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In one usual hot and humid afternoon in Sri Lanka, the air in the meeting room of our project site was nearly frozen. It was a claim negotiation meeting for a construction project, but it ended with my employer, as Contractor, failure to recover the loss from out of contractual scope work, which could be largely attributed to the inability of our lawyer to understand technical thoroughly. The problem reflected the practical ineffectiveness of Chinese laws that has not kept pace with fast-growing real-estate market. Along with other drawbacks created by bubbles in the industry, I perceive the responsibility to explore law further in order to close the gap between engineering and law.

I take pride in my career as an engineer because I could contribute to people’s livelihood considerably. When I chose to work in the rehabilitation project funded by Chinese government in Sri Lanka, I felt honored to assist local victims to build their home after the devastating tsunami in 2004. Coordinating between both local engineers and Chinese teams, I made every effort to deliver the project efficiently and effectively. As my work were recognized and lauded, I was promoted as Commercial Manager in the fastest manner. Nonetheless, the lack of legal knowledge put me in a disadvantage position in contractual and regulation issues, which impelled me to rethink my planned career path to be a successful engineer. I decided to maximize every opportunity for professional growth by enrolling in new program in a new city.

Even back then as an engineer, I had the desire to go into law, and it was no mistake that I took Construction Law to define my passion. Although facing enormous challenge competing with native speakers and law students, with the guidance and encouragement from Professor XXXXX, I gained my confidence gradually. By comparing Chinese regulations to US legal system, along with my solid foundation of engineering, I managed to bring unique perspective to the class discussion, which sometimes gave rise to hot debates in the class. Progressively, I found the study of appeared-elusive legal concepts and principles a delightful experience. To further enhance communication and client exposure, I also served as Construction Management consultant at XXXXXXX

While living in New York, I thought back to my unanswered question of expanding beyond the limits of engineering. Whereas engineering discipline is bound by technical knowledge, law allows the expansion of disciplinary boundary and area of practice. This is the difference that engaged me to examine deeper in law. I believe law school study could fill my void in legal knowledge required to synthesize the two disciplines. With my international background and diversified experience, I feel certain that I could bridge the gap in communication and understanding between the law and engineering in order to meet the demands in the ever expanding transnational real-estate market.

Other than the attachment to XXXX University as a former student, I was also impressed by the diversified culture. The amiable environment to people from different background could allow me to exert my greatest potential. Besides, XXXXX is also renowned for its leading Chinese legal study. Growing up in mainland China, I am longing to investigate what I have not known about from an international perspective and interdisciplinary approach, since it could be conducive to my goal of reforming the current Chinese real-estate legal system. Therefore, going to XXXXX will clearly put me in inimitable position that is closest to realize my goal.

I know by reading this that you are not a native speaker; however some of the errors that are a result of english not being your first language are very distracting.

I kept thinking, "this person must not be a native speaker" as I was reading instead of focusing on the story that you were telling me.

Do you have access to a native speaker that could work out some of those kinks for you? I think that's the first step to beginning to improve this essay.

fl0w wrote:I know by reading this that you are not a native speaker; however some of the errors that are a result of english not being your first language are very distracting.

I kept thinking, "this person must not be a native speaker" as I was reading instead of focusing on the story that you were telling me.

Do you have access to a native speaker that could work out some of those kinks for you? I think that's the first step to beginning to improve this essay.

I understand it, I have several native-speaker friends to check it out, but my deadline is next monday, I have to revise structual and grammar issues at the same time in order to improve it
May I ask what do you think of the structure?

I'll take a shot at some feedback, but it's tough. the grammar is VERY distracting at this point. Since you said you have native speaking friends to correct those issues, I will speak only to content / structure.

cassieyuc wrote:In one usual hot and humid afternoon in Sri Lanka, the air in the meeting room of our project site was nearly frozen. It was a claim negotiation meeting for a construction project, but it ended with my employer, as Contractor, failure to recover the loss from out of contractual scope work, which could be largely attributed to the inability of our lawyer to understand technical thoroughly. The problem reflected the practical ineffectiveness of Chinese laws that has not kept pace with fast-growing real-estate market. Along with other drawbacks created by bubbles in the industry, I perceive the responsibility to explore law further in order to close the gap between engineering and law.

