Qusetion: How have your interests and related experiences influenced your selection of major?
I hail from a family where nearly half the members are doctors. My cousins are doctors, my two aunts are doctors and most importantly, both my parents are doctors. Therefore my parents expected me to follow their footsteps and pursue a career in medicine which is the "best profession" in the world.
I was naturally encouraged to study sciences all my years at school but I knew in my heart that I wouldn't make a good doctor as the idea of operating on other humans appalled me. I subsequently decided to take Economics in my A-levels along with sciences to explore something out of my family's "realm". The decision was the best one I had made in my life as studying Economics delineated my love for managing money. I loved the graphs, statistics and charts which expressed the financial positions of firms and countries and demonstrated who was ahead of whom.
Belonging to a third-world country, I was bemused by the high terrorism and suicide rates in my country and used to wonder what drove people to such insanity. However, economics displaced my perplexity as when I saw the country's burgeoning budget deficit, extremely low HDI rank of 145, fall of GDP and 50% population below the poverty line, I was able to comprehend the cause of their actions. It became evident that the misallocation of resources had deprived the poor of even the basic necessities to life and had thus increased crime rates and terrorism many fold.
I keep up to date with the economic changes around the world by reading the newspaper and publications such as The Economist. I was particularly intrigued by Joseph Stieglitz's book 'Globalization and its Discontents'. Having read it, I looked back at Pakistan's economic progress since its first IMF loan in 2008. I observed that there had been nothing but price hikes and rising interest rates since. The IMF seemingly cut the budget deficit, and used expansionary policies to increase Pakistan's chances of paying back the loans. However, it left behind a country with a fading middle class, double digit inflation and the large scale closure of small businesses -testaments to the effects of globalization. As an economist, I will look to find better solutions to such problems and strive to benefit society.
I've always been a logical thinker and a practical person. I like to stay clear-headed and focused on my goal which helps me to analyze and solve even the most confounding problems. Having a penchant for math, I love handling numbers and therefore aspire to take accounting as one concentration in my AEM course.
As an international student, I had to collect a husbandry of information to apply to American universities and Cornell's college of Agriculture and Life Sciences topped my list. With a variety of 20 academic departments and a gigantic campus, the school is reputed as a world class institution and the diverse communities along with a seasoned faculty will ensure that I'm equipped with the necessary tools which will help me in my future profession and hopefully take me to the top.
Please reply with your honest opinions. Thanks :)
I like how you say you didn't have the heart to be a doctor. I think that's a very powerful thing, but you don't really touch on what it means to not have the heart to be a doctor. It would be nice if you developed that just a tad more. Then after you've gone into your passion for economics, explicitly state why you have a heart for economics but not medcine. This can be at the end of your essay and you can use it to tie your intro to your conclusion, which you definitely need to do.
Hope that helps! Goodluck. I like the paper overall :)
