professional goals essay for Illinois

My professional goals are to become a futures trader and run my own company. Becoming a trader interests me because my father is an options trader. Two summers ago I went to the Board of Trade to assist my father. I was his clerk; I checked his trades, ran a computer analysis of his position, and helped my father with any other tasks. Before I went to the Board of Trade, I had no idea how complex trading is. At the Board of Trade, I learned what commodities traders do. Stock brokers set the price of the stock, which I had not known. They buy when they believe the price is too low and sell when they believe the price is too high. This was a simple concept to understand. As I became more familiar with the stock market, my father set up a virtual trading system. The virtual trading system reflected the real-time prices of stocks, and I was trading on it. Trading was difficult and scary for me at first. I had no idea of when to buy or when to sell and was randomly guessing, hoping my trade would turn out successful, but as I traded more, I got the hang of it. There were consistent levels at which people bought or sold. Also, I realized traders based their judgments on weather (I was trading wheat because that is what my father trades). If traders thought that the weather forecasts would damage the crops, leaving fewer crops, traders would buy because there would be a shortage of crops. Mainly, I want to become a stock broker because there is a chance of making a lot of money. The amount of money a stock broker makes is based on how well he or she does, not a set salary.

thank you for the help

you should include more of what you thought about the whole process
maybe make the essay more exciting to read
maybe say something like you like the excitement of trading, but just because of the money making.

Personally, I think you should have a hook. Make the reader interested in knowing about what intrigued you about trading. Add something in your essay to make your essay different from the rest of the people who want to pursue the same thing you do. I also think you repeat "traders" or "trading" too much.

Your introduction is kind of bland, you might want to change it to something that would draw a reader in.