Personal Statement

As a senior majoring in Economics at XXX, one of the top four universities in Shanghai, the more relevant courses I take, the more I am certain about my future career as an Economist.

However, I realize that what I have learned as an undergraduate is far from enough. Therefore, it is my dream to pursue a graduate program in Economics at your university. If accepted, my intended concentration would be microeconomics or Finance.

My interest in Economics was ignited in high school, where I was first introduced to the fundamental economic theories in our politics class. I was so fascinated by the concepts of ‘invisible hand’, ‘Giffen’s Paradox’ and others that I chose the major of Economics as my first choice before the University Entrance Examination. Unlike my classmates, whose major is usually decided by their parents, I followed the voice of my heart and I am determined to persist in the end.

With my education at XXX, I was not only solidly grounded in the fundamentals, but also found a very supportive environment. Luckily, my classmates are all very capable and self-motivated; we have our study groups and do research together. During my junior year, teaming up with four students, I did research on the topic of how to effectively stimulate China’s economy by increasing the demand of residents. My responsibility included collecting data, reviewing relevant magazines and assisting in the establishment of the economic model. The paper of our co-effort got approved by XXX Fund — a fund offered by XXX to potential research programs.

I also read a lot of classical economic works, including Professor Larry H.P. Lang’s books like ‘Who is saving China’s economy’. Through extensive reading and group research, they not only help me develop good study habits and perform well enough to get the scholarship, but also broaden my perspective and give me new insights into the depth of my field.

I did not limit myself to academic studies at the university. For example, I did home tutoring for a student from other university for microeconomics and helped her pass the exam. She said somehow learning from me, it is easier for her to understand all the complicated graphs and formulas. I volunteered to serve at the seventh Academy of Social Sciences academic annual meeting with the theme of Economic Performance. That was a great opportunity for me to learn the unique research topics from many economists and professors, varying from international finance to local real estate price control. I made plenty of notes and even got the chance to ask questions, which was absolutely enriching.

Encouraged by my parents and teachers, I successfully passed the interviews for exchange program to XXX University and XXX International College. During the six months in the United States, I quickly adapted to the new life and had no problem communicating with the locals. I have to say I prefer the interactive class atmosphere at XXX, as well as the teaching methods of American teachers, for they enlighten the students rather than merely teach them. In addition, the overseas living and working experience allowed me to have a more vivid comparison of different aspects of China and US economies. The price of luxurious goods in China is definitely much higher whereas that of labor and services is just the opposite. According to Professor Lang’s opinion, the reasons behind this phenomenon are that too many taxes are imposed on goods and China lacks innovative talent to create national wealth, thus the services sector is not able to make a lot of money from supporting the technical sector. I could not have agreed more, as I witnessed so many creative ideas and designs in Disney World, with the monotonous manufacturing process always outsourced and the final product tagged with the label ‘Made in China’. It is urgent for China to upgrade and optimize its industrial chain in order to be more competitive in the globalized world, improve per capita GDP and finally to minimize the wealth gap.

Thanks to my academic and leadership reputation, I was offered an internship in XXX, the biggest XXX company in North America. Because the company has just opened its office in China, my job duties covered a lot, which is very beneficial for me to apply what I learned into practice. In the company’s XXX contest, I designed a questionnaire and made an analysis in order to support our product. Both marketing and statistics knowledge were involved to publicize to potential customers. The final presentation left a deep impression on all the judges. At the end of my internship, a research report based on the internal data and my analysis of on-line recruitment industry was generated. My manager Nick, responsible for the Greater China market, hoped for me to become a full-time employee after my graduation.

This semester I am taking Econometrics, International Finance and other economics courses. In order to be well prepared for the graduate program, I am also taking two optional courses: Financial Accounting and Financial Statement Analysis. Moreover, I plan to take some other courses with research students at XXX during the next semester.

As Thomas Friedman has said: ‘The world is flat’. Though people are not born in equal conditions in today’s world, they are more likely to have access to educational resources and compete on the level field.

While the GDP of China surpassed Japan’s, ranking No.2 in the world in 2011, the real GDP per capita is still far behind that of developed countries, reflecting the

deficiency of the economic growth. I am eager to be an economist like Professor Larry H.P. Lang, who dares to point out the problems in the process of development and unreasonable economic structure in China with his unique and critical perspective.

To be qualified for that, I need to further refine my expertise in economics. Your institution, known for rigorous scholarship research and a highly qualified faculty, is the university I would like to further my study at. I am confident that under your seasoned guidance, my potential will develop into knowledge and experience beneficial to both China and Canada.

