Undergraduate / What motivated you to apply to TFI and why is it important to you that you are accepted [3]

Ever since I was a child, it has been drilled into me that duty to your nation comes first. I have been told, and have understood that there is a vast difference between wanting to do something and actually doing it. When I first heard about 'Teach for India', I was an idealistic 21 year old who was bent on making a place for me in this world. This included getting a job first, making money, earning a good reputation and then later on in life, do something that that others could benefit from. Yes, like all among our age group, I too wanted to make a change but didn't know where to start. So like all others, I got a job and told myself I could the change the world later. I decided I could always make time for 'Teach for India' later. And for two years I gave my job everything that I could give.

In 2011, I quit my job as a senior process associate; because I felt I just wasn't doing anything that another person could learn from. I felt like a robot going through the motions, every day I sit in front of a computer and type up reports for somebody from another country who didn't want to do that particular job and passed it on to a cheap service provider. It went from being something that I loved to a monotonous and meaningless job which gave me no satisfaction. I was no longer enamored with the lure of making money and thoroughly disillusioned with the corporate world. I realized I couldn't deal with the 'rat race' and took a break to rediscover myself. A year later I found inspiration in an advertisement for 'Teach for India' which said "Every child deserves an excellent education". I read about the fellowship and the story of a fellow and knew that, here is a chance to give back to the nation which has given me so much. I was lucky to receive a good education, both at school and at home. Our country has so many children that may not be as lucky and privy to the same kind of education. This strengthened my resolve to join 'Teach for India' and help little children mould themselves to become good members of society. I would like to inspire and motivate them to bring out the best in each child. Yes, the road to end educational inequity is long, but I would like to be a part of something that struggles to eradicate educational inequity. After all, today's youth are tomorrow's leaders.

Thanks for reading.

Please help me with grammar, punctuation and any correction if necessary. It's urgent! It has be 400 words.

Scholarship / Help with Essay on a substantial commitment made, challenges faced and the outcome. [4]

Hi,
Please find below the essay I have written for a scholarship. Please proof read it for me and let me know if I have to make any corrections based on grammar, language and punctuation. The essay has to be at least 450 words. This is urgent. Please help.

During the time that I worked as a Senior Process Associate in Indirect Procurement between 2010 -11, I met several people who had great knowledge when it came to the subject matter that we were working on, but couldn't communicate well because their grasp on the English language was not good. Since they always worked under time constraints, the recruiters always looked for knowledge rather than great communication skills. The client we worked for demanded that all the employees be very fluent in written and verbal skills. Hence there were a lot of escalations against these people for their work. To reduce the amount of escalations, the team manager decided to employ a communications expert to help the team members.

The responsibilities of the communications expert were to help the employees improve their written and verbal skills as well as grade the employees based on their level of communication level. After appraising their language skills, the employees were divided into groups based on their performance and grades. Since the Communications expert had to concentrate all her efforts on the worst performers, the rest of the employees with better language skills had to lead a group of 10-12 members of low performers and help them in improving their skills.

Since I had a good score, I volunteered to lead one group. Our group consisted of a few of my seniors and my peers. The challenging part of leading your seniors, who have a lot more experience, not just in years but also are experts on the subject, is in correcting them in a way so as not to offend them. The group's contracts and e-mails had to be proof read and any conversation with the clients had to be monitored. Since most of our work included contractual work, extra care had to be taken so as not to distort the meaning which would mean an invalid contract and another escalation. Most of them had a problem with the language because of 'Mother Tongue Influence' (MTI as we called it). To get rid of MTI is not an easy task, but the members of our group were an enthusiastic bunch. Every day we held mock negotiation calls to help improve their fluency and confidence. They wrote essays and practiced reading from an English newspaper to help with their writing skills and pronunciation. Our spare time was all spent in helping them better themselves and the rest of the time when we worked on our contracts. The communications expert and I would have regular meetings on their progress. Tests and debates were conducted regularly, so that we could assess the progress the group members were making.

The group who were so cautious around each other initially did so well that all of them cleared the appraisal. A few of them still sent me e-mails and contracts to proof read and had me monitor their phone calls so that I could give them pointers to correct themselves. A few colleagues even sent me e-mails to proof read after I quit working. And in all this it just wasn't them who bettered themselves, I learnt a lot about contractual procedure and legalities from the group, which helped me provide better service to the clients I was responsible for.