I just want some opinions, I feel personally I could have done a lot better with this essay, its kinda bad but I tried. ILR is my dream and I hope I can still get in.
Being employed since I was thirteen my interest in labor is not only an academic interest, but a personal passion. Spending four years watching co-workers lethargically head home with bloodshot eyes made me ask myself, "Why do people work so much?" The answer to this question is the root of my interest in ILR.
After spending four years in three different workplaces labor issues have become personal to me because I have cultivated a belief that the minimum wage must be higher. There are a myriad number of Americans working absurd amounts of hours. Many argue that people with no diploma deserve low wages, but fail to understand education was unattainable for many, or that they could be supporting a family.
I am a first hand witness to the reality of what people face as minimum wage workers. I spent the summer of 2014 working thirty five to forty hours per week at my neighborhood deli. I averaged making two hundred fifty dollars per week working these hours, which certainly will not suffice for a family or even a person attempting to support himself. This is what has forced people into the tiring existence of eighty hour work weeks. At my current job times will arise where I need to work an eleven hour shift. I went home those nights with an aching body and passed out into a deep slumber. It is simply rigorous, spending all day hustling to keep shelves full while also contributing to customer service, there are no coffee breaks here. I cannot even begin to think of what it must be like to work that shift six days a week, but I am aware know that my co-workers are doing it. They are seeing little of their families and are always exhausted when they do. The low minimum wage is among the biggest contributors to social inequality and is hurting the lives of employees.
My employment experiences have made my mind intrinsically attuned to the study of labor. I am ready and willing to do what is necessary to reform the labor system to seek higher wages and social equality. I hope to be a powerful positive influence in the future, whether it means lobbying policy in politics or working in human resource departments deciding salaries, I will always strive for fair wages for hardworking Americans. I hope to intern in the areas previously mentioned, opportunities Cornell will surely offer me.
While my past has shaped me, it is in the future I will make a difference. There is no institution more suited to my Interests than Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. At ILR I will be able to study all facets of my goals with classes ranging from Human Resources, History, Labor Relations, International Relations, Economics, Law, Politics, and Business. There will also be brilliant international opportunities in places such as Italy, China, Spain, Ireland, and the U.K. to broaden my educational experience at Cornell. I also plan to take advantage of the over 1,000 student organizations at Cornell as well as the eight within ILR. As the only program of its I kind, ILR will be my first steps toward creating labor reform and ridding our world of social inequality. I aim to be influential in raising the minimum wage. I aim to help bring back the forty hour workweek and eliminate the eighty hour weekly struggle people go through for their families at the expense of their quality of life and possibly even their health. I have come to realize that this can only be accomplished through rigorous education and research in all aspects of labor. I am driven to work towards reform and progress on wages and provide relief to the hardest working members of society.
Kevin, have you already submitted this statement of purpose? If you have, i wish you hadn't before submitting it for review here. During my first read through, I already spotted a number of problems that should have been addressed in the essay prior to finalization. These include problems with the punctuation marks, lack of focus, lack of information, and the need for a stronger conclusion.
The major problem with the content of your paper is that you made the focus all about you instead of the cause that you hoped to resolve by getting this masters degree certification. It owuld have been better for your essay if you had focused on a single problem that affected you and those in the labor work force in the strongest manner possible. It should have been a problem that, although acknowledged as being in existence, has not had any sort of solution proposed for it yet. If you were able to propose a unique solution for the little known, but highly important problem, then you would have caught the interest of the reviewer as a student who really has a deep and thorough understanding of the international labor problems.
While this essay, if you have already submitted it, will manage to do the job (somewhat), it could really have been made better and more impressive if we just had the time to collaborate on the final form and content of your essay/
