Economics, Personal Statement Example

During my second year of college in Taiwan, my father lost $200,000 in the stock market. The failed investment forced me to take a full time job to financially support the family. The event made me determined to learn more about economics so that my family never has to go through the same experiences again.

My interest in economics continued to grow during my job at Muse Communication Co., Ltd, which is one of the biggest animation agencies in Taiwan. As a warehouse processer, I managed inventory, received and processed orders, shipped the products, and provided detailed reports to my manager. My interaction with consumers helped me learn more about them and I soon realized that the product design department didn’t take marketing research seriously as evident by the company’s slow inventory turnover rate which even forced the company to rent additional storage space.  Korean dramas were all the rage in Taiwan at the time and our company won the licensing rights for merchandise of a popular drama “Meteor Garden”. But we did a poor job of understanding consumers’ preferences and tastes and invested in slow-moving products. This was an unproductive allocation of company’s scarce resources and significantly reduced the company’s potential profit. On my recommendation, the manager took measures to ensure a closer collaboration among the marketing, design, and production departments to not only better understand consumers but also respond to their preferences in a timely manner. My ideas helped Muse improve its operations by being more responsive to the forces of demand and supply. Not surprisingly, we sold over two thousand merchandises in merely 30 minutes at the National Animation Conference in July 209. This experience convinced me that economics is equally important in both our personal and professional lives and motivated me to further improve my understanding of the field.

I believe economics will only further grow in importance due to globalization which has increased economic interdependence among countries. The key to financial independence is not aid but education and training involving understanding of basic economics concepts. Currently, I am involved with International Christian Fellowship and our activities also include giving economic loans to poor people in Africa and Mexico as well as educating them on basic economic concepts so that they use their limited resources more efficiently. Our goal is to give $600 to every qualified candidate and ensure that each investment generates economic and social return far more than the original investment.

My family was able to pay all of its debt obligations after hard work of six years and when I decided to come to the U.S for higher education in June 2010, choosing economics as a major was no-brainer. I really enjoyed microeconomics course at Diablo Valley College because I could relate the concepts to my personal and professional experiences. Economics helps us better understand the world and as I read about globalization, global economic events, historical trends, and politics, I realize that economics is almost everywhere. People apply economics principles in their lives even without consciously being aware of it. Better understanding of economics will not only help me improve my family’s financial health but also enable me to improve resource utilization rates and profitability at companies I work for in the future.