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In Form 4 I joined a volunteer trip to a mountainous county in Hubei, China, in which my task was to teach students English at a primary school. It was an opportunity for me to witness the economic development in China's interior. The county town was rebuilt, with modern residential blocks and elaborate lampposts which are lit thrice a year. Commercial products like strawberries are now grown alongside rice. But, the income gap was also widened by progress. There are students in my group who wear the same well-worn suit every day, and farmers are still living in old, small cottages outside the town. It was after this trip I decided to study economics, as I wish to understand the economic forces that shaped societies, and to learn how we can help in building a better world.
Since then I do frequent reading into the subject. I was intrigued by the inner workings of money after I read Milton Friedman's 'Money Mischief' and Joseph Stiglitz's 'Globalization and its Discontents'. Though they disagree with each other on particular issues, it is their common concern to bad monetary policies that inspired me most. Friedman analyzed how Roosevelt's silver purchases in the US ignited hyperinflation, civil war and communist takeover in China by draining its monetary reserves, while Stiglitz resented how contractionary policies suggested by the IMF, such as rising the interest rate, induced recessions in many countries. Encouraged by their writings, I wish to help evaluate monetary policies, and prevent damaging ones from being made and enforced in the future.
Economics is a social science. It builds models to explain phenomena in the real world, and many of them are expressed in mathematical form. Since primary school, I have represented my schools in various competitions. I self-studied Additional Mathematics for my HKCEE, and took my A-level Mathematics a year early. I believe my passion in mathematics will help me to study economic models. Before theories are applied to the real world, they have to be tested by observations. In A-level Physics, I had to conduct experiments to verify some unrealistic, purely mathematical models such as 'simple harmonic motion', and learnt how they could be useful in explaining phenomena around us. This helps me to understand the underlying scientific method, which is also central to the economic science.
I enjoy many activities. As a member of the Chinese Debate Team, I had prepared debates on various economic issues, such as minimum wage and privatization projects, and gave speeches on them from different perspectives. This experience allows me to explore the actual effects of economic policies on our society, and is indeed related to my plan to work in making economic policies and development strategies. In Form 6, I was elected as the Students' Association's President, and once I was in charge of a Singing Contest. In the first few weeks, ticket sale was disappointing. But I thought students were expecting us to shift to free admission, as we did two years before in face of unsatisfactory sales. I remained confident of coming sales, as I predicted the expectation would fade away, and thus demand would rise as the event approached. I was right - 57% of all tickets were sold out in the last week. This is a vivid lesson on how market forces act in daily life. This event, along with my whole experience as President, has also improved my leadership and made me more persevering, which I found particularly useful in my other responsibilities. I am aware of that study in university will be challenging, and the perseverance I gained will help me through.
I now yearn to study the world in more depth. I believe my passion for economics will bring me through the course successfully, and equip me to help building a better world.
Universities Applied to:
- Cambridge - Rejected after Interview
- LSE - AAA + pass in Further Maths
- UCL - AAA incl Econ
- Warwick - AABB
- Bristol - AAA
