Preparation for Admission into the GDM Program - Admission/Application Essay Example

College of Essay In preparation for admission into the GDM program, I have prepared this essay to accomplish three objectives. These goals include providing you, the review panel, with an example of my written linguistic ability, providing information upon which you may be able to judge my current business experience and finally, to allow you to learn more about my character as a person to determine whether I will be a beneficial addition to your student body. I am confident my abilities in all three areas of concern are commendable and look forward to attending your program. Before proceeding any further, I would like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude to the person and/or committee reviewing my file and making the decision regarding my admission. My purpose here has been to provide you will all the information you require in a well-organized manner as to minimize the burden of paper work. Professional life To provide an accurate idea of my business experience, it is now necessary to discuss my professional career. At the age of 17, I began working at Disano Systems as a junior programmer using a computer language called PowerBuilder. Disano Systems was a small company consisting of nine employees that I soon realized would never fulfill my teenage dreams of being rich. I am still not a rich man, but this is now by my own choosing. At 18, being rich was still my goal in life, envisioning myself staffing an entire building of employees all working for me. I quit working for Disano Systems and opened my own business in a rented room at the back of a computer repair shop in Oakville. I provided computer training courses for anyone who cared to sign up in such areas as Microsoft Excel, Access and Word as well as C and C++ programming languages. This venture did not go exceptionally well, I was making just enough money to pay the rent and my own personal expenses, but I was happy. I knew that working full-time for someone like Disano Systems would enable me to earn more money, but at 18, I was a small business man which provided its own sense of satisfaction. It was at this time that I met an electronic component distributor who had come into the shop on business. He informed me that there was a great deal of money to be made in his line of business and I would only need about $10,000 to get started. Rather than rushing into the idea, I took some time to investigate it. By taking out a membership at the BrokerForum.com, a leading online electronic components website, I was able to study the market and confirm that there was indeed a lot of money to be made in this industry. I started by purchasing a few components that my studies had indicated were always in demand and wrote a computer application that would monitor the website in order to alert me of the first potential buyer for these parts. A few requests came in, but they were not in an urgent need of my components and therefore were not offering the price I was looking for. I waited for three more weeks before my first desperate client came in who needed my parts immediately and was willing to pay anything for them. I sold him what he needed and drove the parts to New York myself, which was an additional service he had not expected. Having made a great profit in this first electronic component deal, I registered my company as GES (Global Electronic Solutions). The business grew tremendously in the next three years, netting approximately $100,000 annually with about $300,000 in stock within that time period. I felt I had all the money in the world and set about improving my lifestyle. I moved into an apartment of my own, bought a used BMW and took a vacation to Cuba. On the professional side, I moved into a proper office, hired customer service personnel and a trustworthy manager to help me manage the business. As the years passed by, business continued to be strong and did not require me to work 12 hours a day anymore. My function was reduced to simply supervising the operation and ensuring it remained pointed in the right direction as it continued to grow. Money was not an issue for me anymore, but I realized that my ‘personal’ career was lost. I was personally not worth very much to anyone and I was very uncomfortable with that. Thoughts of “what if the business begins to fail one day” started to haunt me. With this in mind, I decided to start a consulting career in Information Technology. My thought was to acquire IT project from Fortune 100 companies and execute them. By doing this, I felt I would have more satisfaction as I would have another company and a project manager ‘title’. However, this road was tougher than I had imagined. It relied heavily on contacts in high positions with control over significant budgets. It didn’t take long for me to realize that the only way to get the work I was seeking was as an employee for a multi-national company. Because I really wanted to pursue this line of work, I obtained a job at Smith Kline Beacham, now known as GlaxoSmithKline, the second largest drug company in the world. While I worked at GSK, I continued to manage my company (with some excellent use of my cell phone), but more importantly, I started to talk to upper management about the possibilities of utilizing my services outside of the company. I was introduced to Ron Zoratti, the former vice president of Shoppers Drug Mart, who was now the vice president of RxCanada. RxCanada is a company owned by the major drug chains whose goal was to sell doctor prescription data to the pharmaceutical companies such as GSK. Through our discussions, Ron decided to outsource all of the IT work in RxCanada to my company. This was a big contract, since we needed to interact with the systems in the pharmacy chains (Shopper, Pharma Plus, PharmaSave, London