Personal Statement for HKUST Engineering Enterprise Management

Personal Statement for HKUST Engineering Enterprise Management

I am a student from the School of  Pharmacy Department of Nankai University. I am planning to apply for a 20-21 year postgraduate degree in engineering enterprise management.

During the first two years in my college, I was just an ordinary science student. However, a course in the third year of my college made me interested in management. The name of the course is Social and Administrative Pharmacy

In this course, I have learned some basic management knowledge. What impressed me especially was how pharmaceutical companies can make correct market decisions through market analysis and how to operate activities in the value chain of drug development, clinical trials, drug registration, and production. This class seems to trigger a switch that has made me discover my great interest in the management and operation of pharmaceutical companies.

Before the winter vacation, I participated in the second MF Cup Health Industry Research Competition organized by Peking University Health Industry Association. It is worth noting that through this competition, I found a clear short-term career goal for myself. The task of the competition is to propose a feasible strategy by analyzing the status of the industry, the market competition pattern and business management problems for a health insurance company with obstacles in profitability. In the analysis of business management problems, a group member of my group Liu told me that business problems are reflected in the financial report. I learned the knowledge of financial statements and tried to read the company’s annual report for the first time.

With the help of Liu, I tried to use excel to calculate the company’s asset-liability ratio and net asset interest rate, and compare it with the industry average. For me who is not skilled, this process is a little bit laborious, but when I use the calculation software to get the correct conclusion, this feeling is wonderful, I want to explore more. I think this progress to find business problems and provide development strategies for companies is very cool! Fortunately, the instructor of this competition was a consultant in the medical company. I learned about the career of the consultant by communicating with him.

After checking a lot of information online, I identified my short-term career goal: to enter a pharmaceutical company as a strategic consultant. I chose a pharmaceutical company because my accumulated medical knowledge in the four years of undergraduate studies has made me understand more about the process of drug research and development, production and new drug application than many other people. I have deeper industry insights into the government policies and market dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry, increasing my competitiveness. But of course, becoming a strategic consultant requires a lot of important knowledge and skills, including market analysis skills, financial analysis skills, solid financial knowledge, ability to manage and operate company resources, strategic thinking, decision-making skills, and collaboration…I need to acquire more theoretical learning and practice to make up for the lack of these professional abilities.

I think the EEM program meets my demand perfectly. Problem-solving for Engineering Managers program enhances me on team management and  enable me to  communicate more smoothly with the project team and the R&D team, directing them to  build capability and performance in order to identify, formulate and analyze engineering management problems and arrive at effective and efficient solutions; Accounting for Managers provides me  with a basic foundation and practical understanding of financial accounting and equips me with financial analysis ability,  which can make me skillfully analyze the company’s financial situation and discover the company’s financial problems；Fundamentals of Economics & Finance program gives me an understanding of economics and the application of economic analysis in the context of the needs of management and of managerial decision-making in the company’s external environment, and the financial concepts introduced in the course helps me to make investment financing decisions for the company and guide the company’s financial strategy.

Through the skills learned from Product Development Management, I can fully communicate with the product manager, propose innovative ideas for pharmaceutical production, and develop development strategies for the product development team. By attending transportation and Logistics Management，I can plan effectively plan about the operation of the logistics and transportation systems, such as the logistics operations of the import and export of drugs , the distribution planning of drugs in the drugstores.  Financial Engineering and Risk Management could teach me how to conduct a risk assessment on a certain type of drug launched by the company and formulate risk hedging strategies and risk measures in time…

I think I have enough ability to deal with the challenges of the program. Many of the business courses I have taken during my school year, such as management of non-profit organization, Introduction to Management Concept and Principle of 6σ, general finance, investment, and some commercial competitions, such as The “Chancellor Cup” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition of Nankai University, “Creating Youth in 2018” –The National College Student Entrepreneurship Competition in Tianjin gave me basic business knowledge and business practices. This summer, I took summer school at the London School of Economics and Political Science in strategic management.

Although it is only a glimpse of management, one-month study has made me more determined about my interests. In the final final exam, I got A, and I think I can easily integrate into a business class taught in pure English. After finishing the summer school, I started working as an intern in the food and beverage group of a securities company. My first project was about the development of the international leaders in the health care industry. With the help of the instructor, I learned to use wind, google and other databases and search engines to collect a large amount of information, such as company profiles, recent news, development history, business models, etc., and quickly classify and refine effective information into documents.

I also learned to read the company’s annual report and announcement, and applied EXCEL to produce the main selling components pie chart, income-net profit chart and  ROI calculation of various companies including GNC, Swisse, Abbott, and Bayer.  At the same time, I participated in the company morning meeting and recorded the meeting outline; I also assisted in the preparation of some roadshow activities. These practices have given me a deeper understanding of the company’s operating model.

Last summer, I participated in an research project called The Screening of  salt-sensitive hypertension susceptibility genes in the Gene Big Data Research Group of the Beijing Institute of Genomics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, screening for salt-sensitive hypertension susceptibility genes, and conducting bioinformatics research in the project, comparing patient genes with normal human genes and finding the similarities and differences between them. By using Perl language to write programs in order to screen variant regions, I have the ability to program PERL language. At the same time, the c++ and data structure courses majored in the school have enabled me to have c++  language programming skills, paving the way for me to learn some program of EEM such as Applied Probability, Statistics and Data Analytics IT System for Global Enterprise courses.

Moreover, the experience of being a leader in two student organizations has enabled me to have excellent leadership, and the experience of participating in entrepreneurial projects and writing research reports with my classmates has fully exemplified my ability to collaborate. I think I can maximize my role in the future teamwork no matter in the role of a leader or a participant.

I chatted with a senior who was in the same university and graduated from EEM, and I learned more about the resources that I can use. He said that the career development course, workshop and rich internship opportunities provided by the school’s career center played a big role in his successful job hunting after graduation. Frequent job fairs also brought more opportunities for his career choice. I also find that the mentorship program of the IEDA department can help me to increase communication and understanding with employers. The EEM class is diverse, and students from all over the world provide me with different ways of thinking; my participation will also bring international perspective into group discussions and teamwork. My two-year experience of being a campus broadcaster in the school radio can also allow me to find a role at People’s Campus Radio, HKUSTSU, and contribute to the development of campus media

The coastal location of the University of Science and Technology, its rich extracurricular resources, and the inclusive campus culture have deeply attracted me. I hope that I can become a member of my dream school. In the past two years, in order to get closer to the University of Science and Technology, I have seen my own growth in my continuous efforts, but in fact, what I have learned is only a drop in the ocean. I want and need to explore more. I need more systematic and comprehensive theoretical knowledge and richer practice. From science to management, this graduate program is undoubtedly my most beneficial springboard, meeting the demand of my interest, passion and career goals, guiding me to the field of business.