I didn't find how to edit my first post, so I made a reply instead.
I made a first review, and I added two essays. Thank you in advance to take the time to read it and to give me you opinion =)
Education Interruption - Provide details on the item checked above (did take gap year)
Note : It's note really a gap year since I really stopped going to school to work for my mom and then for Mc Donald's/Acadomia for 8 years, and little by little got interested into Business through some jobs I got into some banks. I first made a really long essay then cut it since it was really long. That essay doesn't have a word count, but I didn't want to lose my reader. I'm still not sure if all those details are relevant or if I explained them well, but I felt that I had to put things in their context for them to understand why I stopped school for so long. I hope the essay still flows well
My parents immigrated from Vietnam to France because of the war. My dad studied in university to become an engineer, and my mother studied to become a pharmacist. I was born and raised in France until January of last year when my family immigrated in the US. Back there, my family moved a lot aroud the country because of my father's engineer work, from south to north, until we finally settled in the suburbs of Paris. So as a child, I didn't really grow roots anywhere. Because of that, my parents were not harsh on me about school, just encouraging me to do my best. Nevertheless, I skipped a grade in Elementary school and had overall good academic skills. The only objective they really insisted on was the Baccalaureate, so that during all my youth, that was my only real, concrete objective.
Because of that, when I graduated from high school at 16, I didn't have a goal anymore, wasn't attracted to any field in particular. So my mother, who owns a pharmacy, decided to hire me for the time being. I started right after the summer, and that is how I first put my foot in the medical field. Most of my uncles are doctors, so they all started to see in me the next doctor of the family. I ended up working with my mother for 6 years, from 2002 to 2008. In the beginning, I only handled inventories, since I wasn't allowed to deal with customers for lack of qualification. Because of that, I started handling more and more administrative paperwork, counting the cash register every night, and eventually handling all the accounting. In 2005, one customer enticed me to apply for an summer job in his company, the Ť Banque de France. ťThat's how that summer I was trained to analyze and rate the solvency of companies. I really started to grow an interest into banking from that moment on.
After that summer, I started to give private lessons to high school students in Math and Physics. In January 2008, the Societe Generale's trader, Jerome Kerviel, made a loss of $7 billion, as well as the financial crisis occurred. I made some research and discovered the world of trading. That world seemed really interesting, but what really caught my attention was an article explaining how with the help of science and in particular mathematics, one could generate models to predict the future. That is when I realized that I wanted to go into banking. I applied for two jobs in the summer, one at the headquarter of the Ť Credit Agricole ť, and another at the headquarter of the Ť Caisse d'Epargne. ť That allowed me to work in large corporations, within a team and with specific objectives and deadlines.
It's also the summer when we learned that our application for the green card was about to be accepted. At that time I knew that I wanted to study Business, so I decided to gain as much resources as I could, and I went to work at Mc Donald's and Acadomia, a company of private teachers for middle and high school students. We got delayed by one year because of the US immigration quotas, thus our green card was finally accepted in late 2010, and me and my family arrived in the US last January. I took the SAT and the TOEFL, and at the same time started to volunteer at Houston Memorial Hermann Hospital. I started attending Houston Community College in the Fall semester of 2012.
Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities (1000 characters maximum)
Note : I feel like the last sentence is not as powerful as I would like it to be, but I cannot think of anything else
I spent the summer 2005 at the Banque de France, in Versailles, FR. My department's objective is to rate companies in order to asses their solvency in a 3 years period. It was a dazzling experience as it was my first real step in a big company, and in a beautiful setting as it was a building just next to Versailles' castle. At first, my task was to enter the raw datas in the system, but soon enough, my enthousiam and my curiosity led them to form me to calculate the ratios. I was always questionning and discussing their results, so later on, and under the supervision of my manager, they let me propose the preliminary ratings. In the end, she even took me to visit the companies when we needed some information complements, like some details about their activity. On the last week of my internship, I was placed under the holding company department, were I first discovered how complex an economic system could be. That experience is what started my interest in the Business area.
