Hi everyone ! I am new here and I am also in urgent :)
would you mind help me reviewing my letter of motivation below.
It's my dream scholarship to study urban planning in Europe.
Sorry ! It's kinda a bit long.
I will appreciate your comments and feedback.
city management expert
Date back to few decades ago, when most part of the world was in the fast-developing stage, Cambodia experienced a server civil war - Khmer Rouge. Phnom Penh capital was converted into a ghost city where lots of infrastructures have been destroyed and all people were evacuated; at the meantime, the regime brought Cambodian human resources to almost level zero by killing all the educated people. Facing the lack of human resources in city management in this current developing world while being inspired by ancient Angkor complex city, I am so touched to try harder to make a better change in city planning for this poor country. To fulfil my desire in city management, I took an entrance exam to enter Institute of Technology of Cambodia(ITC) known as the only institution in the country which provide Urban planning course, especially, focusing on urban space analysis. Thanks to such enthusiasm, I won a gold medal and a prize of 3000$ from Japan from Young Engineer and Scientist (Y-E-S) contest which I had proposed the concept of sustainable house designs and policy planning in improving community-based city in Phnom Penh capital. The concept is to build relationship between building and sidewalks, street and open space and people much coordinated to create high-quality and successful environment. At the same time, I had made an outstanding performance in school and I got class rank number 1 in 4 years consecutively with the highest GPA in my department.
My desire to help others in city management keeps growing day by day especially during my voluntary work at Cambodia Development Foundation(CDF) on a project of poor urban settlement in Phnom Penh. Having worked closely with 8 communities' representatives, I learnt that the local people are facing a lot of challenges, and risks including flood, difficulties in accessibility, infrastructures shortage especially, the vulnerability to land eviction. In the name of team leader of Community Architect Cambodia (CAN-CAM) to make better changes to the slum communities situations, I worked with several sectors including communities, governments, NGOs and authority to process community mapping, and share national housing policies. Finally, my CAN-CAM team proposed a common saving account for the community and particularly provided the 8 communities of 2 different proposals on land upgrading rather than resettlement, which is a very supportive choice by all the community members.
After having volunteer at Cambodia Development Foundation(CDF) for around one year, I have deal with several urban settlement cases which usually occurred 2 or 3 decades ago; then, I come to realization that I should have worked in a preceding stage where I can prevent the problem rather than restoring it. It is the Ministry of Land Management and Urban Planning(MLMUP) where I can work to improve the urban design and policies and where it currently lack of human resources; however, a master degree in urban planning or related majors are required.
Impressed by the combination of practical courses with intensive fieldworks, I take a great step in joining 4cities program. I am intrigued by the topics listed in the curriculum while some of those are very familiar to my urban planning courses in Cambodia. To improve an urban area, I usually consider the main sectors which composed of economy, sociology, geography, culture, and politics. However, the studies are limited on local interest. The impressive mission of the 4Cities bring me new perception toward the 21st century city that I should see the force of globalization on urbanization while keeping the uniqueness to the local. After this realization, I am so motivated and I expect to study those courses in more detail namely, Urban Social Geography, Urban Economic geography, Demography of European Cities and Urban Culture. Besides, the course of Sustainable and Livable City in Madrid will show me real example on how European tackling problems of housing shortage as well as flux of immigrants while maintaining full city functions. Urban sociology, the study on the interaction between life and human in metropolitan area will also shape my future career analytical skill. Reflecting back to my working experience with community, I found that local people are facing political power, social inequality and changing human nature of community. However, dealing with those urban issues cannot be addressed by a single discipline. I believe that the course Urban Sociology and other supportive courses will give me a new look to the improve planning and policy making when I return back to my prospective position. Learning and taking advantage of the valuable experience of urban development in European cities is important for understanding urban processes in Cambodia. Through living and studying in each of the 4 cities with peer from various background as well as a plenty of fieldworks and excursions, 4Cities will offer me real life scenario as an urban planner.
My long-term career goal is to work in MLMUP as an expert in city management, a professional who work to prevent the increase of poor urban settlement through improving strategic master-plan design and providing practical solutions that cater to the needs of various cities developments. It's my turning stage to work in perspective institution where I can get involve in urban policy as well as make beneficial change to 2030 Phnom Penh Master Plan, leading the city to be a sustainable and livable city. From my observation, as the city grow and as the country develop, people become more individualist and they will be much busier with their own business, at the same time they also become selfish. My utmost dream is to build a community based city, a place where people in cities live in medium density and have more suitable space to interact with each other while enhancing closer relationship. The concept of this future harmony city allows people to meet, to share and to interact with each other even more and this is how I define livable city. By building strong relationship between building and sidewalks, street and open space and people much coordinated to create high-quality and successful environment. Finally, to ensure the sustainability in sharing knowledge to next generation, I plan to give lectures related to urban studies to related institutions. In short, I will be able to contribute to all related sectors including social, political and technical development of my home country once I am in a prospective position.
With my educational background on urban planning courses, professional working styles, experience living in Europe, adaptability to new environment, knowledge in English and French, and desire to change, I am sure to excel your expectation and I am confident to bring a high level of energy and handle the challenges that this program will bring.
I thank you for considering my application, and I am looking forward to your acceptance.
Sincerely yours,
Bunheng,Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,835 
4783 Bunheng, you have to remove the aspects of this letter that are better presented as part of your statement of purpose. The letter is extremely long but does not really deliver on the actual motivation for your desire to pursue a degree in Urban Studies. The best way to approach this letter is to do it from a historical and then modern standpoint. You successfully delivered the historical motivation that you have for your desire to help Khmer Rouge redevelop into a modern city. However, your modern motivation is not very clear because of the numerous discussions that you present that cross from motivation to purpose then back to motivation. So you need to focus your content on your desire to modernize Khmer Rouge in the future by focusing your studies on Urban Planning / Studies. It is difficult for me to point out the paragraphs that you can actually use for the development of a new motivation letter because of the combined information located within them. I guess the best advice I can give you at this point is this, in the letter, discuss how your love for Urban Studies developed based upon the historical basis of Khmer Rouge. Just talk about how your interest began and why the current status of the city has inspired you to pursue these studies. Be casual, don't list your autobiography in the letter. Just present information about your interest in the field and then talk about how you came across the university and what made you interested to attend these masters studies there. Just keep the letter simple. You don't need to include an explanation of your transcript of records in it like you have now.
