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Personal Statement

Program: MSc in Marketing

The purpose of this Personal Statement is to indicate unequivocally my strong interest in pursuing a Master’s program in marketing at the Birmingham Business School. This interest is born out of my 10-year work experience and reinforced by my serious reflections on my personal development in the future. I am unmistakably aware that the program I apply for is a subject I have loved in the past and will continue to love in the future. Over the past ten years, although I have worked at various cities and with many different organizations, my job has always been closely related to market and marketing. I have persisted in this field partially because of the external circumstances but more because of my genuine love for marketing as a meaningful career. Meanwhile, my yearning for successes on a higher level has prompted me to seek systematic studies and advanced trainings to become an accomplished marketing professional. I have an implicit faith in my ability to achieve a marked self-improvement by pursuing such a quality education that Birmingham Business School can offer. When Virginia Woolf noted that every woman must have a room of her own, what she had on her mind was that a woman should possess an integral and independent spiritual world. As far as I am concerned, my present decision to seek an advanced academic degree for myself is precisely an act of putting a door and a window on my room to let in the bright sunshine and fresh air, a room I can come in and out with perfect freedom.

What has motivated me to forge ahead? The answer is career achievements, the inner drive to succeed and to thrive. Although I have not received many formal honors, I have enjoyed many more promotions and wage increases than my colleagues in all the companies I have worked with, whether domestic or international. Within the first 5 months of working at the House of SaraLee China (an American company), I was promoted from editor to senior editor and 8 month later I was promoted to be the department supervisor. At 999 Advertising & Communication Co., it took me less than one year to be promoted from client manager to chief marketing supervisor.

As team leader, I planned and launched a successful advertising marketing project and based on this successful case I published a special research paper entitled Music—Making the Brand Ever-Lasting in the nation’s leading journal International Advertising (June 2002, CN11-2487/F, ISSN1000-4122). From 1992 to 1994, I worked at Beijing Xiangyu Data Co. Ltd where I was responsible for carrying out advertising campaigns for promoting the company’s products. From 1994 to 1996, I worked at Beijing ZOOM Advertising Co., where my successful market expansion resulted in winning some major domestic and international enterprises as our clients, which included Microsoft China, Digital Network, DELL and DELL 6, AST, and Legend. As senior editor at SaraLee China, I was independently responsible for the editing and publication of the monthly sales manual (consisting of two volumes). With my promotion to the Supervisor of the S & P Department in 1998, I was in charge of planning, writing and editing special sales periodicals. Since 2000, I have been acting as chief marketing supervisor at 999 Advertising & Communication Co. and carried out successful advertising campaigns for the promotion of the products of 999 Pharmaceutical Company. This long list is not so much to highlight my outstanding career achievements but rather to point to the relentless and significant efforts I have undertaken in marketing and the rich experience I have accumulated.

Of course, the importance of the academic foundation I laid in my undergraduate studies cannot be denied. Courses like International Marketing and International Trade allowed me to develop some fundamental understanding of marketing and to generate my preliminary interest in seeking a possible career in this field. To a great extent, marketing is an art of dealing with people and communicating with your prospective clients. My studies and trainings in many courses in liberal arts benefited me considerably in developing my communicative skills. In particular, courses in language and literature made it possible for me to work superbly as senior editors. Therefore, I believe that my present application for the marketing program is not so much a shift in academic focus but rather an extension and an upgrading of my original program.

During my undergraduate studies at the Chinese Department of Wuhan University, I achieved the highest score in four courses among a total of 90 students in my class and I was the Student of Merit in my department at the graduation. This achievement had much to do with my scholastic gifts and my efficacious strategies of learning. I had a special love for subjects in humanities and social sciences and my voluminous reading contributed greatly to my writing skills. Some of the academic research methods I acquired as an undergraduate were self-consciously applied to my work situations. For instance, in order to come up with a convincing presentation, I have to prepare coherent and systematic elaboration of the objective of a particular project, the means to attain the objective, and the assessment of the soundness of those means. In addition, I have to cite various statistics to support the arguments in my presentation. Of course, serious reflections and careful judgments all go into the making of my presentation. Such a process is very much akin to the thesis writing at university, but with greater challenges and difficulties. Therefore, my work is an extension of my university education.

A comparative study I conducted between Chinese consultation and advertising companies and their international counterparts operating in China has enabled me to recognize the complicated nature of marketing. Although, guided by mature marketing concepts, international companies enjoy unparalleled resources of data and case analyses, they often incur debacles in providing services to Chinese clients for lack of an in-depth understanding of China’s social and economic situations, its culture and the relevant laws and regulations. On the other hand, China’s domestic companies, despite their intimate knowledge of the context and the needs of their clients, are only adept at tactical issues. In those circumstances in which strategies and long-term perspectives are required, they are frequently unable operate effectively. This can be attributed to the fledgling nature of China’s marketing industry. With the increasing integration of China’s economy into the international economy, fierce competitions in the marketing industry call for the emergence of a large number of highly qualified professionals in this field, especially those with international experiences and perspectives. A combination of international and Chinese elements will be an optimum solution for both international companies and China’s domestic companies.

It is against this backdrop that I file this application and my motivation is as simple as it is thoughtful—to develop myself into a marketing professional with international perspectives who can fit in with China’s marketing world. Backed up by my 10-year work experience and insights into China’s advertising and marketing sector, I need to expose myself to international horizons and acquire relevant expertise. I am especially eager to study how major international marketing enterprises operate in a global environment. In this regard, Birmingham Business School, with its time-honored history and rich academic research atmosphere, matches my expectations perfectly. I plan to learn and to master systematically advanced modern marketing theories and, by means of intensive case studies and internships, to experience directly the marketing practices in a country of mature market economy. My prospective studies will build upon my previous work experiences but will also update those experiences in that my previous practices and understanding of marketing will be significantly enriched and improved. I see this as essential in laying a solid foundation for my future career development.

I conceive myself as a “vagabond” both literally and symbolically. In my heretofore 31 years of lifespan, I have experienced 7 formal relocations together with my parents and innumerous informal relocations. This is rather unusual in a Chinese context where people tend to seek comfort in a fixed locality. This constant relocating experience has much to do with the restlessness in my temperament. My life is made meaningful by this process of constantly searching for new experiences, even at the price of venturing into unknown and potentially risky situations. Now, I am very excited at the prospect of venturing into a new country, into a new culture, into a new academic environment, and ultimately into a new phase of my life.