Question 1: Tell me about yourself?
Growing up in Saudi Arabia, I grew up in a very cultured and protected society. Within my country, we have one of the most culturally well preserved states that have wonderful culture and historic sites. What makes my country so special as well is that we have one of the most holy sites in Islam that is very closed to the public. In Saudi Arabia, there is a very tight knit community that has greatly shaped me as a person and has also shaped the education that I have received.
Throughout my childhood, I had many close friends and school mates that I greatly cherished attending school with. In Saudi Arabia, we had a different academic calendar than the west in that our school week was on Sunday to Thursday. Additionally, we started our lessons very early in the morning so that we could make the call to the prayer in the evenings. I grew quite accustomed to this training method in my education and began to greatly look forward to it every week. Little did I know, that it was very different from the West.
Being from Saudi Arabia, I spent a great deal of time studying business in my home country. Even when I was in high school, I knew that I had a talent of working with numbers. My high school teachers indicated to me that I should pursue advanced math courses and consider a path in engineering or business. While I felt that engineering or the sciences could be interesting, I felt that perhaps the field of international business would be a great fit for me.
While I was in Saudi Arabia, I spent time studying languages that were not just my native language of Arabic. In my home country, there has a recent surge of English lessons available. Due to my readings about global commerce, I learned that the possibility of learning English would open up many professional doors for me. It is for this reason that I enrolled in English for many years and also made an effort to learn French. I felt that these efforts would help me a great deal with my prospective professional career one day. Essentially, my predictions have proved correct because I know two of the most targeted business and international relations languages in the world.
My professional and academic interests aside, I was dedicated to both my family and my faith. Being from Saudi Arabia, there was an immense focus on the gift of being Muslim. My family greatly inspired me to be dedicated to my faith and also to the importance of family. These values are the core of my character and will perpetuate the evolution of my person as I work on my academic career and personal life for many years to come.
Question 2: Why did you choose your current university and major? What did you find most fulfilling and most difficult about your major?
When I first started university, I considered studying international relations; however, I realized that with my talent of math, I found that business would be a better fit and that international business would be best with my background and interest in international culture.
What I found to be the most difficult about my major was the writing component and the presentation component. What was exceedingly difficult for me was to learn how to write well in English. Since I come from a language with an entirely different alphabet, I had to learn the basics all over again. What was difficult about this as well was that I was competing with native speakers who had been writing essays in English their entire academic careers. This is what made me have to work ten times harder in my academic essay assignments than my peers.
What was also very difficult for me in studying business was the requirement for the plethora of PowerPoint presentations that we had to present in front of the class. These presentations were on very advanced subjects of business and international affairs, thus, I had to practice many more times than my colleagues who had always been speaking English. I had many difficulties in preparing for these conversations with the class because I was very self conscious about my level of English and my accent while speaking English. Even though I had studied English for many years, I was greatly experienced in the art of vocabulary and basic conversation; however, studying at such an advanced level was very new for me and I had to work quite hard to remain competitive with my classmates.
Relating to what I found the most fulfilling about my major, I greatly loved studying famous companies from cultures around the globe. My ability to understand English made me be able to read and research certain aspects of the business world that had not been available to me previously in my home country. Particularly, I have greatly enjoyed learning about new cultures in my degree since my home country is very closed off with regards to what we are exposed to. International business and commerce has opened my eyes to many different prospective career ideas in the globalizing world that we currently are living in. It is for these reasons that I am so elated at the university that I chose for my studies and look forward to a rewarding career in the business sector and global marketplace. I truly believe with my linguistic talents and cultural background that there are many prospective opportunities available to me.
Question 3: Describe a situation either professional or personal where you faced a particular difficulty. What was the outcome, what did you learn from the experience, and what would you do differently if you faced a similar situation again?
Culturally speaking, I had many issues when I first came to an English-speaking country. Particularly relating to my culture and religious upbringing, I had many adjustments to make in order to avoid culture shock. This was not something that was easy; however, I am very proud to have overcome these cultural issues that become misunderstandings in personal, school, and work situations. That being said, one of the areas where I struggled a great deal was in the work place. Ironically, my struggles were not related to culture in the workplace, but were mainly related to linguistic challenges that stemmed from being from a country that has such a different linguistic system that the English-speaking world.
The first internship that I had in English was quite difficult for me. The reason for this is that I quickly learned that business English is very different from the English that I had written in the classroom and the English I had learned in my home country. This is precisely why I had to adapt quite quickly to many cultural changes in the office place. That being said, I used to have trouble understanding different accents in English when answering the telephone and also had a great deal of difficulty drafting emails in English that were grammatically correct.
Overcoming obstacles such as these were never easy; however, what I started to do was to read the newspaper on a daily basis in order to learn more about how the English paragraphs and sentences were usually structured. This helped me to get better vocabulary and to also improve my writing.
What this experienced taught me was that I was able to improve my linguistic skills and create a much better job performance overall. This internship ended up leading me to more opportunities while I was studying business, which will prove quite valuable to my CV in the future. Thus, I learned from this experience that if I apply myself with my English skills, that I am absolutely capable of growing in my professional life a great deal, which provided me a great deal of satisfaction.
Another pertinent element to my success was my ability to become more culturally sensitive and aware in my studies. The reason that this was so relevant to me was the fact that I was forced to open my mind given that my country is so well protected and culturally preserved. Even though I have a great respect for my country and adore our cultural practices, I also am proud to be able to be more personable with people from all over the world. My various internships and academic involvements in university taught me how to relate to people from different cultures and to even make some wonderful friendships in the process. This is one of the most valuable lessons that I learned throughout my experiences and am quite grateful to have had the opportunity to develop this skill.
Question 4: Discuss a university or work related situation where you have taken a significant leadership role. What did you learn from this situation with respect to yourself and others?
