Specifically address your post-MBA short and long-term professional goals. How will Darden assist you in attaining these goals?
Ambitious and strongly business-minded, I have both short-term and long-term goals. Upon obtaining an MBA, I would like to work as a marketing executive with a major I/T company. But over the long run, I will have to set up my own company so that I can become a successful entrepreneur in my own right. I remind myself of these goals every morning on my way to work.
To realize my goals, I have already accumulated considerable experience in China's I/T industry. After my graduation in 1990 with a Bachelor's Degree in computer science, I first took up the job of a salesman with the Legend Computer Company, a leader of the I/T business in China. I did so well at Legend that I was promoted in early 1996 to the position of a department chief, responsible for the sales of Legend Personal Computers (PC) in northeastern China. I quitted, however, two months later to take on more challenging responsibilities.
I was welcomed into the Personal System Group of MIB China in June of 1994. At MIB China, I received not only increased benefits but more importantly, greater challenges, particularly in the field of channel management. Towards the end of 1996, I was appointed the head of a channel management team made of five seasoned marketing engineers. Commanding this team, I now deal on behalf of MIB China with two of its strategic business partners, Dawn Co. and SRIT Co, which together account for more than a quarter of MIB China's total revenue.
My job at MIB China has given me plenty of opportunities to interact with executives of some prominent Chinese corporations, and I have thereby learned first-hand about the difficulties with which they cope with the ever intensifying competition in the world economy. One of the major problems they have to face is China's lack of business managers who are seasoned in both the Chinese culture and the modern managerial techniques, as taught in a Western business school like Darden. This problem still plagues MIB China. Such problems have opened up huge opportunities for those with the right type of training.
My determination to make myself an entrepreneur in the I/T industry was strengthened in 1996, when I attended the Comdex show held in Las Vegas on my first trip abroad. That show presented the latest developments in the global I/T industry, developments that usually represented the performance of the world's leading companies. Fascinated, I set out to decipher the secret of their successes, and realized that the technological edge they enjoy over countries like China can be attributed, in no small part, to their much more advanced management. I wish to have myself trained thoroughly in the art of their management so that I can manage a business at least as successfully as they do.
I have acquired, through working at MIB China and elsewhere, much professional knowledge and expertise in marketing, product, pricing, channel, finance and international market. Yet I feel that I do not yet know enough to run a viable business venture on any large scale. As a computer science major, I must receive the kind of comprehensive business training that Darden MBA program offers to turn myself into a full-fledged businessman. To satisfy my most pressing need, I must take courses that include:
* accounting and finance;
* the impact of financial strategies on business decisions;
* the formulation, implementation and evaluation of sales and marketing strategies in a global market environment;
* strategic planning in dealing with customer needs and competitor responses;
* negotiation skills, primarily focused on the win-win approach required for long term business relationships.
Compared with other famous business schools in the US, Darden appeals more to me for several reasons. First, I know its classes are smaller. As a foreign student, I wish to communicate more with both my professors and fellow students, which is only possible when the classes are relatively small and characterized by some measure of casualness and informality. Second, I like that "case-study" approach that you have practiced, which I believe is the best approach for me to learn what the real business world is like in the US. Third, I have been told that Darden puts more emphasis on teaching than most other American business schools. That is particularly important to me. While I value good research as much as anybody else, I as a student prefer professors who put teaching ahead of other pursuits. Effective teaching methods will probably be the biggest help I can get when I try to transcend cultural and other barriers in pursuing advanced business training in the US.
I hope that, after two years of focused studies at Darden, I will have improved my leadership skills, sharpened my financial and operational acumen and expanded my network of contacts. If so, my life will be put solidly on the right track. While I may still be able to realize my goals without formal training at Darden, I am firmly convinced a Darden education will significantly shorten the distance I will have to travel to reach my goals.
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