sentences that I am not sure, if you help me for these sentece also I will be appreciated. Thanks for your help.

"Personal Statement"

Kirikkale, the city with the highest crime rate in Turkey (this is the city where I was born??). I remember my childhood days as being generally happy without being aware of faulty beliefs of my society. When women smoke, these women were shammed by society, smoking with men or in street is especially unthinkable. Until midnight, women spent time outside and terrible something happened to them, people generally thought that it was a little of her fault. After leaving my hometown for university education, I started to realize that I grew up with the perception of world where accepting wrongs as truths.

In 2014 university entrance exam, I achieved to get a result which corresponding to 0.1% among 2.5 million students. With these results, I was awarded with fully funded scholarship and achievement grant. When I was a college freshman, I met the field of behavioral economics and ideas of Daniel Kahneman who is psychologist and, also Nobel prized economist. I decided to move forward with the point where Kahneman and Thaler draws attention. In order to better understand thoughts that underlie people's economic behavior, I started to do double major in Psychology while pursuing my major in Business Administration.

As a result of my graduation from business and psychology departments at the end of four years and with the knowledge I gained about behavioral economy, I came to the conclusion about my society, that is impossible to change all wrong norms in society but it is possible to achieve great results from small behavioral changes with idea that underlying the philosophy of behavioral economics.

In addition to my compulsory courses that has given me insight into both psychology and business administration, I also have taken elective courses to be able to analyze human behavior better. In the course of behavioral neurobiology that normally seems irrelevant from economics, however, I learned how the evolution of human genes and survival instinct determine the erroneous economic behaviors of modern people. I also enrolled in international economics and finance class taught by Dr. Atılım Murat whose have special interest in behavioral finance. My goal for this course were to develop deeper understanding of a comparative evaluation of implications in Turkey's and world's economy. In particular, I have gained (a?) greater understanding of reasons and consequences for the situation currently happening in Turkey. I have strengthened my knowledge of economics by discussing in the class what structural reforms can be made for economic problems of Turkey.

My motivation to study in this area direct me to search behavioral economics practices in Turkey. Although this field has been awarded several times with the Nobel prize, I observed that this area has not been attract the expected attention by both academies and organizations in Turkey. Fortunately, I reached out to the newly established Behavioral Public Policy department at the Ministry of Economy and have done an internship in there for 6 months.

During my internship, I have helped in adding behavioral elements to e-mails sent to experimental groups, and also have assisted in keeping data of groups nudged with behavioral messages, and statistically analyzed the effect of these messages on groups.

We organized Nudge Bootcamps with World Bank in both Bosporus University and Middle East Technical University in order to increase awareness of behavioral and experimental-based policies among university students. During these bootcamps, where I took part (??), the students were asked to propose public policies supported by behavioral elements. Besides my theoretical knowledge, I gained experience in real world behavioral and economical practices, I was also becoming more aware of limitations and implications. (??)

In recent years, Turkey's economy is struggling with various problems such as high rate of inflation, unemployment, erosion of Turkish lira, etc. I strongly believe that evidence-based and behavioral policy perspective can be an important step in solving the problems in Turkey's economy.

This study area can lead to significant change not only in the national economy, but also in the town where I was born. From the perspective of behavioral economics, the nodes that cause serious problems can be solved by small nudges as Richard Thaler suggested. However, we are not sufficiently aware of importance of this issue in Turkey. This field, bringing a whole new perspective in the economy, is not given in our universities as a course, also there is not enough scientific research done by our academicians. Therefore, I have a limited access to gain knowledge on this subject as a result of these circumstances(??). As a business student both interested in economics and finance, as well as a successful student of psychology who is interested in studying human behavior closely, I believe that taking education in USA where the country has some of the best universities in the field of behavioral economics, would be beneficial for me and that I hope that I will be helpful in filling this knowledge gap in the academy when I return to my country as a competent academician.