Graduate / "My interest in planning" - Statement of Purpose - GA Tech [2]

Can some please review and give input on my statment of purpose? Thanks!

Please clearly indicate the reasons you wish to study in your chosen program at Georgia Tech as opposed to some other program or university. The biography should describe the applicant's academic background, training and experience and should mention honors, memberships, and extracurricular activities. Special areas of research or interest should be discussed. Please be concise and specific in your response. Your space is limited to 4000 characters.

My interest in planning began when I was 14 years old. At the time, my great aunt Georgia, who had just moved from New Jersey, was venting her frustrations to my mother on the stress of finding floor plans. I instinctively sketched what would be her new home and my first plan. My aunt's adoption of the plan would establish a passion in planning that would apparently remain to date. This experience would create the impetus to seek a master's degree in planning.

Among the job experiences where I gained practical skills and experience along with opportunities to use my analytical skills include my work with Sprint, where I worked before joining AT&T where I have worked for over 7 years. Among my achievements, I strategically reallocated various resources at AT&T's Consumer Value Center that resulted in a thirty-five percent increase in overall productivity. This action ensured that 80 % of all inbound calls were answered within 20 seconds, thus making our center number 2 in the division for profitability. I put into action a short-term and long-term disability management tools that drastically decreased employee absenteeism rates from 15 % to 2% in less than 2 years. I worked in conjunction with our payroll department to implement a "checks and balances" system, which decreased my center's payroll error rates from 25 % to 3% in a 2 year period. I collaborated with several departments to create a company-wide process that restructured Family Medical Leave Act reporting. This drastically increased the center's efficiency by 30 % in Q1, Q3 and Q4 of 2008. These experiences, which required use of analytical skills more than my studies in college, have shaped who I am today.

My career goals in the short term period of up to 2 years comprises of first finishing my graduate degree. I would like to join city government, managing a large group of employees in the public sector. This should be accompanied with a strong departmental budget of over $1 billion. In the long run, I plan to work in as a top raking city official preferably a City Manager, Director of Planning or Mayor. This experience will leverage my gubernatorial candidacy.

My reason for seeking admission at Georgia Institute of Technology (GA Tech) is actually twofold: 1. I want to differentiate myself from my colleagues. 2. I want the opportunity to study amongst quality faculty and a rich diverse student population. With the state of our economy, it has become necessary to distinguish yourself amongst completion because most have decided to seek graduate degrees, saturating the job market. I believe studying at GA Tech would give me a competitive edge over my colleagues. Secondly, diversity is important to me, my experiences in growing up in different racially mixed environments, imparted in me a reality of cultural diversity that was to provide me a unique and contrasting view of the world. This further enhanced my diversity by increasing my understanding and appreciation of different racial and cultural backgrounds and this would serve me later in my career especially as a team player. Whereas growing up in racially different backgrounds was a source of frustration while growing up, it was to form the basis of my appreciation of other cultures and what would be one of my strongest points in my career in human resources. Such experiences although not all are important have shaped me by offering a broader outlook in life that has enabled working with others more fulfilling.

Looking back over my past, I've had several experiences that have invariably altered my life as I know it. Not only do I live a diverse life filled with a great amount of culture; none of it would be relevant today if I didn't experience life in the order in which I did. I owe my unique world view to these stark cultural contrasts and as a result, I've learned about inclusion through adversity. I believe some of these characteristics would enable me to adapt well to the diversity in your institution, enrich your institutions diversity besides being beneficial to me in the course of undertaking my graduate course at the institution. GA Tech offers the best opportunities for my advancement, a Master of City and Regional Planning would also provide me with a comprehensive and broad based education that would impart technical skills and a knowledge base that would aid me in my fulfilling my career aspirations.