Chevening Scholarships: 4 questions essay. Personal statement and Academic Background

Hello, I'm applying to a Chevening scholarship and would like some feedback on my essays
1.Your personal statement: Explain why you are applying to the Chevening programme and describe the personal, intellectual and interpersonal qualities that make you well placed to be a future leader in your home country. 300 max

Since I was old enough to remember, my mother has always said to me this three words: faith, confidence and judgment; faith that things will resolve themselves, confidence in your abilities and trust in your judgment. This kind and strong words have led me through the easiest and most difficult decisions in my life. It took one biology class during senior year of high school to define that my undergraduate degree would be biotechnology. By the end of sophomore year, I became a volunteer at the Molecular Multi-users laboratory of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and had the chance to experience first-hand how a research project is conducted. Achieving this on my free time around college classes help me developed a strong work ethic, organizational and communications skills with my fellow volunteers and supervisor. This volunteering work was the reason I decided to complete the mandatory professional practice requisite abroad in Argentina.

Being away from home made me stronger and more independent, it also help me deal with overcoming the adversity during the initials steps for obtaining an antibody against our target protein. This experience made me realize that developing a critical thinking train of thought is the key for success.

The main reason why I'm applying to this programme is because studying in the UK, specifically in London, has always been my dream; it's the home of the majority of top rank colleges in the field of life sciences and it has the type of multicultural environment and ancient history that I would like to get to know of. The second reason is because Panama is still lacking in diversity of postgraduates programmes for life sciences and it would definitely set my apart from my peers on my way to becoming a leader in my country.

2. Your academic background: Describe your educational achievements to date. You should explain why you feel confident in your ability to successfully complete your proposed courses of study in the UK, and specify why your courses were chosen. 300max

In a world where nothing can be under complete control, I took the one thing that I could control about my education: my achievements. I graduated high school ranking first of the class and got two scholarships to support my undergraduate education, one from a government institution and the other from the university itself.

My undergraduate education also finished with me ranking first of the graduating class, with the option to a postgraduate scholarship to be use at a local programme, which meant that I couldn't use it because none of the programmes encouraged to the right path.

I feel that with my determination and proven track record of academic achievements I can complete successfully any of the three programmes I have selected: 1. Pharmacogenetics and Stratified Medicine, 2. Drug research and development and 3. Applied biosciences and biotechnology. I choose these 3 programmes because of the way they are designed and they would help me achieve my potential as a research scientist in the pharmaceutical industry. The skills that I would learn in these programmes are universal and would be of great help to the Panamanian industry.

I'm currently working on the other two questions:
3. Your leadership and networking skills: Outline your experience and style of leadership. You should discuss your commitment to networking within the Chevening community, and beyond, in order to find solutions or bring about beneficial change. 300 max

4. Your career plan and benefit to your home country: Describe your immediate plans upon completion of your Chevening award. You should explain your longer-term (5-10 year) career objectives and describe how your time in the UK will help you achieve these. You should also discuss how a Chevening award would benefit you and your home country. 300 max

Looks great! my only concern is maybe to be more speicfic when talking about your academic background. Colleges love detail so they can really get a great idea of who you are.

Thanks ksinger, I will work on it and post a newer version of question 2 and my answers to question 3 and 4

"My mother's words of wisdom" Chevening applications essays

4. Panama is in need of drugs that are safer, cheaper and better suit it to its population.Your career plan and benefit to your home country: Describe your immediate plans upon completion of your Chevening award. You should explain your longer-term (5-10 year) career objectives and describe how your time in the UK will help you achieve these. You should also discuss how a Chevening award would benefit you and your home country. 300 max

My immediate plan at the time of my return to Panama is to start working for the pharmaceutical industry or research laboratory where I would put my new abilities to good use in the process of developing new drugs, test systems and troubleshooting for the industry. I believe that the experience I would gain by doing a master's degree on the UK would set me apart from my peers as a highly motivated individual with the sufficient knowledge to become a successful scientist.

My career objectives are, first to gain sufficient industry experience to learn to tackle the problems that can occur during drug design and development. After that, I would go back to graduate school to obtain a doctorate degree to learn to be a full-time researcher.

By the end of my doctorate, I expect to become a Director of research and development department for drugs affected by genetic variations on a research laboratory. I believe that through this position I could make big changes to the current situation in Panama on the drug market. This area of development is very important for my country and is contemplated by the government on their National Strategic Plan for Science Technology and Innovation. Panama is in need of drugs that are safer, cheaper and better suit it to its population.

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If you could give some pointers about the content and if there are any grammatical errors I would be very grateful.

Hi, I have edited some of the grammar mistakes,

3. My work experience has taught me one thing: that I work best when given the independence to develop my own ideas. This translates to me being a leader that expects everyone is as driven as myself and has high expectations of my peers, what other people define as a pace setter.

My first leadership experience came from being named the chief of the section I was part of on the marching band of my high school during senior year 2007. It was the biggest challenge a 16-year-old girl could take on. One of my goals was to boost the number of members of that section which I achieved by having 21 girls from different ages join the section. Under my leadership we became a tight unit and came to win second place of the National Marching Bands contest. After high school graduation I focused on my academic achievements and took a step back on leadership, but I had to put these skills back on practice on my current job at a small contract laboratory that is overseen by the U.S headquarters.; luckily it has turned out to be the best learning experience a young scientist could have asked for because of the administrative and science nature of the job.

This job has also helped in developing my communication and networking skills by constant research and business meetings with local and foreign scientists. If I become a Chevening scholar it would be my priority to meet with other alumni in my field to find global solutions that can be applied locally.

"discuss your commitment to networking within the Chevening community, and beyond, in order to find solutions or bring about beneficial change" You didn't really answer this part of the question. BTW I'm applying for Chevening as well. But I can't seem to find motivation to collect my thoughts together to answer these few questions. And it's so depressing!((

For the first sentence, I would simply remove the semi colon and create a new sentence. Things will flow smoother that way.

It took one biology class during senior year of high school to define that my undergraduate degree would be biotechnology
"...discover that I was going to pursue an undergraduate degree in biotechnology."

Achieving this on my free time around college classes help me developed a strong work ethic, organizational and communications skills with my fellow volunteers and supervisor

"Balancing this with my college classes helped me develop a strong work ethic as well as organizational and communication skills."

Also perhaps add a specific experience that taught you these attributes? There also continues to be a few grammar mistakes but overall it is good essay that would profit from adding some personal experiences and explanation about how certain things taught you what you claim they taught you