Hello and thank you all for reading this, my name is Lina and I'm applying to a Chevening scholarship, I would appreciate if you could take a look on my "Studying in the UK question" essay.
Studying in the UK Question
Outline why you have selected your chosen three university courses, and explain how this relates to your previous academic or professional experience and your plans for the future.
*Please do not duplicate the information you have entered on the work experience and education section of this form (minimum word count: 50 words, maximum word count: 500 words)
My essay:
I have chosen all three courses in the translation and interpretation field as it is my area of study. I am an "English to Arabic/Arabic to English" course graduate and I excelled in the interpretation process during my four year studying at Tishreen University. I find ultimate pleasure in converting all types of texts from and into my beautiful decorated native language, which is Arabic, into and from the language I have studied and that I'm fascinated about; English.
Translation gives the opportunity to widen your information about almost everything in the other language's culture, history, books, novels, movies and community. It also enriches one's vocabulary and idioms in both languages, the native and the foreign. Studying interpretation makes us study the grammar, syntax, language structure, linguistics, phonetics and essay writing for both languages resulting in a wide coverage of language science and the enjoyment of the entire process.
To have an opportunity to study translation in one of UK's most prestigious universities has been my dream ever since I was a school student. My experience in teaching English had also contributed in enhancing my Arabic/English translation as I was teaching Arabs and I had to translate vocabularies and difficult materials they couldn't understand. I have a dream to have my own business in the future, to create a professional language school in my country, to give the young and the youth of our future a chance to learn different foreign languages including proper Arabic teaching. Personally, if I was granted the chance to pursue my dream in the UK, I'd wish to become a certified interpreter or an English professor.
Lina, if you look at the examples of the other study Chevening Scholarship essay samples in this forum, you will find some excellent essays that can serve as your template for writing your response to this question. As of this moment, your response to the prompt is not at all within the parameters set for the standard reply to this question. Your essay is too generalized in content and does not really deliver the prompt requirements.
As you can probably gather from the prompt, you need to be very specific in your discussion regarding your 3 course choices in relation to your chosen masters degree course. That means, you have to mention the specific course, university that is offering the course for study, and a short but relevant discussion of how the course is a logical next step for you given your previous academic training.
When you discuss the logical next step, don't just explain what the course is about, relate it directly to your academic studies, previous major, or current / past work experience. In other words, explain why the course is something that will help you advance your career to the next level of expertise. Don't be so generic as to say that you "have chosen all three courses in the translation and interpretation." Be specific. Name the course and discuss. You need to prove to the reviewer that you have carefully planned your academic career as a masters student, you can convince him by delivering the information that he needs to understand your interest in the courses and its relevance to your career in this essay.
The whole discussion about your course of study should relate to your career advancement in the future. An overview of your future career or career path will be in order for a properly developed discussion of your interest in these courses. Your paragraph about translation" being an opportunity to widen your information about almost everything in the other language's culture, etc." is not relevant to this discussion. It should not be in this essay since it only offers your personal opinion of the advantages of being a translator. It does not explain your course choices. Therefore, it is an unnecessary element in this statement.
Try to adjust the content of your essay to better deliver the information that the prompt requires. I have already explained to you what the requirements are and how you are expected to discuss it. I hope that you can revise the essay in such as a manner that we can continue to help you make it relevant to the prompt when you post the revised version in this thread :-)
You have written an excellent essay about yourself! Perhaps you could focus in on a few more salient points, ad this is rather short.
I find ultimate pleasure...
You could make this a separate paragraph, ad you go into so much detail!
and that I'm fascinated with...
I think you should make a whole paragraph of compare and contrast between the two languages.
Your essay is very technical, and this would be more personal!
Good start! Just a little attention to personalizing the whole experience; more detail about your feelings would be in order to make your point about how much you like translating!
ef_carol
Thank you that was really helpful I will do my best and post it again :)
