Personal Statement
  Program: International Marketing¹

As a 23-year-old aspiring² student who has grown up and received his education in pace with the evolution of China’s market economy over the past two decades, I deem myself in possession of many professional qualities for undertaking³ a career in advanced marketing and business management. I believe that I have demonstrated more creativity, management skills, English language proficiency⁴, and the courage to accept challenges than most of my peers on a number of important occasions—being selected from a large number of competitors to study at XX University of XX on an exchange program, winning prize in the XX for University Students, launching my own company upon completing my undergraduate program. My interest and my demonstrated abilities show me unmistakably that to take up a lifelong career in high-level marketing management will be very appropriate for me because that is where my potential lies. In order to scale new heights academically and to lay a solid foundation for my later-day career development, I would like to apply for a Master’s program in international marketing at the prestigious⁵ Business School in XX University. For me, this is a self-conscious attempt to face challenge and to transcend⁶ my former self. I expect to be initiated⁷ into a first-rate academic environment in which my academic foundation is consolidated⁸ and my business potential is strengthened.

It was in XX Technology and Business School that I completed my undergraduate education, majoring in marketing. As an academic discipline, marketing fascinated me for its increasingly important strategic role in modern management and for its interdisciplinary character, as it encompasses⁹ management science, psychology¹⁰, sociology, statistics, etc. From the very outset of my undergraduate program, I realized the importance of seeking a comprehensive development, on both academic and personal levels, in order to become a senior management professional in the future. Therefore, throughout my undergraduate program, I endeavored to make full exploitation of all the available educational resources of my university to improve my academic performance. An examination of my academic transcript¹¹ will indicate that I have maintained a year-by-year ascendance in my study. Apart from that, I have also been very active in extracurricular activities and learned German and XX languages besides English. My ability to perform independent research was cultivated and improved through writing my internship¹² treatise¹³ and graduation thesis, both of which were given a 95-point score, the highest score in my class. In particular, my thesis On the Marketing of Hi-Tech Products, by focusing on the major business risks involved in the marketing of hi-tech products and on the short and uncertain life cycle of those products, was rated “Excellent” for detailed¹⁴ analyses and novel perspectives that I offered in it.

The most important part of my undergraduate graduate program is definitely my short but memorable¹⁵ stay in XX. As a junior, I was selected through a competitive screening test to embark¹⁶ on a 4-month exchange program with XX’s XX Polytechnic¹⁷ on the strengths of my distinguished¹⁸ academic performance, English proficiency and computer skills. This exciting and memorable experience proved extremely beneficial to me—I gained marked improvement in my English, was exposed to a totally different life style and educational system, and achieved new understanding of the concept of marketing. Plunged¹⁹ into a new academic environment, I demonstrated a creative and a critical spirit rare in Chinese students, and won appreciation²⁰ from my XX professors. In attending the course High Tech Marketing, my team members and I spent the entire semester verifying the plausibility²¹ of a business proposal that I raised but was rejected by my XX advisor²². Under my insistence²³ and through my continued refinement²⁴, my business proposal achieved eventual²⁵ success and has been incorporated into the overall business plan of XX Company. In another course International Business Plan, my fruitful collaboration²⁶ with my XX classmates led to our team’s winning of the unprecedented²⁷ full mark in the final evaluation²⁸ of our course project. I also accumulated important experience of performing group research in the eAcademy project headed by Dr. XX, in which I was responsible for the marketing planning of the enterprise.

Upon completing my undergraduate program, with the support of my friends and family members, I launched my own XX Trade Company that deals in medical equipment and provides hospital management consulting service. In doing this, I became one of the few Chinese graduates who established their own business. My business impulse originated from two sources. The first is my participation²⁹ in the XX for University Students in which my team won Excellence³⁰ Award (my responsibility was to formulate³¹ marketing plans for our “Optimum” Company and to conduct market surveys). Another is my internship as a senior student at an e-commerce company during which I planned and organized market investigations³² in preparation for the marketing of the company’s latest product—Hospital Management Information System. I saw myself as possessing necessary business management skills and marketing potential.

Managing my own company, making real business plans and designing real marketing strategies, all those have allowed me to apply my knowledge and to tap my business potential. In making this bold move, I wish to develop a clear understanding of what I am good at and to chart the course of my future career development. My present application for a Master’s program at your esteemed³³ university is motivated by my need to receive further academic input³⁴ that will enable me to develop my company into a major enterprise.

According to modern management theories, successful enterprises must be highly customer-oriented and marketing is no longer the job of a particular functional³⁵ department of an enterprise. As a developing country with a planned economy for many decades, China lacks a well-developed science of management and marketing, and the current marketing practices are far from mature as marketing as a standard academic discipline is only of recent origin. Yet this may prove a blessing³⁶ in disguise for me as I am located at the crucial point of China’s development in marketing theory and practice and I will enjoy greater chances of success. In my proposed degree program, I would like to focus on the marketing of Hi-tech products and on the marketing of multinational³⁷ companies under cultural pluralism. The relationship between marketing and cultural pluralism has long been my major research concern and during my study in XX I have already paid special attention to the impact of cultural differences between East and West on marketing. In my future studies, I will be exposed a greater cultural diversity, which I believe will further facilitate my study and research. It is an art to deal with the subtle relationship between culture and marketing and I need to gain more understanding and experience in this regard.

Young as I am, I am fully³⁸ aware of the transitory nature of life and all that I can do is to race against time to maximize knowledge and expertise³⁹ and to enrich the value of my life within the limited span of my life. Through my future study, I wish to develop myself into a marketing specialist. This is an objective, and I am in possession of the necessary foundation, academic and professional, and the potential for realizing this objective.