History & Economics Personal Statement Example 2

My name is Ariel Blumberg and I am 19 years old. I was born in a little village near Eindhoven, a in the south of the Netherlands. While growing up there, I experienced a warm family life and plenty of opportunity to develop my youthfully curious mind. I was a naturally active child, and most of my curiosity went out to nature. Astrology was one of my main interests as well, back then I read many books on the evolution of our solar system and our planet. This curiosity has always been an important part of my personality.

However, when I came into adolescence, my interests changed somewhat. Rather than investigating nature and the earth, I became more and more involved in global issues, concerning the government of countries, human rights, and the contemporary history of politics. Some things that really interested me back then were the history of the relations between Russia and America as evolved after the cold war and the European integration.

After graduating from high school, I faced a tough choice. Because I had so many interests, it was hard to decide which one to dedicate my entire time as a student to. Not only did I have a hard time deciding which one of all those wonderful subjects to pick, I also had trouble accepting that it would only be one specific topic I would be studying, for four years at least.

Eventually, I found a temporary solution to my problem. Because I didn't want to focus on one specific topic yet, I figured I'd try and enrol in two of my most favourite subjects, namely history and economics. History was the topic that I really was passionate about, whereas economics was supposed to be a sturdy foundation for any ambitions I might have in the fields of business and management.

However, as it turned out, this way of studying wasn't really my type of thing. Because the University of Rotterdam doesn't provide the amount of flexibility that is needed to study two different subjects at the same time, I had trouble combining the two. There were several occasions on which important tests in one study had to make way for even more important ones in the other. I concluded that although I would still really love to study both subjects, the University of Rotterdam wasn't the place to go to do that.

Fortunately, last February, a good friend of mine came to know about University College Maastricht. He told me about it as well, and from the moment I heard about UCM, its views of what education should be like, the opportunities one will have when studying there, and the profile future students were required to have, I was very enthusiastic. This was just the way of studying I was looking for! It would provide the structure I needed to study a broad variety of subjects, all integrated in the same academical career.

The broad spectrum of the curriculum, in which you will not focus on just a single subject, but in which you will acquire the intellectual tools needed to analyse and solve contemporary problems on world-scale, was the first thing that I really liked about UCM. When I heard about the challenging courses, the intensive interaction between teachers and students, the Problem Based Learning system, and the freedom one will have in choosing subjects according to your own interests and preferences, I knew for sure that this was the type of study I was looking for.

With regard to the future I see for myself, I feel that studying at UCM is an essential step on the way to get to my first and most important goal. This goal consists of contributing to the best of my possibilities to the development of countries whose people have as yet been unable to join in the benefits of today's unequally divided global wealth. I think that NGO's can play a pivotal role in this process.

I would love to carry out an executive position in developmental projects to help improve third or second world countries in the fields of economics, peace, security and humanitarian affairs. I feel that I will need a lot of knowledge concerning global issues to be able to do this, together of course with quite an amount of idealistic stamina. Along with completing my studies at UCM, attaining a master's degree in International Relations at the London School of Economics is another academical goal I set for myself.

I hope I have been able to give you a clear view into the motivation I have to attend UCM, as well as some relevant characteristics of my personality and my future plans. I believe a bachelor's degree from UCM will give me a head start in the realization of the goals I set for myself. My request to you, sir/madam, would be to grant me the possibility to do so.