MBA Essay-1:

Listed below are the values that embody the Penn MBA community.

We are Individuals of Character and Integrity. We value honesty, humility, and hard work. We value passion, commitment, and personal responsibility. We honor our obligation to each other and to the world in which we live.

We are A Diverse Community built on Common Values. We value each person’s unique contributions to the Community. We value trust, mutual respect and collaboration. We share our struggles and our successes - and have fun along the way.

We are Leaders focused on Learning and Individual Growth. We value intellectual curiosity, creative thinking, and a commitment to excellence. We value a curriculum that is relevant, innovative, and practical, and demanding. We take risks and reach beyond our perceived limitations.

Please select ONE of the following elements of our values. Describe why it resonates with you and specifically how you demonstrate it.

“We value passion, commitment, and personal responsibility.”

“We honor our obligation to each other and to the world in which we live.”

“We take risks and reach beyond our perceived limitations.”



We must not cease from exploration and the end of all exploring will be to arrive where we began and know the place for the first time.

                                                                                                                                                                                       -- T. S. Eliot

I have evolved a pattern of life focused on change and growth. After receiving a three-month training at Huawei Technologies, I wrote to the company’s VP and volunteered to work as an engineer in one of the remotest areas of China where no other engineers were willing to go. This self-inflicted “exile” was a deliberate move on my part to hone my character and professionalism in the harshest of the physical conditions so that I could be capable of performing any mission anywhere in the future. My initiative and self-sacrifice for the interest of corporate expansion, as well as excellent performance, were duly recognized by the top management which, in 2001, made myself the youngest engineer on oversees projects.

Working in the Mid-East and North Africa, I traveled to all the countries in those regions. While proud of my contributions to the technical advancements in telecommunication there, I experienced my own personal change and growth: adapting to rapidly changing environments, communicating with people of different national and religious backgrounds, and experiencing exotic cultures. I acquired international perspectives and experiences that have since allowed me to work most productively in multicultural environments.

Back from overseas missions in 2003, I enjoyed a rare opportunity to be promoted as senior engineer at Huawei Headquarters. Rather than intoxicated and overwhelmed by this close-at-hand success, I was somber-minded enough to realize that a truly high-achieving professional development in the rapidly changing technology world needed advanced academic input. Therefore, to the amazement of almost everybody, I rejected the offer and entered a graduate program in Telecommunications Management at Stevens Institute of Technology in Beijing. The program helped me effect a major change on two levels—acquiring academic excellence as top-2 student among 23 and a solid foundation to transform from engineering to managerial roles.

This academic experience demonstrates that I am a person who knows what I am doing and what I have to do in order to maximize my potential and achieve full self-actualization. For me, a temporary withdrawal from the industry is to gather new momentum and to keep increasing the momentum along the new course of action once I re-enter the industry. As it turned out, I became a project manager with ZTE Corporation, working at the Asia-Pacific Regional Office in Singapore. At this HKSE-listed company and China’s largest listed telecom vendor, I have managed a series of major international projects, including a $2 million trial project to implement Brunei Darussalam’s first-ever W-CDMA telecom networks.

However, I knew that my personal change and growth are far from complete. With my vast knowledge of the current developments and future trends of the technology world, I believe the technology world is what I must transcend and my true arena is consulting on corporate strategy. This motivation has resulted in my present employment as Project Manager/Consultant with Strategic Development Research (SDR) Consulting., Ltd. I lead teams of talented consultants to deliver value-added services to some of the country’s industrial giants like China Mobile Group, a NYSE-listed and 2006 FT Global 500 company. I conceive this career change as my single most important accomplishment in my life heretofore because I am well on my way toward a most rewarding career that I find most meaningful.

I knew of no more than encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of men to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
                                                                                                                                                                                       -- Henry David Thoreau

Why, then, an MBA? The answer is “Change and Growth”, which is the core value consistently and profoundly within myself. SDR consulting is concerned with overall and long-term issues which can mean life or death for a corporate organization. A broad vision and penetrating insights are two paramount qualities for an accomplished SDR consultant. Only your world-class, prestigious MBA program can help me cultivate those valuable leadership qualities.

As in any change-oriented undertaking, we first sow a seed of thought and then reap an action. Now, I sow an action and expect to reap a growth—I search hard deep inside me to see what my real need is and try to stick to it. Of course, my proposed MBA program itself is not an end but only a means, testifying to my changeless faith in the perpetual process of changes and growth of my lifelong pursuit, in which each step is a step upward, leading to the infinite altitude of my unlimited potential.