Professional networking has become an integral to modern life-Chevening

Hello everyone, please someone give me a feedback on my chevening networking essay. i will be glad to receive some feedback guys.

Essay prompt
Chevening is looking for individuals with strong networking skills, who will engage with the Chevening community and influence and lead others in their chosen profession. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your networking skills, and outline how you hope to use these skills in the future.

the power of network

Professional networking has become an integral to modern life and to me, I have cultivated the power of network for career development, self-motivation, skills and expertise development.

I appreciated the power of networking when I met my supervisors while at undergraduate internship. In 2012, I got accepted for an undergraduate internship training at Kiboga Hospital laboratory, Microbiology section. This is where I met Dr. Kevin and Dr. Bosa who were my internal supervisors. Dr. Kevin was working on a Forgaty study on TB patients in Kiboga hospital under infectious diseases institute Uganda. As a biological science student with basic training in microbiology, I asked Dr. Kevin how I could be of help in her research because I realized it was an opportunity to learn more in microbiology. She promised to call me if need be which at first, I took like a rejection.

After 3 weeks of training, she called me in her office and asked me about the course I was pursing. I explained her the units I had studied during that time and she accepted me to be part of her research. She then took me through the literature and asked me to help her on two tasks which were sample Preparations and documentation. This was the beginning of the strong network I built in the whole hospital. She then introduced me to Dr. Grace, the laboratory focal person who also asked me about the course. They had not previously received any student doing another course other than medical laboratory technology, so they all wanted to know about the details of my course.

Dr. Grace allowed me to represent laboratory students in Continuous medical education (CME's) trainings for nurses and doctors where I got a golden opportunity to interact with other professionals. I was later included in the team for community outreaches as the laboratory personnel for voluntary HIV testing.

I have maintained this relationship with them in a professional capacity and in October 2016, I volunteered in Dr. Kevin's project as a research assistant in data collection and analysis when she was assessing the prevalence of malnutrition cases among children admitted in various hospitals around Kampala. My skills in data collection and analysis were improved in this project which I hope to use and develop more in my research career with a chevening scholarship.

I believe that my networking and relationship building skills are strong as portrayed in my leadership positions at work. I have maintained close relationships with my former employers and workmates and still interact in the whatapp groups and personal chats. Currently at work, I have developed my network not only in Quality assurance but also in other departments. As a supervisor, I connect with other departments for support especially engineering and maintenance who give me trainings on systems and machines which I then use while training quality controllers.

Becoming a chevening scholar will further build my network where I hope to engage with other scholars from different parts of the world.

Richard, while your networking essay is acceptable, it seems to be highly localized and only references a small network of professionals that you met during your academic years or the office hierarchy in reference to the performance of your profession. It seems too narrow to be of significance to the Chevening community. It does not appear to be the type of network that can help the scholarship program improve its existing network by being useful to the other members of Chevening.

There needs to be a direct reference to another type of networking community and how you built it. Seminars and conferences are normally key in proving your network usefulness and abilities. Use of the network on your part in reference to doing something good for the community or your profession, resulting in something positive for you is also more considerable when referencing a network. Right now, this network is all about "me, myself, and I" which is not a good thing because networks are normally called upon for the betterment of a larger group or endeavor.

It is highly unimpressive to say that you continue to network using social media apps. That is not considered a real network of professionals as there is no clear indication of how such a network can help you in real time. It is always best to omit social media references as these are seen as non-professional forms of networking.

You should add a reference as to how your network can be useful to Chevening and vice versa. That is an important aspect of the discussion as Chevening relies on their members to help one another out in the performance of their duties and responsibilities as high ranking members of note in their various professions. There is no reference to that at all in your essay even though it was specified in the prompt you are responding to.

While you can use this essay as is after removing the social media reference and adding the previously mentioned paragraph, I am a bit apprehensive when it comes to this essay's ability to stand up to a stronger comparison with another student who has a wider field when it comes to the professional network that was developed along with his job skills and training through conferences and seminars. Like I said, this is too localized in content and work specific to your office.

Another point of worry for me is that you are specifically mentioning names of people you worked with. Please make sure that they will be writing your Chevening reference letter as proof that they allowed you to use their names in your networking essay. Otherwise, you should be mentioning them only in an implied form and not by name.

@Holt
Oh thank you so much. this is the best thing for me this morning. I appreciate your time and the advise indeed.
I am going to really improve my essay using the recommendations provided.

Once again, thank you very much @Holt