第二篇：Personal Statement 个人陈述范文

MMM Date of Birth 07/30/1987

Personal Statement

I strive to become a prominent researcher and leader of business in the 21st century. My purpose of transferring to Duke University is to acquire both theoretical knowledge and practical skills at a higher level in this field. I’ve developed a strong passion for business and management through my study, leadership roles and work experience as I grew up. It first drew my attention when I was still in junior high school, I had a team in the student association of more than 20 fellows at that time, I was always thinking of new ways to efficiently distribute work and make all of them finished appropriately, which, could be my first practical operation of managerial method. Since then, management and economics have always inspired my interests because I find it interesting when you see different approaches can lead to different results output and the whole team performance.

I see business and management as an art. In senior high school, I took more leadership roles such as editor-in-chief and musical band president. In the practical world when leading teams, I always see conflicts internally and externally in a team, so I began to consult some real business managers about how a corporate manager can make a team work smoothly and efficiently in the real business, through talks with them, I shaped a basic view of business and management, it greatly formed my future directions towards my intended major in university. In my first year in university, I took some economics and management related courses, I was so happy to see so many theories on textbook, which, I have already tried out in the real practice of managing my team in the past years. Thanks to my practical experience, when having in-class discussions and finishing assignments, I usually have a clear clue of those theories because I can always relate them to a real scene, which helps me better understand them. Also, I have taken as many new thoughts and approaches form both textbooks and professors. I will compare those theories with some of my previous approaches and find that it could be better if I used the new ones. They are like the light house when I’m managing my team currently in AIESEC, the largest international student organization in the world, and always show me the right direction to make a decision, because I always implement the theories on textbooks into the real business.

Business and management is quite a practical field of study, which requires practical experience supported theories implementing on real scene tasks, so as to solve existing problems and create new approaches. In China, where I’m living in now, the real business world is undergoing massive transformation and developing at an unprecedented speed, and this, indeed benefits me in the way that I can get first-hand experience to observe the different types of economic formations and their efficiency while most people living in other countries at my age can’t experience all of this in person. In the meantime, I have also learned so much from the small Chinese private business companies, especially in and around my city where private business is extremely successful, about how they are fighting this severe crisis and their uniqueness to turn the worst time to their best to make profit. From my perspective, innovation is the key in the business world. So I have been involved in several research projects about the analysis of current trends and prospective future changes in the field of marketing.

As a student in the honors program of management in Zhejiang University which is one of the most prestigious universities in Mainland China, I’ve gained broad background in the field of economics and management with my extracurricular and internship experience laying a sound foundation for furthering my study at Duke. My current overall GPA is 3.9/4.0, and I’ve remained top 5% of about 240 students. I am also well prepared linguistically to pursue advanced studies in the United States. All my past accomplishments urged me to enter a world-class environment to study business from a new perspective. Duke enjoys a worldwide reputation, the fine academic atmosphere and the first-class teaching and research will keep me up to date with the world’s cutting edge development of business and management.

Besides business and management, my greatest concern for life is world peace. I have traveled to more than 70 cities all around the world, covering 4 in the 5 Continents, to promote world peace. From philanthropic visit to South Africa, establishing country partnership in Lithuania within AIESEC, to youth exchange program in Germany, every where I go, I act as a world peace advocate and promote the idea of respecting human difference. Realizing that most wars and conflicts are caused by a lack of understanding of another culture and people, I devoted myself to international youth exchange because I believe that by experiencing another culture for themselves, people will learn to value culture difference, so that the roots for wars are removed at the same time. I was so happy to learn that diversity and multiculturalism is written in Duke’s mission and Duke is committed to achieve it in so many ways. This is really a world of diversity and I can’t wait to get the chance to both benefit from and contribute to this colorful community as a world peace advocate.

What made me finally decide to apply for Duke is that I found this university is the perfect choice for me because my personality and strengths match so perfectly with Duke’s characteristics and strengths. All those lively in-class interaction, free exchange of thoughts, rich library collections, numerous research and internship opportunities that Duke offers its students and the research oriented liberal arts education displayed an image of my ideal academic institution. From all my experience, Duke’s commitment to offer its student with a combination of theoretical and practical study matches my desire perfectly and these are the reasons that I applied for Duke.

I believe that a period of advanced study at Duke University will be a new and valuable beginning of my life-long career.