KGSP - SELF INTRODUCTION - Translation and Interpretation major

Hello everyone!

Here's my self introduction for the KGSP program! Before we start let me tell you I don't really like the last part..

Also of course there are a lot of things I've done in college but I tried to keep it as simple as I could, trying to mention the most important stuff only. Hope it's not that bad!

KGSP - Letter of Self Introduction

Korean-English-Turkish translations

My name is Berfin. I was born and raised in Ankara, the capital of Turkey. Being the youngest in the family, I got a lot of attention when I was a kid. My parents and my two siblings tried their best to create a safe environment for me all the time. Neither of my parents was able to go to college because their parents were not financially stable. But they came to a really big city, worked hard, found a decent job and created a family together. That's why it was really important for them that we went to a college and got a proper education. However, my sister was not interested in studying at all, my brother went to college but couldn't find a job for a really long time and when it was my turn, my parents put so much pressure on me that our relationship got damaged. Especially when I told my father that I wanted to study English he got really mad and he didn't talk to me for a year which discouraged me a lot. Just like other Turkish people, he didn't know the potential of my major. I also found out that he was afraid of losing me. In Turkey, it is not common for kids to leave their parents' house until they get married. But me being interested in other cultures and languages also meant (though it didn't mean the same for me) us getting apart. I needed to go abroad, see a whole new world, make new friends, get used to different cultures and change. There would be another Berfin they did not know and the unknown scared them. Another reason was because they tried to protect me since I was born so they were afraid that outside the safe bubble they created for me, I would be vulnerable. But I never felt weak and I wanted to show them how strong I was.

After convincing my father, I started studying Translation and Interpretation at Atilim University with a 75% scholarship. When I was a freshman I was still trying to get used to college life, but in my opinion, my second year was the most productive year. Instead of daily life conversation, we started learning about different fields and terminologies and more importantly, we got to meet with professionals in a conference held in our campus. Hearing their stories made me want to start working as soon as possible. Luckily, one of our classmates was already working with TRT, Turkish National Radio and Television and Digiturk (Pay TV operator). He was doing subtitle translation and he decided to teach us how to do it. After a year he started working with Netflix too and through him, I started doing subtitle translation as well. This was also when I started learning Korean. I heard that Hangeul was one of the most systematic writing systems in the world so I wanted to give it a try. I started going to the King Sejong Institute in Ankara and I'm currently still learning Korean there. In our third year, the Chairman of ES Localization Services became an instructor in our department and I took his class. Our third year was about to end when he told me and two of my classmates that his company was looking for translators who were interested in doing software translation. Until that time I had never done technical translation professionally but I thought it would be fun. But of course they didn't accept us right away. They sent a sample text to translate to evaluate the applicants. Luckily, me and my classmates got accepted. We were supposed to go to Istanbul to join the workshop in July but before that I had a month free. I decided to go to Korea for a month. I had Korean friends that I met in Turkey and I wanted to see them again but my main purpose was to see if I would like living in Korea. I always heard that our cultures were very similar but I knew that one day I needed to go and see it for myself. So in June I went to Korea and I really liked it. Sometimes I was with friends but most of the time I was alone. Still, I enjoyed every moment. Korean people were so helpful; in a bank, in a museum, they were always more than ready to help me. After coming back from Korea, I went to Istanbul and I started working at ES Localization. Everyone at the company was nice, they made sure that we felt welcome. They taught us that it was totally fine to ask questions and to make mistakes because they were there to help and teach us. For two months, we were in Istanbul with the team doing Microsoft CNE (Cloud and Enterprise) translation. In September we needed to go back to Ankara because of our school, but we kept working with them. Though I took a month off to get ready for KGSP application, I am planning to continue working with them as a freelance translator. In the future, ES Localization is planning to do video game translation as well and I also want to take part in the project.

I have learned Korean for almost 2 years but I still can't use it as efficiently as I want to. If I get accepted to this scholarship program, I can improve my Korean and even start doing Korean-English-Turkish translation. But what I really want to do in the future is to share my experience with other students. Becoming an instructor at college used to seem boring but the more I learned, the more I wanted to share. Every time I got fascinated by a thing I learned in class, I kept dreaming about sharing it with the others in the future. I also want to improve my simultaneous interpreting skills. Turkey is running low on professional simultaneous interpreters and if I can improve myself enough, I want to do simultaneous interpreting as well.

Thanks for reading! (of course this part is not included)

Berfin, let's start with the first paragraph. Review the information this paragraph. There is too much personal information that doesn't really fit with the prompt requirements. Try to limit the exposure of the falling out you had with your father. Gloss over it and just say that it took some time for your parents to warm up to the idea but when they did, they became supportive of your plans. By the way, I don't really get a clear sense of your point of view about life based upon the relationship that you had with your parents or your life experience as a college student. Try to portray something along those lines if you can.

Now, about the education part. It is too long a narrative that, due to the excessive details, will tend to bore the reviewer. Try to keep it short but concise. The same goes for your professional / internship experience. Make that a solo paragraph as well. Don't mix it in with the education part. Edit the content yet again to make it more interesting instead of dragging on and on. Remove the reference to your living in Korea from that part. Move it is a separate, dedicated paragraph that best responds to your motivation and reason to study in Korea.

After you apply these edits, the essay should come closer to a more final form. The content should be sufficient for an informative single page.

@Holt

Thank you for the feedback but I have a question. You told me to write seperate paragraphs for the education and professional experience parts. But they're both intertwined with each other. Wouldn't it look weird when I talk about my college life in a paragraph and then talk about it again because all of my experiences were when I was in college?

I will talk about my travel to Korea in the last paragraph as you recommended. Thanks a lot.

No, they are not intertwined because you had to leave the school in order to accomplish the task. It is considered an internship if the school mandated the office work. It is professional work experience if you heard about it from school, had to apply for the job, then get hired. Either way, these are considered work experience and should not be discussed as part of your academic development. The work experience is hands on and not theoretical. That is why you should discuss these separately. The reason why it became intertwined with your academic side is because you chose to discuss it that way. Revising the content of the essay to separate the presentation will allow you to better focus the discussion in the manner that the prompt requires. which is one paragraph for a developed academic presentation then one paragraph for a professional discussion. By the way, this is my final free advice on your essay. If you feel that you require further assistance from me, consider having this essay listed as "Urgent" where I can continue to advice you until you finalize your essay.