International Relations Personal Statement Example 27

I cannot remember a time when I was not trying to understand or find out something new. The best memories I have of my childhood are of my father reading to me out loud the subtitles of documentaries until would fall asleep. Then, when I was nine years old, one event made me redirection my curiosity towards everything that involves countries and the way they work, differ, interact.

My mother and I got on a plane and flew towards what was going to be my home for the next six years: Italy. I learnt many new things in the first months there, but an illuminating moment happened when I returned to my country, Romania, for the winter holidays. Looking around I did not understand how I could have been so blind before. Now that I had seen Italy these communist buildings, all grey, all the same, were dull and sad as I never realised before.

I could not stop thinking about it, the way I did not realise something so obvious until I compared it to a foreign place. These thoughts slowly became a promise to myself to never be blinded by ignorance and to always try to overcome my condition and my self-imposed barriers.

I fought to read and learn everything I could about the world I live in. I stay updated on the political situation in the world, learning about the policies that have worked and that have not, comparing them to find what could be applied successfully in different places and why, but remained of the opinion that the best way to learn is a practical one so I visited twelve countries, two of them in exchanges. I studied much to have the marks I needed in German to be allowed to go to Austria, but the volume of work I needed to do to go to Poland was incomparable.

At that time I had returned to Romania for high school. Here I did part of the work for the documents that needed to be submitted to get the approval of the "Language of the Photos" Erasmus+ project, including the translation and when the groups from other countries came, I was organising the students, making sure they understood what they had to do, keeping a positive atmosphere.

During my time at this school we had many new projects and tanks to our efforts our institute won a national competition for the title of "European School".

With the purpose of developing further my organisational and leadership abilities I ran for president of the student council and, after winning the elections, contributed to the creation of new activities that brought this organisation back to life such as a symposium to bring awareness to school dropout, one of our country's biggest problems.

Here I presented the main causes and possible solutions, which led to a higher percentage of my schoolmates seeking career counselling. This year I am doing a presentation at the University of Petrosani on the topic of Romanian students studying abroad and the impact on society.

I took part in these projects because I thought what I learnt in Italy by being a scout patrol leader and a student council member could be of help, more specifically how to motivate a group and to show them the work they need to do to accomplish their goal, helping them keep in mind that it is completely within reach by doing the tasks in order and debating possible solutions.

I faced many difficulties, but I enjoyed the challenges. Romania is a country where if you want to do something you will need to do all the work from the ground up and I feel how much it taught me.

I studied the differences I could see between the countries I visited and I know there is more that I could learn to better myself so that I can bring innovation where there is need. I am vehement to learn about countries in a global perspective because the bigger picture of policies and the lessons learnt in different places is what helped me accomplish everything I did and make a positive change in my community. I think now time has come for me to learn new lessons that can be achieved through a new international experience in the United Kingdom