I this paragraph I'm not sure you've articulated your point well enough. You blame an inept lawyer for the losses suffered your team, but then you also talk about gaps in Chinese law vs. the fast pace of real-estate market growth. The last sentence is the most confusing of all. I just don’t understand what you are trying to say with it. Drawbacks and bubbles make you want to bridge the gap between engineering and law? I don’t understand. You just talked about gaps between Chinese law and real estate, and now you’ve switched to engineering and law.

cassieyuc wrote: I take pride in my career as an engineer because I could contribute to people’s livelihood considerably. When I chose to work in the rehabilitation project funded by Chinese government in Sri Lanka, I felt honored to assist local victims to build their home after the devastating tsunami in 2004. Coordinating between both local engineers and Chinese teams, I made every effort to deliver the project efficiently and effectively. As my work were recognized and lauded, I was promoted as Commercial Manager in the fastest manner. Nonetheless, the lack of legal knowledge put me in a disadvantage position in contractual and regulation issues, which impelled me to rethink my planned career path to be a successful engineer. I decided to maximize every opportunity for professional growth by enrolling in new program in a new city.

Most of this paragraph is not necessary, as it should be included in your resume. You want to use this essay to say things about yourself that the admissions committee would not already know.

cassieyuc wrote: Even back then as an engineer, I had the desire to go into law, and it was no mistake that I took Construction Law to define my passion. Although facing enormous challenge competing with native speakers and law students, with the guidance and encouragement from Professor XXXXX, I gained my confidence gradually. By comparing Chinese regulations to US legal system, along with my solid foundation of engineering, I managed to bring unique perspective to the class discussion, which sometimes gave rise to hot debates in the class. Progressively, I found the study of appeared-elusive legal concepts and principles a delightful experience. To further enhance communication and client exposure, I also served as Construction Management consultant at XXXXXXX

This paragraph might serve as a replacement of the paragraph preceding it. Is there a reason you reference the professor by name? I would really only do so if that professor wrote you a letter of recommendation for law school. Otherwise it begs the question “who is this professor?” Was Construction Law just a single course that you took? This paragraph does have some good information in it, you just need to present it more effectively.

cassieyuc wrote: While living in New York, I thought back to my unanswered question of expanding beyond the limits of engineering. Whereas engineering discipline is bound by technical knowledge, law allows the expansion of disciplinary boundary and area of practice. This is the difference that engaged me to examine deeper in law. I believe law school study could fill my void in legal knowledge required to synthesize the two disciplines. With my international background and diversified experience, I feel certain that I could bridge the gap in communication and understanding between the law and engineering in order to meet the demands in the ever expanding transnational real-estate market.

The chronology and location is mixed up now. I thought you were in China. Did you take that class in China or in the U.S.? When did you come back to New York? Are you from New York or from China? Again you talk about bridging the gap between law and engineering, but it looks like your final goal is actually real estate. This is actually not bridging the gap between law and engineering at all.

cassieyuc wrote: Other than the attachment to XXXX University as a former student, I was also impressed by the diversified culture. The amiable environment to people from different background could allow me to exert my greatest potential. Besides, XXXXX is also renowned for its leading Chinese legal study. Growing up in mainland China, I am longing to investigate what I have not known about from an international perspective and interdisciplinary approach, since it could be conducive to my goal of reforming the current Chinese real-estate legal system. Therefore, going to --------- will clearly put me in inimitable position that is closest to realize my goal.

You accidentally mentioned the name of the school in the area I changed to dashes "------" above. I didn’t quote it so you could remove it from your original post. In your concluding paragraph you didn’t mention engineering at all. I think this confirms that your actual goal is to get into real estate law. What led you to this interest is your background in construction / engineering. You really should remove references of bridging the gap between engineering and law because it is clear that you actually want to transition to real estate law based on your experiences in construction.
I understand a lot of what you are TRYING to say because I have a lot of friends that are non-native speakers. But, you have to be cognizant of how this will read to a native speaker that does not regularly speak to non-native speakers. They will not understand what you are trying to communicate and a lot of your statements will lose their impact. It is imperative that you have a native speaker help you revise this. Do not just give them the essay and ask for comments. You should sit down with them to actually explain what you mean by a lot of statements so they can give you proper editing advice.
I think the essay has potential, but needs a lot of work.
Best of luck to you!
Jia jian

Thank you so much, the comments is very helpful,
I felt I have missed something very important,Thank you for pointing it out the shift from engineering to real estate.