Critique a DS
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2010 12:58 pm
Here is my DS. Please give you critiques and be critical on me. Thanks for your time and kindness!
After 32 hour of airborne over the Pacific and two legs of transfers in between airports, I had stepped out of the urban life style in Shanghai to a collegial life at xxx University. It was the last week of 1995. Excited and apprehensive, I entered a phase of education that reshaped my life. I knew very soon that I made the right decision in choosing xxxx. My success of graduate career at xxxxxx was made possible by generous fellowship support and an unparallel career service support. I am particularly proud that the xxxxxx community helped a two-year old son of a family friend fight to survive leukemia. As a xxxxxx graduate from College of Science, my education has enabled me to have a successful research career. When I lost my job in the late 2008, xxxxx Alumni career service is out there to help me cope with the loss. My total xxxxx experience teaches me the value of diversity and giving back to community. xxxxx experience also teaches me how to be a good citizen of community.
When I first time landed in this country, what all I have was my single suite case and three hundred dollar cash. Very soon I was shocked to notice that my classmates and professors around me could hardly understand my broken speaking English despite I had perfect GRE and TOFEL test score. Undeterred, I embraced the language and the culture. I used half of the three hundred dollar to buy a TV with captions, a tape recorder, one Shel Silverstein’s poem book and a Paul Simon & Garfunkel’s CD containing the song named “bridge over the troubled water”. These were the essentials I used to practice spoken American English. During my first winter break at xxxxxx, I spent another half of the 300 dollar on an American culture awareness trip in team with an ESL classmate. We hoped on and off the major city stops along the Grayhound bus line’s north east corridor route. We visited the liberty bell in Philadelphia, spent the New Year’s Eve at Big Apple to join the crowd at the Time Square to watch the drop of the crystal ball, walked the freedom trail in Boston and located the Harvard Square filmed in our favorite film, The Love Story. We grabbed any possible opportunities to speak with native speakers during our trip. After two year of hard work, I began to reach the comfort zone of my language skills when I successfully delivered my very first 20 minutes public speech at a prestigious scientific symposium in front of 300 people in the audience. Since then, I will hear complements on my spoken English when I traveled to various occasions. I am quite proud of my own concise, get to the point and tell a story power point presentation style. Being able to speak well opened up many opportunities to me.
In the summer of 2000, I started my research career as a medicinal chemist at xxxxxx. This time I quickly realized that speaking well did not translate into good communication. As being the first foreign woman PhD chemist recruited to xxxxxx Philadelphia site, I started out being intimidated by my peers from Ivy League schools. The luck is on my favor as xxxxxxx is such a wonderful company which embraces diversity. I sought every opportunity to branch out from the confines of my deeply minted Chinese philosophy of modesty. One of the most dramatic endeavors I took was to spend 50% time of my first year on interviewing forty or so job candidates. In the beginning, I was embarrassed a few times when I lost track of conversations with candidates. After a few weeks, I began to enjoy the interview process when I figured out reading non-verbal cues a job candidate presented. I also quickly mastered the skills of using behavioral interviewing questions to probe job candidates’ academic and social skills. At the end of six month, I found my very first associate who worked with me until I left xxxxx in 2008. My associate and I had a very productive supervisor vs. subordinate working relationship. These interviews taught me the lessons of people skills which are essential to achieve success in a multidisciplinary working environment.
My immigration experience stirred my passion to use my life and career to make a difference. This passion has animated the many causes I have advocated through many of my volunteer works. In the past a few years, I volunteered my time to the Philadelphia local chapter of American Chemical Society (ACS). During the year of 2006-2007, I devoted my time to chair the fundraising committee for the 2007 ACS middle Atlantic regional meeting (MARM). The fundraising committee and I successfully raised a great amount of fund and supported a successful MARM meeting in 2007. I continued my support for ACS Philadelphia chapter by volunteering my time to being a member of board of directors. I also enjoyed devoting my time to mentor young chemist at the college. I have hosted quite a few undergraduate summer interns from Drexel University and Penn State University.