Personal Essay (250-500 words) that addresses your reasons for transferring and the objectives you hope to achieve.
Note : This is still a draft, but I would like to know what you guys think of it
Pierre de Coubertin said Ť The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. ť I agree on that sentence on every level. Most people only focus on the first part of the sentence, thinking that the result doesn't count. I do believe that the result is really important, but not as much as the journey that lead there. For the same result, there is so many ways to get there, and each of them is unique.
I arrived in the United States a year ago, and started to prepare myself by taking the SAT and the TOEFL to enter a Community College. My first semester was an evaluation of me adapting to the US school system. I needed to assess myself, so aside from the introduction mandatory course, I took 4 strong courses (Calculus I, Composition I, Physics I and Chinese I). It worked out well, so I wanted to try harder. After getting on the Dean's list, my demand to take more than 18 Credit Hour classes got accepted, and I took Calculus II, Composition II, Physics II and Japanese II since my college didn't offer Chinese II. I added Microeconomy I and Macroeconomy I to start to get the foot in the domain that I want to study, and my midterm report are still satisfactory so far. HCC is a mean to prove my dedication and capability towards a rigorous program. To challenge myself is a way of life, and to push my limits an objective I strive upon. When offered two paths, I always aim for the hardest one. But to know my limits is equally as important, so I can keep my objectives realist. I also volunteer at the hospital, and on the week-end, every once in a while, I participate at some volunteering events at the church to cook meals or to read stories for children. Seeing their energy is an inspiration for me to always go forward.
I always knew that Community College was only the first step. Like the Asian model where an employee has to start at the bottom of the command chain in order to climb his way to the top, I wasn't afraid to start modestely. But that doesn't prevent me from having big objectives. My goal is to make financial models. The best way to do that is to become a quant or an actuary. And for that, I need to transfer into a 4-year university, and I need to get the best teachings I can get. Community College was great because of the structure. Small classes and involved teachers allowed me to have solid grounds, allowing me now to aim higher. And because you become the best when you work with the best, I am now seeking for a greater learning place, where ideas float around like air, to be in total immersion so I can brainstorm new concepts all day everyday.
To actively participate is equally as important. I want to contribute and get involved in clubs and in a greater community in general, to be part of something bigger, exchanging ideas with people who have the same interests as me.
Additional Information : Please upload a document here if you wish to provide details of circumstances or qualifications not reflected in the application.
Note : I wanted to highlight the difference between the French school system and the US school system, to explain why my gpa is so much lower than the one students use to have here in the US.
After middle school, I transfered to a little private catholic school. With retrospect, I now see that school as a training camp, or ŤClasse prĂ©paratoire aux grandes Ă©coles ť as they call them in France We only had two classes of 10th grade, and one class of 11th and 12th grade for the whole high school. Teachers had really high expectations. They would push us to our limit, pressure us as much as they can. It was not uncommon to have an average class grade of less than 10 over 20. It was a really competitive atmosphere as well between the students. There was no room for extra credit, not even extra points. We would often have oral pop quiz, called Ť colles ť, to assess the knowledge of a student at any given time. That was an exhausting period, but looking back, those were probably the happiest moment of my education. We were really close to each other, even though we were in competition. I remember being the whipping boy of my physics teacher, and I hated her at the time, but at the end of high school, she took me apart and told me that she saw a lot of potential in me and wanted to push my limits. I learned a lot in Physics during those years and did well at the Baccalaureate too. That is what I am looking for now, a place that challenges me and that pushes me to be beyond my limits.
That high school wasn't only an academic school. Since it was a catholic school, we would have some missions to help the community. Volunteer work doesn't exist in France, but it was a way for us to give back to society. That experience still remains nowadays, and I feel compell to help the people who surround me, which in return gives me great joy. My high school teachers didn't limit themselves to pass on their knowledge. They taught us humility, respect and devotion. It was really a school of life.
