Personal Statement
Applied Program: Economics
A graduate from Jinan University majoring in International finance, I

am now working at the Department of Credits and Loans of Guangdong

Commercial Bank, a bank with the best asset quality in China. The

employees at the Department of Credit and Loans enjoy the highest

salary compared with those in other departments and, on the

materialistic level, I can be assured of a comfortable life. But an

experience changed my ideas completely. As a member of Operation Hope—

a non-profit and non-governmental project designed to assist school

children in China’s poor regions to receive proper education, I

traveled to an impoverished mountain village within 100 kilometers of

the City of Guangzhou (the city with the most vibrant economy in China

where the headquarters of Guanngdog Commercial Bank is based), I saw

how poverty deprived a large number of piteous children from a proper

education. Such a situation of unbalanced economic development is

symptomatic of virtually the entire country. In my present application,

I would like to choose Economics as my lifelong career pursuit simply

because the development of China’s not sufficiently strong economy

will strongly call for the input of economics for a long time to come.

I feel much indebted to Jinan University for giving me a sound academic

environment in which I received systematic education in economics. I

must say that I was deeply fascinated by this important discipline

which is primarily concerned with making right choices under the

circumstances of limited resources. Its rigorous system, its cogent

logical analysis and its scientific models have made economics one of

the most fascinating social sciences, one that bears the greatest

realistic significance. In China, the biggest developing country with

the largest population, it is of paramount importance to construct

useful economic models by analyzing important economic statistics so as

to achieve the most effective utilization of natural and social

resources and to provide constructive guidance to the country’s

economic development. This highlights the unique importance of

economics.

My 4-year undergraduate program not only enabled me to establish a

solid framework of economic and mathematic knowledge but also made me

increasingly passionate about what I was learning. Such courses as

Macroeconomics, Statistics, and Finance and Taxation provided me with

useful tools to examine a country’s economic conditions from different

perspectives. Courses like International Finance, Monetary Banking,

Investment, and Economic Law allowed me to understand what an important

role a country’s financial situation can play in its economic

development. They also taught me how to make effective use of financing

channels and exploit some foreign policies for the purpose of promoting

the economic development of a country and to ensure its economic

safety. In learning those courses, I came to be exposed to the essences

of economics. My passion for economics resulted in my obtaining the

highest scores in quite a number of core courses including

International Finance and Macroeconomics.

Realizing that economics is a science more to be applied than

theorized, I kept testing my fundamental theoretical knowledge through

constant practices. With the help of the most recent statistics

concerning the network development in China, my thesis The Growth of E

-Commerce in China offered a detailed discussion of how e-business in

China could best tap its potential by exploiting its inherent

advantages—its ability to go beyond the spatiotemporal confines, to

attract a great number of business partners and to reduce the financial

costs of enterprises. On the other hand, the thesis pointed out that

the infrastructure of e-commerce needed to be perfected, including the

establishment of a network legal system and the dissemination of

knowledge about the internet. Besides writing this important thesis, I

participated in some major events. One of such events was a debate

concerning the advantages and disadvantages of allowing Renminbi (China

’s currency) to depreciate in the wake of the Asian financial crisis.

As captain of our university’s debate team and as its main debater, I

presented many powerful arguments by making recourse to the classical

theories of economics and to substantial economic statistics. Though

those activities failed to lead to concrete academic results in the

form of publication, they nevertheless sharpened my professional

sensitivity and improved my abilities in analytical reasoning.

China Merchants Bank is one of the few joint-stock commercial banks in

China that has the greatest potential for development. The fact that I

could find employment with this bank upon my graduation testifies to my

usual ability to excel among a host of competitors. So far, I have

accumulated one-year valuable work experience. At the bank’s

Department of Credits and Loans, my main responsibilities include the

market expansion of online bank and the initial investigations for loan

projects. Before I came to work at the Department, it has never been

engaged in any assets operations for fear of potential risks. I

believed that, in order to make greater profits, our bank could try to

increase deposit derivatives by introducing assets operations. As long

as potential risks could be brought under effective control, assets

operations could be a major source of profits. A company selling

automobiles failed repeatedly to obtain loans from our bank. After a

comprehensive investigation of the company’s business conditions and

its reimbursement record with other banks, I submitted a report

suggesting that loans should be granted to this company. As a measure

to control potential risks, I proposed that automobile warranties could

serve as collateral security. Finally, the deal was reached. With this

precedent, our bank has now been conducting assets operations on a

large scale. Another major achievement of mine is that, as the bank’s

only employee who received systematic online bank training, I have been

responsible for promoting online banking services for China’s domestic

enterprises, even though such services have generally been treated with

skepticism in China. I analyzed the different needs of our prospective

clients, the nature of their businesses, and even their business

psychology. With my dedicated efforts, a large number of domestic

enterprises are now using our online services.

My one-year work experience has allowed me to gain an intimate

understanding of the conditions of China’s banking industry. Many

Chinese banks are very limited in scale and will be difficult to

compete against their foreign counterparts amidst increasing

globalization once the Chinese government ceases to provide protections

to those Chinese banks. Some banks are severely deficient in capital

and are in a state of “technical bankruptcy” due to the heavy burdens

created by bad debts. Among 1000 major banks in the world, Chinese

banks demonstrate fairly low levels in terms of various indicators of

business performance such as pre-taxation profit, profit growth rate,

capital proceeds rate, and property proceeds rate. To ensure its

survival and development after China’s accession into the WTO, Chinese

banking industry must make uttermost efforts to enlarge its scale,

enhance its competitiveness and try to catch up with their overseas

counterparts in technology, human resource management, services,

product innovativeness, and market expansion. The knowledge and

expertise that I currently possess are far from sufficient to meet the

growing demands created by the development of China’s economy in

general and of China’s banking industry in particular. Under such

circumstances, I have made a resolute decision to pursue more advanced

studies in the United States.

As the most economically developed country in the world, the United

States has the most mature mode of market operations that ensure the

order and the prosperity of the global market. An education in

economics in the United States can allow me to directly grasp the

essence of economics. The University of # # # enjoys an unparalleled

academic prestige in the field of economics. Its School of Economics

has a strong faculty and offers an ideal academic environment. Those

factors make it my No.1 choice. I believe that my prospective degree

program will endow me with the most updated economic theories and

necessary professional expertise that will benefit me with a promising

career as a well-trained economist.