Essay for MasterCard Foundation Scholarship at University of Edinburgh in leadership skills

We want to learn about your track record as a transformative leader.

Tell us about one current idea or project you are working on, which clearly demonstrates this. Max 250 words.

I served as the city representative for the Gambian Student Association in Morocco (GASAM) for students living in Kenitra, as well as served in the Media Team as a photographer. I was in charge of 19 students with age ranging from 21 to 27 years old. My responsibilities consist of mobilizing and addressing students' needs at the city level, these involve helping the newly arrived and transfer students to register in schools, look after sick students, finding an apartment for them and also helping them to find the legal documents such as Residential Permit/ Student Card.

I was selected as the vice president of foreign Students Club at the National School of Business and Management (ENCG de Kenitra) which I co-founded in 2017. The aim was to cement the relationship between students from different parts of Africa.

My responsibilities at the club include conducting educational programs such as providing French classes for none francophone students and team up students to help one another in certain subjects such as Mathematics, statistics, business valuation.. etc. This has decreased the rate dropout around 2% to 3% and this has increased their performance. I also worked with the president to form an alliance with other clubs within the college and in other faculties to address common problems we face.

I am currently the head of foreign students' apartment located at 32 Avenue Istiqlal El Marsa in kenitra in Morocco. This apartment makes a room for students from seven different Nationalities (The Gambia, Gabon, Liberia, Ghana, Comoros, Zambia and São Tomé). I am in charge of all sort of reparations in the apartment as well as the payment of rent and water, electricity and the internet bills and negotiate with agencies in case we are short of money. I am also responsible for sorting out any disputes that arise within the apartment and with the neighbours and sharing tasks such as cleaning, among the members of the apartment.

These experiences proved to be as rewarding as they were challenging, and I strongly believe that the leadership skills I acquired during these periods have enhanced my soft skills necessary to bring positive changes to Africa in the future.

They are asking for your track record as a transformative leader, which means you need to focus on one major activity and demonstrate how you are transforming ot changing or improving something in your capacity as a leader or how it transformed you into a leader, what you learned, the challenges you faced and how you overcame them and succeeded in whatever goals you have set for yourself, therefore you are a perfect fit for this scholarship.

Instead you just explained three different job descriptions like its a CV or Resume. You should pick one major role and build on it, instead of explaining different jobs without any insight into the points I mentioned above. Hope this helps.

In order to prove your abilities as a leader, you need to show the development of your successive, successful projects. Unfortunately, your first paragraph does not help establish you in a leadership role. You may want to start with the vice-president position instead. Expand that paragraph to show your leadership skills. Choose only 1 successful project to narrate regarding how you led the project to a successful end.

As the head of the foreign students apartment, you sound more like a landlord than a leader. If you can revise the paragraph to show you as the head of the house instead, focusing on resolving disputes among the housemates, it may just work as a leadership presentation. You will still need at least one more leadership reference to complete the track record though. Do you think you can add one more?

@Holt
please Holt, can I ignore the introduction paragraph in leadership essay? or it is necessary needed .. thanks in advance - please ask in a new thread.