After 32 hour of airborne over the Pacific and two legs of transfers in between airports, I had stepped out of the urban life style in Shanghai to a collegial life at xxx University. It was the last week of 1995. Excited and apprehensive, I entered a phase of education that reshaped my life. I knew very soon that I made the right decision in choosing xxxx. My success of graduate career at xxxxxx was made possible by generous fellowship support and an unparallel career service support. I am particularly proud that the xxxxxx community helped a two-year old son of a family friend fight to survive leukemia. As a xxxxxx graduate from College of Science, my education has enabled me to have a successful research career. When I lost my job in the late 2008, xxxxx Alumni career service is out there to help me cope with the loss. My total xxxxx experience teaches me the value of diversity and giving back to community. xxxxx experience also teaches me how to be a good citizen of community.
When I first time landed in this country, what all I have was my single suite case and three hundred dollar cash. Very soon I was shocked to notice that my classmates and professors around me could hardly understand my broken speaking English despite I had perfect GRE and TOFEL test score. Undeterred, I embraced the language and the culture. I used half of the three hundred dollar to buy a TV with captions, a tape recorder, one Shel Silverstein’s poem book and a Paul Simon & Garfunkel’s CD containing the song named “bridge over the troubled water”. These were the essentials I used to practice spoken American English. During my first winter break at xxxxxx, I spent another half of the 300 dollar on an American culture awareness trip in team with an ESL classmate. We hoped on and off the major city stops along the Grayhound bus line’s north east corridor route. We visited the liberty bell in Philadelphia, spent the New Year’s Eve at Big Apple to join the crowd at the Time Square to watch the drop of the crystal ball, walked the freedom trail in Boston and located the Harvard Square filmed in our favorite film, The Love Story. We grabbed any possible opportunities to speak with native speakers during our trip. After two year of hard work, I began to reach the comfort zone of my language skills when I successfully delivered my very first 20 minutes public speech at a prestigious scientific symposium in front of 300 people in the audience. Since then, I will hear complements on my spoken English when I traveled to various occasions. I am quite proud of my own concise, get to the point and tell a story power point presentation style. Being able to speak well opened up many opportunities to me.
In the summer of 2000, I started my research career as a medicinal chemist at xxxxxx. This time I quickly realized that speaking well did not translate into good communication. As being the first foreign woman PhD chemist recruited to xxxxxx Philadelphia site, I started out being intimidated by my peers from Ivy League schools. The luck is on my favor as xxxxxxx is such a wonderful company which embraces diversity. I sought every opportunity to branch out from the confines of my deeply minted Chinese philosophy of modesty. One of the most dramatic endeavors I took was to spend 50% time of my first year on interviewing forty or so job candidates. In the beginning, I was embarrassed a few times when I lost track of conversations with candidates. After a few weeks, I began to enjoy the interview process when I figured out reading non-verbal cues a job candidate presented. I also quickly mastered the skills of using behavioral interviewing questions to probe job candidates’ academic and social skills. At the end of six month, I found my very first associate who worked with me until I left xxxxx in 2008. My associate and I had a very productive supervisor vs. subordinate working relationship. These interviews taught me the lessons of people skills which are essential to achieve success in a multidisciplinary working environment.
My immigration experience stirred my passion to use my life and career to make a difference. This passion has animated the many causes I have advocated through many of my volunteer works. In the past a few years, I volunteered my time to the Philadelphia local chapter of American Chemical Society (ACS). During the year of 2006-2007, I devoted my time to chair the fundraising committee for the 2007 ACS middle Atlantic regional meeting (MARM). The fundraising committee and I successfully raised a great amount of fund and supported a successful MARM meeting in 2007. I continued my support for ACS Philadelphia chapter by volunteering my time to being a member of board of directors. I also enjoyed devoting my time to mentor young chemist at the college. I have hosted quite a few undergraduate summer interns from Drexel University and Penn State University.