For a brave traveler through the desert, the ultimate goal is to arrive at his destination safely and in one piece. He has to endure the scorching sun that dehydrates him through and through with limited supply of food and water that can only sustain him for a certain period of time. He has to grapple with the extreme temperatures, both hot and cold, through the day and night respectively having to dress lightly during the day and then dressing warmly during the night to fight the cold. Desert animals like scorpions and snakes pose an imminent danger upon an encounter with him as they bury themselves in the sand awaiting to pounce on a wandering prey.
Sand dunes can prove a hard task to get over and sand storms are unpredictable both there to slow down the traveler and wear him down. Inspite of all these dangers, the traveler has only one cause that drives him on day in day out and that is to get to his desired destination come what may. On arrival at the destination, he will have reached his goal albeit momentarily because he soon has to plan another journey in the hostile desert to get to a more desirable place, a place where he will realize self-transcendences.
Life is a journey in which each individual is a traveler. On this journey people are in search of a better life and greener pastures. One way of actualizing this is through good and quality education meant to raise a person’s standards of life as well as those of fellow humans. The reason I want to pursue a PhD program in marketing in the United States having come from Saudi Arabia is because universities in the States have a culture of producing versatile and multi-faceted post graduates who are internationally accredited and highly competitive. I am saying this out of experience as I have had the privilege of studying in one of these prestigious universities, the University of Colorado in Denver, where I graduated with a Master’s degree in Business Administration in 2008. This degree really pushed me to greater heights in my career and it has gone on to open doors of opportunity in many high flying companies in Saudi Arabia one of which I’m currently working for. I also have a Bachelors degree in Administrative Science degree having majored in Quantitative Methods for Administration in 2003 from the King Saud University in Riyadh. Doing a PhD in marketing has been a lifelong dream for me ever since I was in high school and when I am granted this opportunity it will be the chance of a lifetime in actualizing my dream.
My main aim after attaining this PhD is to impart knowledge to my fellow country men and women by teaching and training them so as to enhance their skills and knowledge in the business sector. One of my short to medium term goals is to work in an employee training program department that our company – Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) – is working on. In this department I would like to hold a position where I would be able to apply the knowledge and skills that I have learnt into practice.
The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation, one of the largest manufacturers of chemicals, metals plastics, and fertilizers in the world, is also undertaking to establish a development and research department in which I would also want to be a part of and contribute my expertise and experience gotten from working in other companies such as the Saudi Industrial Development Bank, and Mubasher company among others, which will help in the smooth running of this department. My long term goal is to become a lecturer in our local universities which have grown from seven to twenty one. This will be very fulfilling as I would have gotten to my desired destination and I would be helping my fellow citizens in their quest for attaining their self-transcendences through getting quality education locally. Thus the general population will be more enlightened as time goes by as more and more people strive to succeed in life. I am hopeful that taking the PhD program in marketing will lead to the realization of my endeavors which will then impact the growth and development of hundreds and even thousands of not only Saudi Arabians but virtually anyone and everyone who aims at getting to the pinnacle of good and quality education. I will be a vessel that will be used to help out not only in our society but the world at large.
The path to all these dreams is not as easy as it may appear when writing down this statement. I am well aware that to achieve the heights I plan to, it will require determination, sacrifice and hard work from my part. I am also aware that at my age and career level most people do not lay as much emphasis on education as during their teenage years as they already have jobs and most of what a teenage student would study for. However in my case it is different, the job that I have and previous successes are to me only but stepping stones to a higher level of excellence. According to my personal philosophy, success is not a state of completion but rather a stage of achieving all that can be achieved at a particular time. Based on this, I always get myself new targets after I have achieved those that society would expect me to achieve and be content with.
The personal philosophy I discussed above is what has been driving me from the moment I got a Bachelor in Administrative Science. Some of my fellow students during this degree program opted to end their academic lives there but instead I only saw this degree as an avenue to achieve more. Yes, I do admit that getting the degree was an achievement but the idea of me talking of one achievement for the rest of my life was not welcome to me. This is why I enrolled for the Masters program I had mentioned earlier. I did the enrollment three years after I had graduated with my Bachelors. Within those three years I felt that staying out of class would not only make me irrelevant in my profession but would also deny me the opportunity to achieve the big goals I had since I was a small boy. I gave my best during the Masters course and I was able to attain a GPA of 3.50 out of the possible 4. Not wishing to sound proud, this was a good mark and I even was recognized in the Dean’s list of outstanding scholastic achievement in 2008 during the spring semester.
I won’t say that I haven’t achieved success but according to my philosophy that success was a mark I should have hit by then. If I may borrow from the traveler’s story I had given earlier, the Masters degree can be compared to an oasis I had aimed to reach by then. When the traveler reaches such an oasis they rest and freshen up; but they do not stay there forever, they need to move on to the next oasis. I feel that I have taken enough rest and done enough freshening up since 2008, and now I feel ready to start the journey to the next oasis- this PhD.
I have also worked at Development Saudi Industrial Fund from 2009 to 2010. While at this Fund I worked in the Research Marketing Division mainly focusing on Project Studies and Consultancy. I have also worked at Mubasher Company in the Business Development section and also in Hafez Travel during my internship. During the latter I got to specialize in international marketing and investing. In all these organizations I have always found it satisfying to seek to better each one of them by being dedicate to my job and performing my responsibilities with diligence and integrity.
A description of my professional life would be incomplete without the mention of the projects that I have been involved in. There are many such projects but there are some which I intend to mention that were remarkable in the aspect of objectives realization. These projects include one on Human Resource Management in Japan, the Free Trade Agreement between Bahrain and the US, conducting business in Japan, inflation in the global economy and its consequences, launching a new commodity in the American Markets, and investment in tourism in Saudi Arabia. All these projects have given me three things: an opportunity to serve the community, a chance to apply the knowledge I have acquired over time, and finally the opportunity to learn new information and skills from other professionals, both managers and those are not managers.
One of the reasons why I would wish to join your institution for my PhD program is because I desire to stay relevant both as an employee and as an academician in the field of management. My desire to stay relevant can be seen in the numerous courses I have undertaken since I completed my Bachelors degree up to date. Some of these courses include training on the implementation of the Balanced Score Card which is a relatively new personnel appraisal program. I have also been trained in managing time which is an important resource to any manager. This training was important as most managers may manage other resources well but still fail if their time management is not done well.
Undertaking a PhD course is a dream many people would have; since the financial benefits associated with attaining the degree are numerous. However to me, it’s not all about the financial benefits that I will gain but rather the knowledge that will be imparted in me during the program. This is why I chose to apply for my PhD at your institution so as to ensure that I get quality learning from well trained lecturers who have molded other people who shared the same vision as I.
