SOP for HKUST - to build on language, heritage

Hello everyone,
How does this read to you? Love to get your feedback and thx so much!!

Prompt: Please describe your academic purpose for study abroad and explain why you have chosen this particular country and institution. You may wish to include your interests (intellectual, social and other), personal achievements, and future aspirations.

Although I have a Spanish-Finnish father and a Singaporean-American mother, I never lived anywhere else besides in London. As a result, I am determined to explore as much of the world as possible. By spending a semester at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), I will have studied in three different continents and been exposed to three completely different cultures. Additionally, my maternal grandparents built their careers by creating a successful business legacy in the banking industry out of Hong Kong. They worked tirelessly their entire lives in order to create a better future for their children. This instilled in me an appreciation and admiration of their Chinese values and culture. These values enabled them to create a successful business legacy and I would like to build on that heritage.

My personal goal is to work in Asia after college, and HKUST is the first step towards that goal. Ranked fifth best university in Asia, I chose HKUST primarily for the opportunity to experience its global business program taught from a Chinese or Asian perspective. Hong Kong served as a financial hub for Asia since it was a British colony and more importantly, for China after the 1997 handover. I intend to take advantage of this immense wealth of financial learning and know-how by taking finance (my main concentration) and currency exchange rate management courses such as Econ338: Globalization - Trade, Investment and Exchange Rate in order to fulfill my Business Breadths. I hope this will help give me initial exposure to understanding how Asian finance and currency markets work. Indeed, HKUST prides itself on its scientific and analytical methods of teaching business combined with case studies, which I find particularly useful. This approach to learning international finance in a dynamic Asian setting would not be possible if I did not go abroad to HKUST.

An essential pillar of my dream career is familiarity with the Chinese culture and language. For this reason, I took Chinese-011 my first semester at xxxx. But I realized that it was not enough; better to immerse myself in intensive courses and real-life practice. I plan on taking an intensive Chinese course at HKUST, as well as Lang111: Chinese Business Communication in order to learn how to use Chinese for business situations. Being able to use Chinese in both the office as well as in the streets will be an essential asset when working and living in Asia. Additionally, I want to take an Asian Studies course, more specifically Chinese Studies, in order to better understand and learn about the culture in Asia and China. With this new-found knowledge, I intend to travel in order to fully immerse myself in the culture and traditions of China. From the HKUST semester abroad experience, I hope to strengthen my knowledge and network connections. This could help improve my chances of obtaining an internship in Hong Kong or mainland China next summer. Hence, HKUST is the best choice for my semester abroad.

In conclusion, studying at HKUST provides me with the dual opportunity to focus my studies as well as embrace my ancestral cultural roots. To witness and hopefully be part of the world's fastest growing economy, all while taking exceptional business courses in a relevant environment and learning a new language is an opportunity that only comes around once in a lifetime. I hope to be given this invaluable chance to further pursue my studies at one of Asia's best business schools and take the first step towards realizing one of my personal goals.

Just ideas, not necessarily better:
never lived anywhere other than London.

worked tirelessly throughout their entire lives in order to create a better future for their children.

One rule that is not really a rule but a good idea is to always follow "this" with a noun. Try it and you'll see what I mean.

This story instills in me an appreciation and admiration of their Chinese values and culture.

Use a comma for the compound sentence:
These values enabled them to create a successful business legacy, and I would like to build on that heritage.

My personal goal is to work in Asia after college, ------ be more specific!

Ranked fifth best university in Asia, I chose ---- this sounds like YOU were rankd 5th in Asia. :-)

...I chose HKUST primarily for the opportunity to experience its global business program taught from a Chinese or Asian perspective.

This is so awesome! Your life is like a great movie, and your interests are cool. I hope you make time to learn Qigong!

To witness and hopefully be part of the world's fastest growing economy while taking exceptional business courses in a relevant (different word) environment and learning a new language is an opportunity that only comes around once in a lifetime.

Nice... I'm excited for you.

Hey, appreciate your feedback! It made me think of reordering and restructuring the last two sentences. Does this work better?



Can't be more specific! I just hope to get a (any) job that pays for my stay and the best way to do that is to speak the language and learn somethimg useful (like currency trading.)

Does it help to write that?


My !BAD! corrected !! Is it necessary to mention the ranking? Only did that to show that I did some homework on the school.
And yeah, the only Qigong I have tried (so far) is the Mao hand swatting pose which is supposed to be the most efficient - 400 swats per day standing is all you need to be fit!! Check it out!!

These values enabled them to create a successful business legacy; an achievement that made me appreciate and admire the Chinese values and culture I inherited. ----- I am pretty sure that on either side of the semi-colon you should have something that can be a complete sentence. So, instead of a semi-colon in this sentence you should use a dash, I think.

But this is the sort of stylistic stuff that people always treat in different ways. It's not really wrong to use a semicolon here instead of a dash, but I recommend a dash. :-)

I would like to build on this heritage.--- awesome sentence.

next section:
And YES, I think you could even write it just like this, or maybe with some minor changes. This is a nice sentence: I just hope to get a (any) job that pays for my stay, and the best way to do that is to speak the language and learn something useful (like currency trading).