Hi,
for my entrepreneurial drive PEI, I was thinking of telling the following story. I felt it was quite good, pronouncing both intense drive and also entrepreneurial ways around it (though more on the drive end), but when I told it to a guy, he said it was “weak”. What do you think?
An alternative would be that I could talk about how I managed to get my second highest belt in taekwondo during the covid 19 pandemic while living in another country and having two master thesis etc to write. But I think this one is good?:
Introduction / Short summary
I’d like to tell you about the time during my gap year between bachelors and masters where I was in the US to do a very work intense internship, that I have been working hard to get. Two months into the internship, I learned that the entry requirements for the masters’ degree of my dreams, were significantly changed – I needed to have the GMAT before the application and fulfill the third language requirement in the next three months.
As it was my dream to study the program, but also wanted to perform in my internship, I felt lost at the time. I could either let go of that dream, or fight – which I did. Yet, I was facing some significant challenges, mainly three-fold: 1. Time being the biggest limitation - full time job with 55 hours per week, while others prep for these exams as a full time job so I needed to find dedicated study times, 2. Finding most efficient study form, 3. Keeping myself motivated and pushing through). I did manage to find distinct ways to solve each of them in innovative and creative ways to solve each of them:
For the first one, I 1. googled and figured out how much time you usually need for the prep, then estimated how much time I would need and came up with a dedicated study plan; 2.) I then also tried to innovate around having more time, e.g. used the travels to work to study.
For the second one, I first tried to study by myself, yet in a second step adjusted the approach for the language by asking a girl from my apartment for help, as it was not working.
For the third one, I 1. Informed my flatmates about that I will be going under the radar studying, was hard on me psychologically as I had no time for anytime else, could not explore the US etc., but I had my goal in mind and knew it is more important to study for my dream, 2. I found once in a while find “fun” ways to practice (such as I went to the theatre, language cafés, lectures at NYU), 3. I needed to at least have 2-3 hours on the weekend for myself, do explore the new culture, city and do what I love (such as sports). I already sacrificed a lot, which I did.
Outcome:
After three months of intense effort and sacrifice, I was able to score 740 out of 800 points in GMAT, and pass the french language B1 exam, which gave me the entry door to my dream masters.