"making a mark in the National Canoeing Championship" - Describe a personal challenge

Hi all,

I am applying for a postgraduate scholarship on the following title: Describe a personal challenge that you have faced. How you met this challenge and why.

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A personal challenge I have faced (one that has also shaped my values), is making a mark in the National Canoeing Championship in 2002, where my team won a silver and two bronze medals. As the newly appointed Captain of NNP Canoeing Sprint Team, I have transformed my team, from an inexperienced group without professional coaching to one with individuals who are each physically and mentally prepared with confidence to compete for victories. Initially, with limited resources, no boats and equipments, only loaned ones, it was almost an impossible task to lead my team to compete in competitions. I was in a state of despair and helplessness.

However, at the end of my education stint, I am proud to say that the team has proven their worth. During my last semester of studies, the school decided to invest in boats and equipments for the team due to its promising track records in competitions.

In conclusion, I am happy with what I have achieved till date. But, I have also learnt to realize that life is not just about pursing goals and gaining achievements, it is also about having my own family, raising kids and providing them with the best quality of life and education and being filial to my parents. The pursuit of love and not forgetting one's roots are equally important as well. I have just gotten married late last year with huge finances spent on the wedding, housing and renovation. I hope to be able to secure a scholarship to finance an MBA so that I can continue with my planned career "master blueprint" and in the near future, set-up my very own consultancy firm to fuse business ideas and engineering methodologies to solve organizational problems.

First, I think you should change "have transformed" to just "transformed", because "have transformed" implies a continuity with the situation that you mention above (making a mark in the National Canoeing Championship in 2002). Since that happened 9 years ago, it seems a little odd to talk about your accomplishment there as still continuing. It would be appropriate to use "have transformed" if you are still captain of NNC CST, but that does not seem to be the focus of the paragraph.

Also from that sentence, I would suggest deleting the comma after team and rewriting the end of that sentence like this: "...from an inexperience group with no professional coaching to one that is physically and mentally prepared to compete for victory." It is better to remain focused on the team as a whole, rather than to start by talking about the team and end by talking about the individuals within the team.

The sentence that immediately follows feels rather choppy. You could improve the flow if you would break into two sentences and rewrite it along these lines: Initially, it was almost an impossible task to lead my team due to our limited resources. In fact, at the start of my tenure as captain we were using loaned boats and equipment.

Hi Hiebram,

Thanks for your time in reading the essay and your valuable feedback. Appreciates it. What do you think of the essay as a whole?

This first sentence does not contain as much meaning as it could contain:
A personal challenge I have faced (one that has also shaped my values), is making a mark in the National Canoeing Championship in 2002, where my team won a silver and two bronze medals. -----This gives info, but it does not express an idea. I think you should revise this sentence to mention the experience in a way that expresses a theme for the essay.

...have achieved. till date .

...set-up my very own consultancy firm to fuse business ideas and engineering methodologies to solve organizational problems.---Great idea... if you cite an article or book, you can show what kinds of ideas you have developed through your reading.

:-)