Hello everybody,
I am Italian and I am applying for a very competitive Graduate Programme in the UK and, as usual, I have to write a personal statement to be attached to the application with my personal motivation. I have been through this forum and found plenty of useful suggestions and information.
Now it's my turn. Can you please check my letter and make comments (the nastier the better), especially about the structure?
Thank you so much!
Paola
Dear Sir/Madam,
My name is ……….. With this letter, I would like to
apply as a graduate student for the Master of Science in Local Economic
Development at your School.
I got a degree in Construction Engineer in December
2000 from the University of Tor Vergata in Rome. [I DON'T KNOW HOW TO LINK THIS SENTENCE TO THE REST, BUT IT IS IMPORTANT TO MENTION MY DEGREE AT THIS POINT BECAUSE IT HELPS UNDERSTANDING WHAT I WRITE BELOW. ANY SUGGESTIONS?]
Ever since I was a young child I have always been
extremely interested in knowing new cultures and new languages as a way to
widen my mind and my capacity of understanding people. That’s why I have always actively
researched possibilities to live and study abroad. In fact, both at the High
School and at the University I participated in exchange programmes that gave me
the possibility to spend a period abroad studying in local educational
institutions. When I was 17 years old I spent three months in New Zealand where I had the possibility to attend the high
school and be integrated in the local community. Later, during my university
studies, I won a scholarship to be an Erasmus student in Paris for a year in one of the Faculties of Architecture
in Paris and another scholarship to participate to the Leonardo da Vinci program in an architecture firm. My first year in France had a very strong impact on my ideas about my
future career. In a Faculty of Architecture the approach to the world of
construction was completely different from the one at the Faculty of
Engineering where I was studying. During that year I got exposed to new
perspectives and in particular I learnt about the social aspects related to the
world of construction. For the first time I realised how designing buildings
could affect people’s lives and how the correct planning of cities had the
power of improving their living conditions. I started realising then that I
could give a very strong social and ethical meaning to the rather technical job
of engineer. I can trace in that period the birth of my interest for the development
as a subject to study and to be involved in.
Therefore in the last period of my studies and at the
beginning of my career as a young engineer I tried to build up a parallel
personal knowledge on this sector. Through the reading of articles and books on
development and cooperation, and through the participation to conferences and
public events, I became more and more aware of the fact that this was really
the sector that interested me and I tried to reorient my working perspective
and move forward.
I realised in fact that working in the field of
development would fulfil two important needs I had and still have: to give an
ethical dimension to my work and at the same time to satisfy my thirst for travelling
and discovering new cultures.
I eventually succeeded to start working for an Italian
NGO which was searching for engineers for post-war reconstruction projects in
the Balkans. It is four years now that I have been working for that same NGO with
increasingly higher responsibilities and positions and I shifted my main area
of work from a technical participation to a more strategic one. In particular
in the past two and half years I have worked as country representative of my
NGO in Eritrea and Egypt.
The fact that my studies are not related to the way
my work has shaped up hasn't really affected me nor created major difficulties.
On the contrary I think that my degree can be considered a very important point
of strength. In fact my studies provided me not only with a specific technical
knowledge related to construction and building related issues. In fact, more
than anything else, they gave me methodological tools to be used in different
fields of research and provided me with a very methodical and systematic mental
structure. In particular I developed strong analytical skills and the capacity to
elaborate models to study the reality by seizing its most relevant aspects. I
also developed a capacity of creating logical links among phenomena that
apparently don’t bear any relation with one other. Moreover my studies gave me
the mental habit to always go into depth of things and not being satisfied with
only the superficial evidence that comes out from the first approach.
In my working experience I have had many confirmations
that the methodological skills provided by my studies can be a very powerful
tool. In fact it was for me relatively easy to get acquainted with the main development-related
theories and to learn and internalize in a short time completely new concepts.
In a fairly short time I became effective and competent, being able to
undertake varied and different responsibilities on different specific sectors
of intervention. People I meet for my work are often surprised to discover that
I am and engineer and that I didn’t attend a specific course in development.
Now, after having worked for a few years in
development, in different sectors and with different duties, I feel that I am
at a turning point of my career and that it is time for me to move up and
forward. In this I am guided by two different needs. On one side I feel the
personal need to give a more organic and theoretical ground to the knowledge I
acquired on-the-job. On the other side I
need to develop more specific skill and I want to specialize in a more specific
sector. My goal would be to become an expert in a particular field instead of
having only many different unspecialised skills. The field of specialisation I
have chosen is local development. In fact in the last year I have been working
on projects related to Small and Micro Enterprises and their growth and I have become
more and more interested in all the aspects related the local economic
development in general.
My experience in an Italian NGO has been a very
enriching one from a professional and human view point. I will always be very
grateful to all the people I met and worked with. They transmitted to me their
passion and dedication and they gave me very precious knowledge and advice.
Nonetheless in my position now I have few possibilities to learn new skills or
new concepts and I feel that my work has become a unchallenging daily routine.
My plans now would be therefore to work for bigger international organisations
such as UN agencies or consulting firms with a more stimulating work
environment. There I would have the possibility to follow larger programs with
a larger impact and work with top professionals.
I am aware that my plan is a very ambitious one and it
needs to be carefully prepared. In order to achieve my goals a more solid
academic background is absolutely mandatory because the competition is very
high and I need to upgrade my skills and competencies. To take a year off from
work is also a very challenging and radical decision. It implies a strong financial
commitment both because of the actual costs incurred and for the waiver of a
year salary. At the same time it entails absence from the working environment
with no guarantees about the future possibilities. It requires therefore a very
strong motivation and a very careful choice. That's why I think that the only winning decision is to study in a university providing the
highest possible quality of academic training and with internationally
recognised expertise
This is the reason why I
have chosen the London School of Economics, for its international renown as
leading institution in the field of development.
The Master of Science in Local Economic Development I
have chosen would allow to improve my academic knowledge in the working field and
to enhance my possibilities to pursue a career in an International
Organisation. In fact the Master would allow me to deepen and widen my
knowledge on development in general, to gain a very accurate understanding of
local and regional development and to develop new specific skills.
could became a specialist in a sector that not only fascinates
me a lot, but that is also growing and taking more and more place in the
international agendas and that requires more and more professionals able to
cope with the increasing challenges brought about by international situation.
I think I could contribute to this programme for
in many ways. I am very tenacious and determined to pursue what I want to
achieve and I never give up any challenge. I can bring to the program an
overview from my experience in the working field, relating real problems that
practitioners in the field of development are asked to tackle in real life and
not only on the paper. I am used to studying and working in international
environments that require very good communication skills, high tolerance and
capacity of understanding different cultural behaviours and different ways to
approach and solve problems. I am used to analyse and process large amount of
data on complex issues in a quick and effective way in order to find solutions.
I am determined and confident that I make
an exceptional candidate for the program. I believe I will not only be able to
achieve high results, but to contribute substantially to the London School of
Economics as well.
Yours faithfully,