Becoming an academician - GKS-G Personal Statement

GKS program application

Hi. It was my first time applying for the GKS program. So, I would like to get a feedback and some opinions about what I wrote. To be honest, any of my professors have read it. Also, english is not my mother language and I'm still improving my skills and vocabulary. May I post all of my application forms (besides this one, Statement of Purpose and Future Plan after Study)? Anyway, thanks in advance. Here we go!

My name is J. X. S. X. I am 24 years old. I was born and raised in a country town of the State of X. Since I was young, I have always been interested in contents from other countries, like games, music and movies. During high school, I met the psychologist of my school and talking to her about the fields of work helped me to choose Psychology as my desired major.

As soon as I joined university, I started living away from my family, once the campus was in another state. At university, I have experienced living at the university residence/accommodation, where I was member of the dormitory coordination for a few years. These life experiences plus all the knowledge and experiences acquired from the Psychology course boosted up my personal development and helped me to improve some important skills, such as empathy, to pay attention, to respect and take care of others, beyond improve significantly my communication and my interpersonal relationships.

Still during my university days, for my internship, I had the chance to work at Public Defense of R. during two years, offering services for victims of domestic violence, for children that have faced violations of their rights, and other related demands. Also, I participated in an extension project at women's penitentiary of R. and I was member of a service provided to students accompanied by the Student Assistance of University X. During my undergraduate years, I thought that would be interesting to apply for an exchange program, but due to my family financial situation and because I was depending of the Student Assistance to stay at university, I decided to keep this dream for the master's or doctoral degree.

To explain my reason for studying in South Korea, it began after I met a K-POP group that changed my (perspective of) life. Thus, I started having more interest in this music genre and in the south korean culture. However, knowing this culture allowed me to identify some relevant and specific aspects as a fan and a psychology student, for instance, the high suicide rate in South Korea. In addition, the way south korean men express their feelings/affection (usually between friends), plus their interests for make-up, fashion and beauty also got my attention and motivated me to study and collaborate with the south korean society somehow, aiming to relieve or prevent the suffering of its population.

From the demands of my professional training activities and the contact with K-POP songs and south korean dramas, I have noticed that domestic violence was not approached. Consequently, I have considered to study about domestic violence in South Korea. Although, I believe that it is important, firstly, to research and debate about the production of subjectivity of south korean men aiming to know more about this population and the many speeches/discourses that permeate every social institution - that creates norm, legitimacy and law behaviors and life styles -, such as school, family, religion, the media and others. Thus, would be possible to identify and explore particularities of south korean culture, once it (re)compose the subjects.

All of my experiences have enabled a desire of becoming an academician after completing the master's or doctoral degree. Therefore, these interests mentioned above have motivated me to apply for the GKS program, once this scholarship is an excellent opportunity for achieving some of my personal goals and would be a perfect chance to collaborate with the south korean society as well. By the way, the South Korea and its educational system and programs are worldwide recognized, besides all the support that the GKS program offers to the student, including the language program and cultural activities.

I think you should talking less about kpop, because that make them assume you want go there because you are kpop lovers. Or maybe you can express kpop and korea culture on other way.

Keep it up, Hope u pass this program😊

In response to your question, you may post your essays here for review anytime. Just make sure that you post only one essay per thread. If you post more than 1, the admin will delete the other essays and you will not receive advice for it. Stick to the forum rules that allows only for one essay per thread and you will receive a review for each individual thread from a contributor.

Your essay is for a masters GKS right? In this case, the essay that you wrote does not relate at all to the required elements of the prompt. The only part that works with the original discussion requirements is the K-Pop discussion, which, is actually not helpful to the essay. I am guessing that you do not have a copy of the prompt requirements so let me give that to you here. For the masters personal statement, you need to respond to the following:l

o Motivations with which you apply for this program - based on your current career goals that you feel a Korean education can help you with.

o Your education and work experience in relation to GKS.- An overview of your undergraduate course and accomplishments. Any Korean lessons you have been taking.

o Reason for studying in Korea - Related to the motivation, targeted on the accomplishments of Korea in your field of interest and training you hope to receive

o Any other aspects of your background and interests which may help us evaluate your aptitude and passion for graduate study or research.- Refers to your college thesis and research process you used. You may also relate you work requirements that allow you to do research in a related field. The idea is to prove your research skills that can help you complete the course.

Hopefully this detailed outline for the personal statement will help you present a more appropriate personal statement. One better geared towards the prompt requirements.

@nindydizzy, I didn't pass this year, so I'll try to be more careful about that next time!

@Holt

Thank you for your review and response. Actually, I do have a copy of the prompt requirements. Let me try to explain what I had in mind when I added some information and why I wrote the essay like that for the masters GKS.

A) Motivations with which you apply for this program - After the review I think it is missing, but what about the end of paragraph 3, paragraphs 4 and 6?

B) Your education and work experience in relation to GKS - I thought it was covered by paragraph 3 and 4, was it unnecessary information or was it too much information? Plus, I have been studying korean on my own (online), but once I'm not secure about that I decided not to add this information on my essay, should I do it next time?

C) Reason for studying in Korea - Basically, lacking. Now I can realize that it was one of my essay weakness. At first, I thought it was covered by paragraphs 4 and 5, but after the review I have changed my mind.

D) Any other aspects of your background and interests which may help us evaluate your aptitude and passion for graduate study or research - Paragraph 1: some sort of introduction (I thought it would be cool but now it seems unnecessary). Paragraph 2: To be sincere, I think it is an important information about my experience at university. Also, in the first year of the GKS program the students need to share a room, at least. Thus, I added this information to show that I have experience sharing a room/residence (hoping that it would give me some advantage). Here, I would add paragraph 6 too, but I am not sure now. Well, about thesis, I was exempt due to the course regular curriculum, what I should write or add instead?

P.S: I did not send any proficiency test or published papers, I am going to work on that until next year. Plus, explaning what I have done was harder than I thought it would be haha