Chevening Essay on Relationship building and shared learning

Treat Others the Way You Want to Be Treated

As a social creature, building and maintaining relationship is a basic element to be a human being and key aspect to success in the professional realm. From my experience, building a strong and meaningful network not only has given me access to a wide range of new opportunities and expanded my knowledge, but it also makes me to be more empathy with people's perspectives. By understanding people's background and being an active listner, this approach suits me well to develop new relationship as well as maintain existing relationship in personal and professional level.

This kind of relationship helped me when I worked at Peatland Restoration Agency where I had co-created with co-workers and external parties, such as researchers, to develop an early warning system for peat fires in Indonesia. The platform development was pretty intense where I have to conduct series of internal discussion with the researchers to develop and translate the mathematical equations from the research paper into programmatic languange and make it as an automatical system for the stakeholder. To support me in developing processes, they linked me up to another engineer from their end who happened to have an experience to develop an automatical platform, in which something I found to be intriguing for shared learning. In addition, I was also working together with the researchers to conduct site visit to peatland area to take samples for system validation, where I found myself have been exposured with practical and theoritical aspect at the same time. The development process went well and the platform eventually integrated with multistakeholders' platforms in the national government level where I also serve to lead the integration process with the researchers. By reflecting the process, the way I build and maintain relationships with people has made it easier for me to expand my knowledge and gain access to more opportunities. I am also very pleased that the outcomes of my efforts and lessons learned throughout the project can be shared and used for wider benefits in the scope of the company.

In my opinion, treating people in a way that you want to be treated is the best approach which has proven to help me in developing more solid, trusted, and lasting relationships throughout my professional career. Furthermore, alongside with the advance of internet of things where people can easily connect to each other through social media platforms, I strongly believe the face-to-face conversations with people we encounter daily are still much engaged and can have a significant impact. Together with these values, I am confident that I will be able to make the most of the diverse and multicultural Chevening network and make great contributions to the Chevening community and beyond. Finally, I aim to utilize the knowledge, network, and skill I acquired from my study in the UK to promote not only my professional career but also Indonesia's development and leave a positive legacy behind.

You hit the notes needed for the networking aspect of the discussion. but you are lacking in the diversity aspect. The prompt opens with a question of diversity in the workplace, often through networking. You did not relate your experience at work, and the 3rd party referral to that section of the prompt requirement. If there was a diversity link somewhere in the work experience, then you should highlight it. The reviewer is actually going to be looking for that reference. It will carry a heavy consideration with regards to your application. Therefore, diversity discussions of any kind must be referenced and highlighted in the presentation. It is not optional, it is a requirement.