談論911
 
September 11 has forever changed Americans; it has forever changed peace-loving peoples of all nations and colors. For those who aspire a career in international affairs, September 11 produces more than shock, indignation and condemnation. It presents a unique opportunity and a challenge, to reflect, to examine, to interpret, to understand and to act.

Make no mistakes, I am all for the current military actions against the terrorists and those who harbor them. However, my bigger interest, call it academic or intellectual, lies in the dynamics post military actions. What roles can diplomacy play in the scheme of things? How can this religiously-charged world become more receptive of secular activities such as global trade, academic and people-to-people exchanges and collaborative efforts in science and technology? How can individual culture or nation learn to be more aware of its own excesses and extremities even as it strives to preserve its uniqueness? And, more importantly, what can researchers in international affairs, area studies specialists and international policy makers do to illuminate and educate the general populace instead of making a pure sales pitch or a 20 second sound-bite over the airwave?

I have always been interested in international affairs. I have dreamed about being a diplomat or a foreign department spokeswoman or a college professor in Sino-American relations. I feel now more than ever that I have the right ingredients and that, given the opportunity to sharpen my intellectual and academic tools, these ingredients will help turn my dream into reality.

業余愛好也要符合整體形象
(See how the applicant begins her essay and how she portrays herself as an individual with independent thinking.)

Quite some of my friends have trouble understanding my decision. "Why did you not take the opportunity eight years ago," they would ask, 'when your alma mater offered to admit you as a graduate student without any hassle?" Indeed, I declined to become a graduate student in 1991, when Q University, arguably China's best higher-learning institutior4 made it clear to me that I would be exempted from the normally mandatory qualifying examinations in case I wanted to do graduate studies there. To many of my friends, I should have taken advantage of that opportunity if I had really wanted to become an intellectual.

Well, I have always wanted to be an intellectual. But I thought that a good intellectual has to ground his or her theoretical discourses in comprehensive knowledge of the social reality. And that is what I have been trying to do since high school.
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I do not really have a whole lot of hobbies. Apart from reading books and listening to my friends relate their experiences, I enjoy traveling on my own. While I always emphasize the importance of teamwork in the office, I like traveling on my own so that it is easier for me to seek a personal connection with nature. As I savor natures grandeur and my own seclusion in it, the natural world often endows me with new vision and fresh insights.
轉換專業的思考
I am exactly what they call “a pearl on the palm”, a Chinese idiom describing how loving parents cherish their daughters. I did everything to pay back my parents’ love, including going to medical school and working as a doctor. But later I found that was not a profession that would fulfill all my potential. A rare chance landed me on a job in one of China’s national television stations as a host of a health program. I then became executive in an advertisement agency, a spin-off business from TV. I was tormented by the conflict of pleasing my parents and choosing my own career. Fortunately, however, in the field of media management, my career dream and desire to satisfy my parents converged in a most fruitful way.

My long-term goal is to become a major player in China’s media industries, much beyond a manager working for an established national media system, but as an independent entrepreneur running my own television stations --- probably the first private media network. My past professional success convinced me that I possess certain strengths and qualities essential for a good manager in medial field: social skills, organizational ability, resourcefulness, analytical ability. In my work experience I have made choices which have allowed me to utilize and develop these strengths and qualities.

用名人名言的罕見成功例子

Mark Twain once observed to the effect that everybody talked about the weather, but nobody did anything about it. It makes a perfect analogy to the stock market. People talk about their investments and their gains and losses, but they are pretty much resigned to the fact that the cloud clusters hanging in the stock exchange sometimes give way to torrential rains or can be prelude to bright sunny days. As unpredictable as it is, the stock market is a science for those who have a passion for numbers.

Passion for numbers I do have. Since my middle school years, I have always preferred mathematics to other subject matters, although I have managed to remain on the top in all areas of academic discipline, be it Chinese or English or History or Geography. While in college, ( ? Name of your school), I never had to complain about the likes of probability studies, linear algebra and advanced calculus, because I enjoyed them and I excelled in them.

父母對教育的觀點不同
My mother used highly traditional teaching methods which consisted of reciting classical works by Confucius and his disciples, the same Chinese approach as she had been taught since childhood. This process tended to be boring and even painful. However, it fostered persistence, discipline and strong language skills. In contrast, my father encouraged the questioning and challenge of these same works and to apply the information relative to my own life. Instead of mere acceptance of information, he challenged me to take an active part in learning which gave me better insight and genuine understanding of what I learned. The difference in my father’s teaching approach was due to his undergraduate training in France, which he described as a truly enriching experience.

But my mother’s approach is much more practical. In China, success for students hinges solely on superior examination results, with no other accepted measure of performance. In most cases, these examinations consist of regurgitation of information which has been presented lecture style without any discussion. Under this regiment, students are gradually conditioned to simply absorb information rather than be creative and to think.