STATEMENT OF PURPOSE FOR OFID SCHOLARSHIP AWARD - PAKISTAN RISK

Kindly give your valuable feedback for my below SOP for OFID Scholarship Award.

It is this spirit that motivates me to apply

"A nation's prosperity and development lies in a well-equipped and educated human resource. No nation can achieve sustainable growth without having skilled and professional personnel. It is essential for a nation to get state of the art knowledge in almost every field. Higher education has always played an essential role in achieving development for countries like Pakistan. What could be better than traveling to a foreign country to learn about their ideas, history, and culture? I believe study abroad is something that every student should do to help avoid ethnocentrism, to expand their horizons, and to appreciate everything the world has to offer.It is this spirit that motivates me to apply for OFID scholarship award. With the OFID scholarship award, I will be able to learn and work with a highly reputable and skillful team of international reputation at postgraduate level at Lund University, Sweden.

It is essential for students from developing nations to access latest educational opportunities in order to achieve sustainable development. Keeping this in mind, I also have my career goals. My first career goal is to attain highest level of educational excellence with an international master degree in the field related to Disaster Management. Secondly, I want to join a university as a research fellow in the field of disaster management after graduating from a foreign university. Thirdly, I have set my goal to work for boasting the current poor & unprofessional approach towards disasters management in Pakistan. Fourthly, I have plans to work for to change the current reactive role of rescue, relief and rehabilitation to proactive role of preparedness, prevention and mitigation in my country in order to equip people with latest knowledge and skills regarding disaster management.

Studying Disaster Management at bachelor's level was indeed the best experience of my life. Centre for Disaster Preparedness & Management (CDPM), University of Peshawar, being the first standalone academic program in the country after the devastated 2005 earthquake, was established to address disasters and to create professional disaster managers. Studying master program at Lund University will in fact help me increase my understanding of the latest methods and procedure to handle all disasters related issues.

As for my personal experience as concerned, I still remember the time when 2005 earthquake happened. While we were busy in our routine first class of the day on 08 October 2005, the incident happened so quickly that we were unable to respond timely. Everyone was running for his own safety. Our overall academic year was badly disturbed by the incident throughout the year. Unfortunately we witnessed the floods of August 2010 while we were in the middle of our university entrance exam preparation. The entire communications and other facilities were damaged causing our exams into delay. It is this personal experience that had played an important role in my application for this scholarship award.

With the help of this master's degree I will be able to contribute towards reducing disaster risk in Pakistan. It will help me learn new and latest tools and techniques used for disaster risk management and reduction. I will also utilize this opportunity to work in tackling the current climatic conditions which has disrupted our big cities."

Farman, it would be best if you can focus on the reasons why you feel that you deserve to win this scholarship based on your career or professional background. At the moment, this essay is cluttered with too much information that doesn't really provide a solid focus on how your chosen masters degree falls under the qualifications of an OFID scholarship. How does your chosen career relate to the objectives of the scholarship and how do you plan to embody that criteria as a scholar? The purpose of your scholarship application needs to go hand in hand with your career goals. So similarities between your professional beliefs and the scholarship must be provided. At the moment this essay doesn't tell me why you deserve the grant, based upon the criteria set for the courses and students. You must write a new essay if possible. One that will better reflect the similarities between your purpose and the purpose of the scholarship.

@Farmancus
Dear Farman,

In my opinion you are making big problems in your goals section, you don't sound focused at all. For instance you want to get a Master's degree in Disaster Management , okay that's good now tell why you need it, what affect will that have in your life and in your learning keeping in view of the fact that you already have a bachelor's degree in the same course.

Then why will be a research fellow? being a research fellow is no walk in the park, you have to be dedicated to the position, to the topic of research you are conducting and also show commitment to the university and your in-line lead professor.

Similarly, your four goals don't connect with each other which doesn't give a picture of your future life, you should be sure of what you want to do, your goal shouldn't be to get an international degree rather it should be to do something for Pakistan as a developing nation and how will this degree prove to be help to you in making that goal a reality got it?

Your whole essay doesn't look organized to me at all so you have to work on it my friend. I'm no expert but giving you my honest opinion.

Regards,
Bilal

@bilal_engineer
thank you dear bilal. I have modified it totally now, looking at the suggestions made by you people. Can you check this!

A nation's prosperity and development lies in a well-equipped and educated human resource. No nation can achieve sustainable growth without having skilled and professional personnel. Higher education has always played an essential role in achieving development for developing countries like Pakistan. It is this concept that motivates me to apply for OFID scholarship award. With the OFID scholarship award, I will be able to learn and work with a highly reputable and skillful team of international reputation at postgraduate level. It will also enable me to put help put Pakistan on the path of sustainability.

Almost 12 years ago, on 8th October 2005, Pakistan was hit hard by an earthquake causing loss of thousands of lives and other economic as well as physical damage. This earthquake created an alarming situation in the entire country. As a high school student at that time, I still remember the timing of the earthquake. While we were listening to our first class of the day, the sad incident happened so quickly that we were unable to respond quickly. Alternately this leads to the delays in our academic schedule and our entire academic year was badly disturbed. In a similar passion, the severe floods in August 2010 also disturb our preparation for university entrance exam. The 2010 flood lasts for 48 days surpassing the previous damages done by the 2005 earthquake. In all my lifetime so far, these two phenomenon had played a crucial part in my choice for choosing disaster management as my future career.

In my opinion, for Pakistan to be a resilient nation against disasters, it needs to have skillful and professional people in the field of disaster management. To be an asset for Pakistan in a larger sense, I have long dreamed of joining academia. In this way I will be able to make strong linkages between the academia, the authorities responsible for disaster management in Pakistan and the general masses through many initiatives such as workshops, research initiatives and studies, training courses, campaigns, guidelines etc. Consequently, we will be able to change the current reactive role of rescue, relief and rehabilitation by the government as well as non-government organizations working in the field of disaster management to a proactive role of preparedness, prevention and mitigation in order to equip people with latest knowledge and skills.

With a bachelor degree already in hand in disaster management, the master degree in Disaster Risk Management and Climate Change Adaptation at the Lund University will further enhance my educational career as a research fellow in the academia in Pakistan. My role in this new area of study in Pakistan will be to serve my country in confronting natural as well as man-made disasters by creating awareness and working with different stakeholders. My future goal is solely focused on to work for capacity building of my fellow Pakistanis in dealing with such phenomenon. This is because currently, unprofessional people are working in making policies, plans and guidelines on behalf of the entire nation.