Personal Statement:Business and Management 14

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Business and Management Personal Statement

"We don't need to take this analysis any further, especially since the client isn't paying for additional work." I was dumbfounded. An idealistic graduate of Dartmouth College, I had imagined that the business world would provide an excellent learning environment in which to explore and apply my theoretical training. I was wrong. Working as a consultant in BCG's Mergers and Acquisitions Transaction Advisory Group, I constantly had to keep my anger and disappointment in check when my manager vetoed my attempts to conduct an intricate or more appropriate project analysis. Finding BCG to be an intellectual hinterland obsessed with churning out mediocre evaluations at a blistering pace, I constantly asked myself, "Is this really what I want to be doing?" The answer to that question--and my deep commitment to intellectual inquiry--led me to make an important decision in my life

With the learning potential of my consulting position exhausted, I began considering the advantages of a return to academia. I was still interested in finance and economics, and I wanted to pursue a program in which I could apply my real-world experience. Unlike other colleagues who had returned to business school, however, I was uninterested in pursuing wealth at the expense of the other passions in my life. After careful examination, I realized that my passions lay in experimentation, in using complex analyses to test and refine theories. At BCG, this was impossible because of impediments such as frequent deadlines, incessant client demands, and stifling management

Since working as a consultant was becoming tedious and uninteresting, I resolved to move on and seek a more engaging opportunity

The day I left BCG, I was ecstatic. I felt as if I were finally free to pursue my intellectual interests. Although some may consider unemployment to be a depressing period, I relished my newfound freedom, exploring opportunities I hoped would satisfy my interests and goals. Through the Ameritech Corporation, I started my own business distributing discounted dental and vision plans. Running every phase of a new business was thoroughly engrossing and exciting

I developed financial business models tailored specifically to my personal business, and I studied the strategies of other successful business owners. Poring over books and magazines in bookstores and libraries, I taught myself the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and the nuances of financial planning. Realizing that I was enjoying my new endeavor because it combined elements of both the academic and professional worlds, I decided that the next logical move for me would be to attain higher education in business practices. Researching several graduate programs, I concluded that XXX's Ph.D. program in Business Economics was my best option because it provided intense academic study within the parameters of applicable business theory

My revived interest in academic study recalled the enriching experience I had had as an undergraduate at Dartmouth. Surrounded by intellectually engaging individuals from diverse backgrounds, I had developed an intense love of academic pursuits, especially finance and economics. Each semester, I hunted down professors, seeking to discuss economics and how the theories we were learning in class applied to the realities of the financial world. My passion for research grew out of my senior honors thesis entitled, "Picking Stocks Using Fundamental and Technical Analysis." I sought to prove that playing the stock market through technical analysis could substantially increase portfolio returns, even during turbulent economic periods. As I read through numerous case studies, including those from XXX Business School, I began to see how modern business practices adapt to and transform new economic theories in a synergistic, symbiotic process

By the time I concluded my thesis research in April 2001, I had achieved a fifty percent return on my portfolio despite the precipitous drop of the stock market. Exuberant over the success of my first major research project, I knew that I would pursue research interests in the not-so-distant future. At the age of nineteen, after only two and a half years of college, I became the youngest student in my class to graduate, and I did so with honors

I also experienced the joys of teaching and spreading my love of research to others at Dartmouth. During my junior and senior years, I tutored fellow students while juggling a schedule that included two internships. To build on this experience, I conducted numerous broker-training courses in my recent role at the Ameritech Corporation. The goal of my course was to show my colleagues how to incorporate the financial model I created for my business into their own strategic business plans. A number of my students have increased their sales volumes by over fifty percent as a result of implementing my strategies. Whenever I teach, I experience a close feeling of kinship with my students and enthusiastically convey my material in a manner that allows them to experience my love of learning XXX's combination of superior faculty, state-of-the-art facilities, and diverse student body makes it the ideal environment in which to broaden my knowledge of business economics. The Business Economics Ph.D. program will give me the training to perform research in financial modeling and valuation methodologies, including complex topics such as the Black-Scholes option-pricing model. Of particular interest to me is Professor Vousden's project, "The Impact of EPS Accretion and Dilution on Stock Prices." Armed with an undergraduate degree in economics and significant professional experience, I have the background and commitment to succeed in XXX's rigorous Business Economics program.

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