Chevening Scholarship Networking Question - I have grown as a professional

answer for the Networking question from Chevening

Hello guys, I am a Chevening scholarship aspirant for this year and I would really appreciate if you could give some insight into my answer to the Netwroking question. Any help is welcome Thanks!

During my university days as a Masters student of Politics and International Relations, I attended many conferences as well as presented papers across India which gave me a chance to meet a range of scholars and professionals from the social science field. This was my learning towards network building. I understood that network building is an essential step towards building a solid base for professional career.

After completing my Masters' Degree in 2014, I grabbed the very first opportunity that came my way and took my baby steps in the professional career. I started off as a fundraiser with Greenpeace India. This was the first time I got the opportunity to communicate with people from all walks of life which helped me to strengthen my communication. And, the more you communicate, the more you connect. I believed in this motto thoroughly.

It's been around four years that I have been working in the development sector, and it has helped me to garner knowledge and experience and create a network pool of my own. Diversifying my network by growing professionally through changing my job, meeting new people from different fields and participating in conferences has helped me to increase the professional network. Over time, the professional networking site LinkedIn has also proved to be significant in helping me connect to a vast pool of professionals from across the globe.

As a Communications Officer at the Asha Community Health and Development Society, a New Delhi-based organisation, I have had the chance to work with professionals across the world and share knowledge-exchange with donors, supporters, academicians, scholars, authors, journalists and the likes. Furthermore, being able to speak fluently in English, Hindi and Bengali has also provided me the edge to reach out to potential young leaders from different communities.

Presently, I am working as Communications & Media Officer for Digital Empowerment Foundation, another New Delhi-based organisation working towards educating and informing the rural India through digital literacy. My current profile has helped me to closely work with a varied pool of professionals especially across South Asia. As a Chevening scholar, I would like to broaden my network as well as contribute majorly in strengthening the Chevening circle in India.

I would like to conclude by quoting LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, "your network is the people who want to help you and you want to help them, and that's really powerful".

Hi Shreya, this is an impressive list of your network an impeccable writeup. But what Chevening wants to see is particular instances when you have reached out to your network for help in your work/career and vice versa. You might have to rewrite this essay.

Shreya, remove all references to LinkedIn within your essay. That is not considered a real network as there are questions as to the reliability and authenticity of the people participating in this social media site. It makes you look very amateurish in the eyes of the reviewer. You need to focus only on networks gained through your experiences attending seminars and conferences over the years. You will be lessening the impact of your essay if you retain those references. You must remove that and the quotation from the LinkedIn founder as well. Those will not help with your application. In fact, don't even try to define what networking is. You need to exemplify your networking skills instead.

Here is a suggestion as to how you can revise this essay without having to change it in totality, since most of the content of your essay is important and should be brought to the attention of the reviewer. I would like you to use the following paragraphs as your revised essay foundation: 2,4,5. All of these networking experiences need to be developed within each paragraph with the following information:

1. Office you were working for at the time
2. Specific organizations you networked with
3. How you created these networks (conferences or seminars with dates)
4. Professional situation that led to the use of this network
5. How the network was able to help you address the work situation
6. How you repaid the debt of gratitude to the network member

Now you are not required to show several networking examples. You may opt to choose one or a maximum of 2 networks for the example portion. You have to make a decision based on the maximum word allowance for the essay. I suggest fully building up the most important networking experience that you have rather than confusing the essay with too many references to your networking skills instead.

You need to make references as to why you believe that your network will make a very good addition to the Chevening network and its community of scholars. That will help to address the question as to how you hope to help widen the Chevening network and assist the scholar members of the program. If you can manage to make these corrections, then your essay will probably be considered for the scholarship.