NETWORKING -CHEVENING ESSAY - EDUCATION FIELD

the importance of networking

I will appreciate your help!

The more progressed my degree, the more I understood the importance of networking in my profession. For that reason, I have always been looking for opportunities in which I can connect with people to obtain a reciprocal collaboration concerning the educational field. To illustrate how this has been possible I would like to highlight my experiences in the local and international context.

I am a very active Facebook and Instagram user since I follow diverse pages related to languages, teachers' training, governmental organizations, and scholarships. This allowed me to know about the opportunities that I have found abroad, in my country, and connect with colleagues around the world. As a result of this, in 2016, I found the opportunity to represent my university in The Dominican Republic at XXXXX Institution where I could develop projects about learning English processes. As a result of these projects, I learned about technology applied to the teaching of foreign languages. Something that I can still apply in every place where I can teach.

In 2017, I connected with XXXXXXX Foundation in Bogota. I assisted them by teaching English, and I contacted classmates from university encouraging them to help since there were a lot of kids waiting for English language teachers and there were not enough volunteers. It was a meaningful experience for me because I started to explore my methods of teaching English to kids with successful results for them and it was very useful for my next experience abroad.

In 2018 as part of the XXXX program, I participated in different school and cultural events where I could promote the program and showed the most beautiful things about my country and culture, also I explored the multicultural population in Minnesota through some conversation clubs at XXXXXXr where I established connections with immigrant people from European and African countries, we debated about different topics having in this way the chance to know about our cultures and practice English. I want more teachers can explore alternatives like this abroad to come back to Colombia and apply what they learned for the benefit of students and the education in Colombia that still faces several challenges.

Through these experiences, I have been able to set my self-confidence and connection with people. It is something I have put into practice at my current job since I am teaching English for local and international students and is when I understand that networking was and has been very important not just for my personal development but also to support the learning of a foreign language under a multicultural perspective. Being a Chevening scholar would also increase my networking even wider through the different events, conferences, and activities in which I can connect with people from over the world and I would like to become part of the Chevening Alumni Network in Colombia where I can establish close relationships to develop great ideas I have in mind and exercise leadership positions within the education field.

Social media is not a well accepted form of networking for Chevening. That is because the social media contacts you make are more social rather than work related. The relationship you have is virtual rather than physical, and the method of cultivation does not require the true networking guidelines. Remove that reference from the essay. It is not a very good networking reference.

Rather, start with the second paragraph. However, you have to first explain how you made contact with the foundation in Bogota. The cultivation of this foundation as a network is not clear. Merely asking your classmates to help does not constitute a useful network. It is not impressive nor does it connote an effective and professional network. You need to better develop that paragraph.

Unfortunately, nothing you have presented in this essay qualifies as a professional network that would be useful to Chevening scholars past and present. There is an inability on your part to prove that you are a professional who has undergone proper training and exposure that would allow you to create a useful network of individuals from a field related to yours. This is not going to help your application move forward. Your application, could very well stop at this point.

Thanks @Holt for your feedback. I will try to do my best.