There are many reasons why I have chosen to pursue a degree in business; both my personal and professional experience, as well as my own desires, have led me to this point. From my birth, to my own talents, and even my volunteer and employed work, I have been fervently working towards the pursuit of a career in business; I have done many things up to this point to prepare me for this path.
I grew up in a single family; my parents divorced when I was five years old. Following their divorce, I grew apart from my father, having not seen him for more than twelve years. Some years later, my mother moved to the US while I was still in elementary school; I was raised then by my aunt. However, these conditions proved unworkable, and so I made the choice to live on my own at a boarding junior high school, remaining there until I moved to America to join my mother. Given my unique hardships as a child, I learned to find strength and perseverance within myself; I learned how to be independent, ambitious and self-motivating, traits that I believe will suit me well in a business career.
For a time, I held the position of president of my Chinese Club at school; during these experiences, I found it immensely helpful to completely comprehend the concerns of my team members, and seriously consider their thoughts and opinions. My tenure as Chinese Club president taught me that, sometimes, "followship" is equally as important as leadership. A good team leader requires personal values of strategic thinking and creativity in order to succeed; these are features I have cultivated over the course of my lifetime to date. These are qualities that I also wish to fine tune and improve upon during my pursuit of a business degree.
My first job was in outside sales for a cutlery company; my duties were to translate a customer manual from English into Chinese, and I also sold products to Chinese customers. This job was very challenging for me; I had to go door-to-door and talk to strangers about my product. Given my initial shyness, this was a very hard job to do, since I had not yet built up the conversation skills I would need. However, when I moved to inside sales for a furniture store, those same skills made me the number 1 seller. During this time, I learned how to comprehend the concerns of the customer, and keep them in mind as I made my own business decisions about what to sell to them. It was here that I learned how best to communicate with customers and open up to them about what I can offer them, while at the same time hearing their concerns and opinions. I had to consult creative, improvisational aspects of myself I had not yet acknowledged; by the time I was used to it, however, I was a master at meeting the needs of a customer in a way that made us both happy.
Learning the ways in which a business succeeds was the most important lesson that I learned from this experience. The quality of service a customer receives became my highest priority, as that becomes the way in which they rate a business. I discovered that people are willing to pay more in order to get a higher quality product; as a result, the best quality product must be matched with excellent business service in order to maintain a loyal customer base that will continue to shop from them.
The goal of these various interests was to help expand my horizons and find new things to excel in. I have a great passion for life, and I want to do as much as I possibly can; this is part of my own process of growth and maturation that allows me to find the real 'me.' I consider myself to be an 'empty cup,' always learning and filling that cup with new things. In the world of business, learning new things is paramount to maintaining a fresh perspective on your projects. The talents required by businessmen and business women are those of human beings; compassion, understanding and insight are vital to the world of business, and learning new things about oneself is the way to build those attributes.
My zest for life and all its challenges is what has drawn me to a degree in business. The fast pace and quickly-shifting nature of business is something that continually attracts me to it. I love the feeling of getting different, unique challenges every day, as well as the consequences of problem solving. Even when I fail on occasion, that is where I learn my most valuable experiences. Both the challenges I have faced and the failures I have experienced are things that will lead me to great success. Before transferring to university, I took some time to explore the world to figure out what major I wanted to concentrate on - Marketing.
In the short term, my goal is to attend my dream business school and get my MBA. I wish to learn as much as I can about the world of business through these goals. In the long term, however, I wish to build a strong marketing team and establish a total marketing solution consulting company for businesses connecting both China and the United States. I feel confident that I can achieve these goals because I understand the different styles of behavior and businesses that these two cultures possess. Not only that, I know the way to navigate both those cultural personalities in order to facilitate strong business relationships. By learning how both cultures operate their businesses and negotiate, I can make international business and marketing deals work for everyone involved.
