Career in the academe - PERSONAL STATEMENT - GKSP MASTER'S DEGREE

Global Korea Scholarship personal statement

Hi. I would like to ask your feedback with this personal statement I wrote for Global Korea Scholarship. I would really appreciate comments on areas or points where I can further improve it. I sincerely hope you could help me. Thank you!

Here's the essay:

As a firm believer of education, I always have this burning desire to pursue higher studies in order to elevate my existing knowledge. However, as someone who identifies herself as underprivileged, obtaining a degree in a prestigious university is a great challenge given my family's limited resources. Thus, when I came across the Global Korea Scholarship program, I immediately thought that this might be my chance to fulfill one of my lifelong dreams. South Korea is one of Asia's highly-developed countries, and the opportunity to experience firsthand their advanced technology, modern lifestyle, and higher educational system appealed greatly to me personally.

On a much deeper level, having experienced the struggles of fulfilling my tertiary degree, I realized how education still remains a privilege instead of a basic right. I could not imagine this further happening to our younger generation who has so much potential in making the world a better place. Hence, I wanted to be a part of the solution in providing easy access to education, ensuring underprivileged children obtain equal opportunities. By pursuing higher studies and gaining further necessary experiences, I would be able to join agencies or institutions in spearheading campaigns or projects putting forth the welfare of the youth.

My father used to work as a seafarer until he reached the old age - about time when I would just be entering college. My mother, not being able to reach high school level of education, always aspired that I would. By the second semester of my first year in college, my family have been living off our small business that is house rental. This is when my mother resorted to opening a small eatery to sustain my expensive schooling. Together with my father, they would cater eagerly to customers looking to fill their stomachs on a budget. However, expenses kept on piling up and so is our debts. In my semestral breaks, I would take a summer job as a call center representative to help pay our bills. Thankfully, in my last year in the university, I was finally granted a scholarship. That aided us in our finances and enabled the completion of my bachelor's degree.

After graduation, I initially wanted a career in the academe. Having fell in love with my degree, I was hoping to share it to my future students. However, becoming a teacher entails fulfillment of teaching units, which meant more studying. I knew that my family is not well-capable and I do not want to burden them further. Instead, I opted to look for a job to immediately alleviate my old parents the task to earn money themselves. Fortunately, I ended up in entertainment production. Despite having zero background about it, I thrived because I value every opportunity that came my way. If there is something I am proud of, it is the fact that I have proven I am always capable of learning and even excelling at it. In my second year at work, I was single-handedly overseeing the post production department of our shows [(Los Bastardos, 2018-2019), (Pamilya Ko, 2019-2020)].

For almost five years, working in TV has become my passion. I love that our programs offer comfort and entertainment to the viewers. More importantly, I believe that they mirror the lives of the typical Filipino household, making their stories sources of inspiration and hope to all. Last year, our broadcast network was forcefully shutdown by the government. I became one of the casualties who lost her primary source of income due to the company retrenchment. While the situation was highly unfavorable, it gave me the break I needed to pursue an old passion that still rings in my heart - that is to continue higher studies and eventually work at a nonprofit organization aimed at improving the lives of the youth.

Back in college, I was a student leader and I organized events and activities for student's academic and extra-curricular development. Most notably, I spearheaded the UST BlogCon 2013 and Junior Form Function & Class 2014 events. These are University-wide events well-attended by students coming from other universities. Our organization, TomasinoWeb, was awarded with St. Dominic de Guzman Award that school year for its outstanding performance in organizing activities with significant impact to the University and community.

My last year in the University was one of the best years in college when I got accepted to JENESYS (Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youths), a student exchange program held in Japan. Moreover, I also got in Aboitiz Future Leaders Business Summit (AFLBS), a student leadership program held in Cebu, Philippines. My outstanding performance in these conferences merited me a Benavides Outstanding Achievement Award, a recognition for my commitment to student excellence. Furthermore, I successfully published my thesis study in one of the revered linguistic publications in the country, The Philippine Journal of Linguistics, in 2015.

There are several aspects of the prompt that you fail to address. The most obvious missing theme is the motivation by which you apply for the program. A desire to continue your education is one thing, but that should not be mistaken for a motivation. The motivation needs to be represented clearly in the essay as a part of the career objectives. I do not understand if you are planning to go into a career change through these studies, if you plan to start your own television network, continue with your career in entertainment or what. This is nothing more than an academic biography which does not provide all of the necessary information based on the prompt requirements.