At first, when I entered university, I was very shy and tended to follow more than I led. I am truly grateful for having the opportunity to attend such a university because I found my voice in university and it stemmed from studying what I was truly interested in and loved. This is what gave me a voice, relevant opinions, and helped me to gain the respect of my colleagues. It is because of this and the experiences that I had in university that I greatly grew as a person, professional, academic, and leader.
When I was in university, I was elected the leader of the international business society of school. Many good friends and I were elated to participate in such an organization and we made it our mission to bring good speakers and to have culturally relevant events for those who were seriously considering entering the global business landscape.
While I did find this experience rewarding, I did also learn how difficult individuals can be who are competing for leadership roles. What made this experience particularly fascinating was to see how certain personalities did not mix in the aspect of decision making. This is a lesson that I will carry with me for the rest of my career because it was a great reality check to learn that not every personality was pertinent in every business meeting situation. I felt that this was particularly illuminated when people were competing for the recognition of professors and the academic institution that we were studying at. I imagined how this situation would play out in the work place and realized that I had only seen the beginning of how individuals would remain competitive.
Pertaining to myself, I learned that I am a very effective leader, which provided me confidence that I will possess for the rest of my career. I learned that once I was thrown into a leadership situation that I greatly flourished as a result. I am personable, respectful of others, and have a great way of keeping people organized and on topic. This is one of my strengths because I noticed how people would tend to get off topic when they needed to be focusing on the task at hand. This showed me a talent that I have for leadership that I have since used in my jobs and academia.
Question 5: Describe a risk that you took that proved successful. Also describe a risk that you took that was not successful. What did you learn?
Risk taking is something that I learned as I was getting ready to go to business school. The reason for this is that I was timid before and business school and my preparation to study business showed me the importance of taking risks, which is something that I will surely value for the rest of my career and personal life as well. That being said, not every risk that I took was positive, but I did learn something from each and every risk that I took. This is how I became the person that I am today and how I keep growing and evolving in my professional potential and my academic potential as well.
I took a great risk in deciding to study in English. This was a gamble for me because it was not a skill that guaranteed me success in the long run. It would have been easier for me to stay in my home country and limit myself to only knowing one language. That being said, I knew that English was going to prove valuable to me if I wanted to pursue a career in business, which I knew that I was very well suited for.
Studying English was no guarantee for me because not everyone is talented with languages and I surely am not. It took a lot of work and dedication to get me to the level where I currently am. It is for this reason that I am proud of where my English has taken me and also know that it was a risk that significantly paid off.
One aspect of my education that did not pay off was my interesting in focusing my business degree on accounting at first. Previously, I had gravitated towards accounting given that I was good at numbers. That being said, I was talented in my finance classes, but just could not understand accounting well. For this reason, I failed greatly at my risk when I decided to study accounting. The reason for this is that I could not figure out the balance sheet and the assets and liabilities. Particularly when these concepts were applied to the word problems for my accounting class, I immediately knew that I was not designed to be an account. This is a risk that failed for me; however, in this experience, I learned what I was talented at. I am more talented at the inter-personal aspect of business that are a great asset to the globalizing business world. This is where my talents reside. Thus, I took the experience that was a risk that did not work out well and turned it into a situation in which I could greatly thrive as an individual.
Question 6: Describe your most challenging and rewarding team-building experience. What insights did you gain from this experience? Also, describe a time when you were a part of a team that didn’t work well, describe your role and what you learned from this experience?
Some of the most challenging and rewarding team building experiences that I have possessed have also been in my business program. For example, the most rewarding experience that I encountered was a trip that I was permitted to take to Brazil in order to study the Brazilian economy. Since I had never been to South America previously, this was a wonderful opportunity to experience Sao Paulo and Rio de Janiero and how the corporate culture exists in Latin America. Since my home country was so different, spending this week in Brazil greatly opened up my eyes to the potential that is out there for international business. For example, every day we had a group project that was a team building exercise. One of the most special aspects that we did was a project in which our groups had a competition to building a marketing strategy for Corinthians, which is a football team in Sao Paulo. Since I love football, I was immediately excited to experience touring the stadium of a football club in Latin America and to get academic credit for doing so. Within our project, our group made a significant effort in allowing Corinthian’s branding image to shine through our strategy. We also were able to say a few words in Portuguese to impress the judges who were the senior executives of the Corinthians brand. This was one of the most rewarding team building experiences that I have ever had and I will cherish it for many years.
Unfortunately, I was also a part of a team that did not work well in business school. We studied Keurig, which is an American coffee manufacturing company that is from Massachusetts. Our job was to discuss whether Keurig could come to the Swedish market. The instant I met my group, I knew that they would not do the proper amount of work. My predictions proved correct and I ended up having to finish the rest of the project, which was a major setback on our assignment. We had been tasked with a one-hour presentation complete with a PowerPoint and a twenty-page paper.
What this experience taught me was that sometimes you cannot rely on team mates. I learned that there is a difficult line where one has to remove themselves as a team player and force themselves to be more productive as a leader in order to meet deadlines. Where this group failed was that people wanted to do minimal work for the maximum amount of credit, which caused many problems. In this case, I had to discuss with the professor, which also taught me the lesson of telling on team mates or coworkers and how that can be a dangerous idea as well. One has to be sure they want to face the consequences of reporting someone. All in all, this project taught me a very valuable lesson that I will surely cherish as I move forward in my academic and professional career.
Team building exercises are pivotal to developing one’s career. For this reason, I am elated that I experienced both good and bad team building experiences. This taught me a more realistic viewpoint of how the real business world really works and provided me genuine insight that I will take with me as I move forward in my career.
References
Provided by Course Materials From Professor.
