As I prepared to retire from the IBM Corporation, my 102-year-old grandmother reminded me of the Cherokee tradition, where one is not an adult until age 51. The Cherokee believe that it takes time to sense and understand the many subtle life flows of one’s energy and knowledge. But I was not planning to retreat from the world; in fact, I was leaving IBM to pursue a new career -- perhaps I should call it my "adult" career.

I had been quite successful at IBM, especially as a tax policy strategist. Still, I craved more personally meaningful work in a culturally diverse community, where making a living and helping others could be equal priorities.

Dispute resolution is the ideal vehicle for meeting these professional and personal needs. My interest in the field is long-standing. It began twenty years ago, when my systems engineering position at IBM relocated me to Atlanta. There I became a volunteer consumer affairs counselor at the Neighborhood Justice Center. NJC’s mantra was that workplace misunderstandings and conflicts could be avoided with proper communication. This approach sparked my interest in law school, and I quickly enrolled. My studies were surprisingly exciting. While the issue analysis aspects were similar to problem-solving at IBM, the stakes were vastly different: individual lives instead of dollars and cents. Despite my seventy-hour work weeks at IBM, I graduated with honors. When I passed the bar examination on my first attempt, I considered leaving IBM to pursue a career in law.

I stayed. My manager advised that my combined technical, marketing, and legal background made me uniquely qualified and well-suited for promotion. Also, the intensely adversarial culture of law school had been somewhat off-putting. I was more comfortable in business settings that encouraged teamwork, collaboration, and conciliation.

However, I soon learned that the corporate model of cooperation does not eliminate workplace conflict. As a manager in Baltimore, I often witnessed cases of employment discrimination, which at IBM alone were astounding: the manager who tried to fire a stereotypically ethnic employee because he "looked funny"; the marketing team that consistently excluded an Asian team member; the managers who mocked an employee for having an "offensive" toothpick in his mouth. Each of these employees eventually left IBM, and two of them filed employment discrimination complaints. I realized that these problems were caused by ignorance of cultural differences, and I believed that the application of conflict management systems could have prevented such problems.

These incidents in my workplace embarrassed and infuriated me, and I felt the need to take a stand against such insensitive behavior. In the Master of Law in Dispute Resolution program, I will gain the comprehensive background to prepare me for my long-term goals: teaching in an urban community or historically black college, designing multicultural conflict management systems, and participating in community mediation. I am particularly interested in the multi-disciplinary analysis, the independent research, and the global externship program. I’m confident that this path would satisfy and please my grandmother.

點評：

這是一篇比較優秀的申請法律專業的PS，作者選取了自己在IBM工作的一個與法律相關的切入點“爭議解決”來表明自己對于法律的興趣和志向。爭議解決存在于生活的每個角落，作者在二十年前就開始擔任志愿的法律顧問，并且通過學習一次就考取了bar。雖然他在IBM取得了很大的成功，但是他對于工作中目睹的種種歧視卻是無能為力，他覺得要學習更多的法律知識來幫助那些被歧視的員工。整篇文章環環相扣，邏輯性很強，充分表現出作者對于法律的熱愛和對于社會的責任心，這些都是法律專業要求申請者所具備的素質。因此這是一篇目的性強，表達充分的優秀PS。

譯文：

當我準備從IBM公司退休的時候，我102歲的奶奶提醒我，在切羅基族人的傳統里沒有51歲不算成年。切羅基族人相信去感受和領會一個人生命中精力和知識的精妙之處需要很長一段時間。但是我沒有打算放棄，事實上，我離開IBM去追求一份新的事業――也許我應該說這是我的“成年”事業。

我在IBM是相當成功的，特別是作為一名稅務政策戰略家。但是我仍然渴望一份在多元文化社區內的更加具有個人滿足感的工作，我可以謀生并且幫助其他人取得公平的機會。

爭議解決是實現這些個人和職業需求的良好途徑。我對于這方面的興趣是由來已久的了。那是二十年前，當我在IBM的系統工程師的職位被重新安排到亞特蘭大時候我開始對爭議解決產生興趣。在那里我在鄰里司法中心志愿擔任消費者事務法律顧問。鄰里司法中心的宗旨就是工作場所的誤會和爭端都可以通過正確的溝通來避免。這種方法激起了我對法學院的興趣，我也很快就入學了。我的學習出奇地令人興奮。雖然這里的案例分析跟IBM的問題解決很相似，但是本質上卻有很多的不同：單獨的個體代替了美元和美分。盡管我在IBM一周要工作70個小時，我還是很榮幸畢業了。當我第一次去考bar就通過的時候，我開始考慮離開IBM去謀求在法律領域的工作。

我暫時留在了IBM。我的經理建議我說我身兼的技術，市場和法律背景使得我在晉升的時候處于獨一無二的有利地位。而且法學院激烈的競爭氛圍也有些令人不愉快。他認為我更加適合在團隊協作，相互支持的商業環境中生存。

但是，我很快發現公司的團隊模式并不能消除工作場所的沖突。作為在巴爾的摩的一名經理，我看見許多職場當中的歧視現象，僅僅是在IBM這種現象都是非常嚴重的：經理會因為一個少數民族職員長得“搞笑”而解雇他，市場部長期排斥一個亞裔成員，經理也會因為一個職員嘴里咬著一根“攻擊性”牙簽而嘲笑他。每一個被歧視的員工最終都是離開IBM，他們當中的兩個還提出了職場歧視的起訴。我意識到這些問題是由于忽視文化差異而產生的，我也相信沖突管理系統的應用可以防止這些問題。

這些發生在我工作場所的事情讓我感到尷尬甚至憤怒，我覺得自己需要堅決反對這些冷漠的行為。在爭議解決的法碩課程，我可以獲得一個全面的知識體系，為自己的長期目標做準備。而我的長期目標就是在城市的社區和黑色學府做教師，設計多元文化的沖突管理體系，還會參與到社區仲裁中去。我還特別喜歡多學科分析，獨立的研究和國際實習項目。我相信這個歷程會讓我奶奶感到高興和欣慰。