Personal Statement
I would really appreciate if you can help me with my Personal Statement
- Motivations with which you apply for this program
- Family and Education background
- Significant experiences you have had; risks you have taken and achievements you have made, persons or events that have had a significant influence on you
- Extracurricular activities such as club activities, community service activities or work experiences
- If applicable, describe awards you have received, publications you have made, or skills you have acquired, etc.
''The worse a situation becomes the less it takes to turn it around, the bigger the upside'' - George Soros
''Setting goals is the fisrt step in turning the invisible into the visible'' - Anthony Robbins
''The forgotten war'', security, education, I always look for opportunities wherever I am and try to turn disadvantages into advantages. Since I was a child I have been interested in other cultures, especially in Asian countries: in how the other countries differed from us, how different were their language, their traditions, and others; since I thought those cultures were totally different. So, as I have grown up in some limited conditions, I started to look for scholarships abroad to achieve my goal. There was when I found information about GKS, that immediately caught my attention, while I was learning more about the scholarship and culture, my interest in Korea was increasing more and more. I was amazed and curious about how a country in such poor conditions after the war could become one of the most recognized world powers managing and investing scarce resources that helped and worked at that time and how they looked and studied the markets of the world so that businesses could be so successful until today, which I know I could learn from South Korea and get the best out of the markets and be able to apply them both in Peru and Korea.
I was raised by my grandparents as my parents for 17 years of my life, they have a restaurant for more than 30 years, so I practically grew up in a business environment and the restaurant becomes my second home. Volleyball, restaurant, and school are the words that summarize my school life. So instead of playing with friends outside I used to help my grandparents take people orders, cashing and dealing with customers. Then, I would advise to give the perfect price for each product or ask what else we could add at the restaurant to improve it which helped me a lot to develop skills as to be able to convince customers to buy our products and solve problems by thinking of solutions. Watching some relatives fail their own businesses, helped me to notice how poorly they administered and invested their time and money too. That is when I realized the importance of administration in a business, it does not matter how big or small a business is, without a good control of resources, the company may fail.
Because of this pandemic, my mother started a grocery minimarket, as one of the essential products has always been food or ingredients of them. The minimarket was successful for a time until the situation in the country becomes worse. My mother had to leave it to start a new type of business to get more income. At that time, I was thinking of finding a part-time job to have time to study too. Nevertheless, I decided to take the minimarket, clean it, and renovate it. I made an inventory of the products there and I prioritized most essential products and bought them; after that, I started working there. I remember being so excited to see the little store grow, however, I did not take into account electricity bills, rent, debts, etc. I was shocked by reality and realized that it was not as easy as I thought. I was able to handle it for a while, but there were some problems along the way and I could not keep up with the store. For around 3 months I was working with my aunt, who is an account, and I learned the basics of accounting from her which could be helpful in the university.
About my personality, it has never been as strong as I would have liked, however the volunteer works I did helped me to improve lots of aspects about myself. The first community service I did, was in the ''Association for the Rights of Children with Cancer'' I worked in the communication-creation area, where through videos, we informed people about children with cancer, whom we represented. Therefore, we did virtual and face-to-face collections in shopping centers, where we had to inform people to donate money to help our association, thus meeting both people who were rude and people who had incredible and moving stories to tell us.
It is the same for the so-called ''Vacunatón'' where I have been a volunteer from July until now. If you ask me about the most difficult thing about this job, it is the pressure and the speed with which you have to work; especially since here many problems arise at the same time and sometimes, the solutions are not in your hands, so you must know how to deal with people and their moods, or in other words, you must have the character to be in control there and not let them make a crowded place. At the same time, I realized administration is fundamental in every way and can be applied in all kinds of fields, which is why it has a very extensive field of work.
Talking about sports I could say volleyball had an enormous impact on my life. Apart from school and work with my grandparents, I have been playing volleyball since I was 9 years old, an activity that makes me develop skills that help me in my daily life such as being competitive, persevering, disciplined, responsible, knowing how to work in a team and cooperate with them, and the most important for me, which could help me during my stay in Korea, is being able to know how I should manage the money and time I have, to be able to fulfill all my responsibilities, sometimes having to prioritize the most necessary ones. For example, when I had a championship, my mother used to give me a certain amount of money of which I had to divide it between the bus fare, lunch and some volleyball fees, all of which were very important, but the ones that I prioritized in Those moments were the fares and the volleyball fees because they were expenses that I couldn't postpone, after that, if I didn't have enough money for lunch, I would eat something cheaper or wait to get home.
Then, what I can tell about me is that I am a person who does not give up on what is proposed, it could be said that I am very persistent with my goals; as well as I also like to look for unique opportunities such as this scholarship. As I have grown up with my grandparents and they worked in the restaurant, I have learned since I was little to be independent and not wait for someone to help me with my responsibilities. Due to the same independence that I obtained, I used to self-teach new knowledge or subjects which I did not understand very well, and thanks to this I have been able to learn Hangeul in one day and the story of how King Sejong the Great created the Korean alphabet, watching videos on YouTube from the JiniChannel and ConCoreaTV channels and I also learn some words and rules from LingoDeer. Due to Volleyball, I have been able to be a very good leader at school, where we carried out various activities together, being the one who organized them and who make the important decisions.
Based on that, I will not have problems studying in Korea, since I had the usual school life of Korean students and I am familiarized with the pressure of study like them because in my last year of school I studied from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and then I had to go to my English classes until 9 p.m., even in that year, I had to stop playing volleyball because my studies always come first. In addition to this, I will not have problems living alone, because since I was a child I used to live with my father during vacations or going on a trip with my relatives and then return with my grandparents, repeating it every year, becoming independent and getting used to changes.