Personal Statement – Lily ZHANG
I was an ordinary looking girl. Although I was once frustrated by that fact, now I can proudly declare that thanks to it, I was endowed with many dominant characteristics, which influenced both my private life as well as academic life in my future.
As I was a plain girl I was once very shy, regarding myself as an unimportant duckling. My parents instruct me to show what kind of person I am not by saying but by doing, to try to turn my dreams into reality rather than expect the miracle, and to tap my potentials to reach higher goals of my life. Thus these enlightenments helped to determine the core of myself.
Combining them with my own diligence and intelligence, I ranked the 10th in my grade in Junior High School, the next year I was the 6th,and the third year I graduated with the highest score of 493.5 out of 510. With that score, I was able to distinguish myself to enter the Middle School Attached to Jiangtong University. The reason why I choose it was not only for its reputation of “the cradle of future college students", but also because it was one of the best boarding schools in Shanghai. I developed amiable yet independent personality through community life.
In 1993 I made the most important decision in my life, and met the biggest challenge of my life. Because of my excellent graduation scores--7A and 2B, I was admitted by Shanghai University with the National College Entrance Test waiver (NCET, similar to SAT) and given a scholarship of RMB 4000 for the first year (the tuition fee is RMB 2700 per year). The university promised to give special scholarship of RMB 4000 to top 5% students each year. I choose the competitive major--Foreign Trade and became a member of capable young people, the cream of the cream. Ending my 5 years' study with total scholarship of 18000,I almost self-financed myself.
Hardships and challenges are actually my friends of life, making me brave, optimistic and confident. I was the first to donate my blood in my class. My International Marketing teacher applauded for me when I finished presentation of Case Study "American Hospital Supply". When I delivered my speech in the hall, I felt proud of my courage.
While exposed to various academic fields to broaden my horizon during university study, I narrowed my efforts on watching closely monetary measures our central bank, PBOC used to adjust the financial market when working as an accountant in a dynamic bank, SPDB. These three years witnessed continuous use of interest rate lever to boost economy, the transfer of banks to concentrating on providing quality financial products from being trapped in vicious cycle of over relying on increasing interest rate to attract deposits, and the progress made towards market's deciding exchange rate and interest rate. I participated the Suzhou River Sewage project, an important work of Shanghai municipal government using loans from The Asian Development Bank, and this experience helped me to set my career goal: a professional of international financial cooperation.
To fulfill my career goal, I intend to pursue my MSc and further my study in a program best fit for me. Your honored program falls into my scope not only because of the great prestige of LSE and the program, but also because 2 points so fascinating to me:
It offers me a balance grounding between accounting and finance.
The small size of the program will provide me with more opportunity to share view with world-class faculty and learn from them.
I believe my qualifications underneath can make me a successful candidate in your program:
1.Outstanding academic backgrounds: I achieved first class bachelor degree in foreign trade from Shanghai University with overall GPA 3.8 out of 4.
2.Strong mathematics capability: During undergraduate study, I have completed mathematics, statistics, probability, operation research, engineering economy and so on with excellent academic records.
3.Proficiency in both spoken and written English: Achieved TOEFL 637 and GMAT expected to over 700.
4.Professional experience: I formed my own style of working and could bear burden to tackle different tasks at the same time. Good communication skills acquired also made me a good team leader as well as a team member.
I believe that I am qualified to undertake the further study in finance and accounting and I sincerely hope that you will consider my application. Thank you very much for your consideration!
You’re faithfully
Lily ZHANG
更多英国留学信息，参见英国留学网：http://uk.liuxue360.com或英国大学网：http://www.001uk.org
