Personal Statement on My Career Choice
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Throughout high school, I have been yearning to become an engineer. I will major in petroleum engineering because I like coming up with designs in fields such as this where there is a chronic shortage of such personnel. My passion in petroleum engineering was not borne in a day. Rather, it has been the product of several factors and well thought since I began contemplating what I will pursue when I grow up. Both of my parents are environmental engineers, and I admire them, including the kind of discipline they have instilled in me and the rest of the children. However, my desire to do engineering does not emanate from a desire to follow their example; I just like the course as is explained further in the preceding statement.
Since childhood, I like learning new things in the physical sciences and design in the petroleum industry. Nevertheless, I also find it enjoyable to share any new concept I learn with others and make them understand it. When I began school, for instance, I liked learning how to solve new mathematical problems. I would then spend hours showing my colleagues who had time how to solve those problems. When I joined the high school later, I found out that I was developing a lot of interest in philosophy. I would read so much about early scholars, the likes of Plato and Socrates. I would then make some time and share with my colleagues about the history of these people. Overall, I have noted I like learning many new things, but will never get satisfaction unless I pass on these things to a person who does not have such knowledge. For this reason, I want to go to the lecture halls and mold young petroleum engineers as an instructor on completion of my master’s degree.
Some people argue engineers are easily teachable. This is another idea that makes me like molding engineers: the fact that you will be taught a thing you never knew, and you instruct on that area in the next minute. For instance, immediately after I completed a Higher National Diploma in Petroleum Engineering, I looked for a job. I was very lucky and secured a position as a college instructor in a certain college. During this time, some engineering designs and models were hard, yet everybody expected me to instruct on those very areas and make the young engineers-to-be understand. I would take a few minutes and consult the professor I was supposed to assist. However, I was not very intelligent and I would take time to get the concepts. Somehow, I would manage to understand the problem and later teach it as if I was born with the concept.
I faced numerous challenges before submitting my application during the final year in high school. I had gone back to the United Kingdom to visit my family that summer. We discussed our decisions for the majors one would take at the university. A friend intending to major education told me about his passion. He suggested one could do well financially if he or she studied petroleum engineering and then became a lecturer in a university. Financial reward influenced my decision, and distracted my desire from remaining a full-time petroleum engineer. I knew petroleum engineering would be the better choice, but I was aware a decision about the future could not be based on interests alone. I had to consider becoming a lecturer of engineering for reasons of passing on the knowledge, advancing it, as well as future financial security.
My personal characteristics also favor the kind of career where I participate in the dispensation of knowledge. I am domineering, and a strict disciplinarian; I am the kind of instructor who will force even the laziest student to work hard and score high grades. The engineers whom I happened to instruct during the few months that I was a college instructor gave me nicknames, all of which pointed towards my strict nature and perfectionism. Nonetheless, I did not mind, as my interest was to have them petroleum engineers and instill in them life skills for their future lives in the outside world. In addition, I have discovered lately that I like the kind of interactions that exist between an instructor and students in contemporary lecture halls. The instructor will be the ‘know-it-all’ and will harass the students through asking them questions. In some places, he or she will cane those who fail to follow his or her orders. I have realized I like this form of authority over young engineers. It feels good to have ‘subjects’ one rules over.
I possess a number of skills that make me suitable to further my study in petroleum engineering. For example, I am a great communicator with unmatched eloquence. I find lecturing the most appropriate field for people who exhibit eloquence like me. Other areas are provincial administrators, and I do not have a passion along those lines. In addition, I have an analytical mind; I like analyzing things, rather than just taking in concepts the way they are. This discourages rote learning and memorization that is prevalent among many students taking engineering. Scholars should be able to think in this manner, and I feel I have the responsibility to instill this skill to the coming generations. The best way to achieve such a desire is lecturing only. Through my highly eloquent communication, I will be able to instill the ability to synthesize ideas in my students.
It is surprising no family member influenced my career to choose petroleum engineering. In fact, my father who is a mechanical engineer wanted me to pursue law or medicine, courses he considered ‘prestigious.’ I listened but failed to follow his advice because I knew I had a passion for petroleum engineering. At the time of course selection, a number of my friends also tried to sway me, claiming I had performed too well to be an engineer. However, I was quick to remind them engineers, especially those yearning to instruct in the field, are the ones who should perform the highest because they can only impart on their learners what they know. My high school teachers had also quipped I could make a good lawyer, but I was too obsessed with engineering to listen to any of these. Consequently, becoming a petroleum-engineering instructor was an idea that I conceived alone, without influence from the family.
My hobbies revolve reading and learning new concepts from any source. Such concepts can be either academic, general knowledge, or current events. It can be from books, newspapers, television, or friends. I can spend a whole day reading books, both academic and non-academic or watching an informing television program. As far as I am concerned, such interests would suit a career in lecturing, where I would read constantly to obtain knowledge, which I would later share with my students. In addition, I have taken Chinese and French language classes. I do not stay or work in Shanghai or Paris, and I do not intend to do so even in the future. Unless I lecture in order that I teach these languages to somebody who might find them useful, I will not benefit from them. Of note, some of the students I will teach when I get into part-time lecturing have links in those two countries and may choose to base their lives there.
There are personal traits I would want to exhibit once I start molding other petroleum engineers. I will endeavor to maintain high ethical standards. I will also act as a watchdog, when necessary, to ensure my colleagues do the same. For instance, I will not watch a colleague flatter with students of the opposite sex. Rather, I will contribute towards the attainment of an education as well as a high level of discipline and life skills among my students. Overall, my aim will be to produce students who are admirable in the society, with both knowledge and the necessary life skills to enable them succeed in life.
I will be very committed to learning the petroleum-engineering course. I will dedicate most of my time towards my studies during the four years this course will last. I will not stop learning even after I obtain my degree. Rather, I yearn to continue contributing towards generation of knowledge in this career because I may become a curriculum developer at some point. Just as my interest in teaching has been growing since I was young, the same trend will continue. The interest is likely to grow to a point where I end up being a dean in the faculty of petroleum engineering in a reputable university. However, this will come much later after I have had enough of molding young petroleum engineering on a one-to-one basis.