Drugs, etc.). After executing the contract for a while, I was introduced to Mr. Graham Henry, the vice president of Assure Health, which is now part of BCE (Bell Canada Enterprises). A long list of contacts followed in every drug company as well as a very important contact with Ms. Debbie Locke of IMS Health, the world’s biggest provider of prescription data to drug companies. At one point, I had six contracts on the go, generating about $75,000 per month. In order to deliver on this much work, I hired a team of data warehouse experts and I managed them. I had finally realized my teenage goal – I was a manager of professional services, with ‘mega names’ to back me up. Personal life With all the details of my professional life laid out, I would like to take the opportunity to discuss my personal life in more detail as this, to me, is much more important than my professional life. It is my personal belief that we are not placed on this earth to generate revenue. My development as a person has been very interesting as my motivations and goals have changed. When I was in my teens, money was a big motivation for me. I was working for a nice car, nice clothes, and all the material things that have become associated with the ‘good life’. After having had the chance to spend money in any way I wished, I began to realize it was not bringing me any real joy. I was suddenly bored with the idea of spending. I did not care anymore that the sales people at Harry Rosen knew my name. I did not care anymore if BMW sent me a brochure of their latest model cars. For about two years of my life I was very ‘lost’ and began sinking into depression. Although I was considered successful in many ways, I did not feel like it. While I was thinking about my life one day, I realized that my life had no ‘real’ goal; it was a self-serving existence whose whole aim was to grow a number in a bank account. It was then I realized that “money is a tool, not a purpose”. People work to acquire money and wealth to do something with it. In my opinion, this is the greatest lesson I have EVER learned … it’s a life lesson that is infinitely valuable. I cannot stress enough how important this lesson has been for me as it is this realization that was my first real step in personal development. Following this realization, I began asking myself a series of questions regarding my success. Why have I had such great success? Was it all my doing? Was it a co-incidence that I met an IC distributor, who told me about IC trading, at a time when I had the time and resources to do something about it? Was it a co-incidence that I met Ron, who led the way to a great deal of work and further success? From this line of questioning, I started to count the ‘co-incidences’ in my life, and found that there are statistically too many for them to continue to be called ‘co-incidences’. At this point, I came to the conclusion that there is a Supreme Being orchestrating my entire life. This Supreme-Being was still waiting to see what I would do with my success, whether I will be thankful or arrogant, and to see if I will be selfish or generous. With those two things in mind, I started into charity work. This work provides me with more joy than any expensive jacket I have ever worn or any car I could possibly buy. I am proud to say that I alone provide food for 200 people in four under-developed countries in the world every month. I also have a private medical clinic in Egypt (my home country), to treat needy people and make donations to many causes that come my way. In addition, I have made a few friends who are very well off, and do charitable work, like myself. Together, we plan on building a foster home for disabled abandoned children in Windsor. This project was introduced after we learned about a born handicapped child whose care was taken over by social services when his parents abandoned him. I am VERY PROUD to say that I no longer drive a BMW and I no loner shop at Harry Rosen. These days I drive a Honda Accord and I wear things from the Bay. However, I continue to receive calls from all over the world from men, women and children who thank me every few months for me feeding them, giving them education and medication when they need it. To me, that is worth all the money in the world. My life now has a fulfilling purpose because it is not centered on me. I now live a very simple life compared to my early years and I look forward to having children. I want to teach them some of the lessons I’ve learned. I strongly believe that a person’s worth is not measured by how much money they have accumulated, but rather by what he has accomplished in terms of improving the state of humanity and himself. The greatest people in the world have lived and died poor, yet they are remembered for centuries after they are deceased because of the contributions they have made to the humanitarian cause. Purpose As can be seen by looking through both my professional and personal histories, I am now on a path of self improvement which is my main purpose in pursuing a high level of education. My goal is to accomplish a number of improvement goals that will provide me with self-satisfaction when I am old and looking back on my life’s path. I will conclude by reiterating that I am far more proud of my goals and achievements as a person then I am of my business achievements. I know this is not the typical statement of a student seeking entrance on an MBA application, but it is my sincere belief and one that I am proud of. I do not know if personal achievements are considered in your admission process, but it is my humble opinion that it should be as you are working to admit people into your program, not programmable machines expected to follow a single set formula. Once again, I would like to thank the readers of this essay for giving of your time and attention. Read More