post study career plan essay

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2 Chevening Essay: Career plan

Chevening is looking for individuals who have a clear post-study career plan. Please outline your immediate plans upon returning home and your longer term career goals. You may wish to consider how these relate to what the UK government is doing in your country.

Check the newest Chevening Scholarship essay examples: click here .

“Career plan” Chevening Essay Example 1

I intend to put the new skills and knowledge I will have acquired from my education in the UK into good use in Kenya. Therefore, as soon as I return to the country, my immediate short-term career goal will be to use my new qualifications to search for a job commensurate with my master’s degree course. The position I already have in mind is that of a Personal Financial Advisor, as it is a financial/economics advisory role that interests me. I will also seek a job as a Financial Analyst, Budget Analyst, Management Analyst, and any other related job.

See also:  Ultimate Chevening Scholarship Resources

I anticipate that getting my first job after returning home will not be too difficult, given my existing professional experience and the master’s degree I will have obtained. Moreover, since I have already built excellent relationships at NIC Bank, it will be the first place I seek employment. In whatever new job I secure, I can put into practice everything I learned in the UK. My medium-term career goal is to establish a consultancy company where I will provide expert advice on everything business, finance, accounting, and economics. This will present an admittedly daunting yet rewarding challenge as it will be the first time I will be stepping out of formal employment to run my own business. This I plan to venture into after about five years of employment.

By this time, I expect to have gained enough knowledge and skills and should have saved enough capital to sustain my business for at least one year. This one-year grace year period will allow me to roll up my sleeves and build the necessary foundation for the business from the ground up before it becomes profitable and sustainable on its own. I quite look forward to this challenge. I will give myself about ten years in this capacity to develop my skills, expertise, and a strong network of professionals in the corporate world and government before eventually applying for a senior position such as Chief Financial Economist in the National Treasury. This is my ultimate long-term career goal. By this point, I will be in a much better position to use all the information I have accrued from my education and work experience to provide the requisite expert advice that the government and government bodies need.

These plans coalesce with everything the UK currently engages in Kenya. The UK has quite a healthy economic relationship with Kenya, even in the face of Brexit. It continues to export goods from Kenya and make significant investments in the country. For instance, in May 2019, the UK government committed to funding various high-impact projects across the nation, investments that are worth KSh14.5 billion (approximately £113,655,360). This came after a proposal to establish a UK- Kenya Economic Development Forum, which shall meet biannually.

According to a 2017 report by Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, over 70% of Kenya’s poor and hunger-stricken people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. Growth in the agricultural sector has been estimated to be over ten times more effective in reducing poverty compared to growth in other sectors in developing countries. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the sector employs over 40% of Kenya’s population. This could increase if more efforts are directed there, which is why I seek to build on my experience with poor rural communities to pursue a career in International Development. This will impart me with knowledge and skills to influence policies on poverty reduction through small-scale agriculture, rural development, and research.

In the short term, I see myself starting a community-based organization in Murang’a County that will transform agriculture into a viable business for rural small-scale farmers. I will achieve this by seeking partnerships with the county government and relevant social enterprises such as Juhudi Kilimo to increase smallholder farms’ productivity, enhance marketing systems and offer business, safety standards, and technical skills training. These initiatives will turn small-scale farms into businesses, link them to regional and global food chains and create job opportunities.

I plan to serve in the next Murang’a County Government as a County Executive Committee Member in charge of Agriculture and Cooperatives. In this role, I will work with the County Assembly to improve the reliability of water supply for irrigation for small-scale farmers, build more wholesale market sheds, employ more extension officers, identify and invest in first-mover crops and improve feeder roads to support agriculture.

In the long-term, with experience and skills gained in the local government, I plan to serve as a Member of Parliament in the National Assembly, chairing the Agriculture, Trade and Cooperatives Committee. In this role, I will build on my success with the County Government to work closely with the Executive arm of government to spearhead legislation to transform Kenya’s Agricultural sector to ensure food security and create more jobs. I will lead negotiations with United Kingdom Multinationals such as Marks & Spencer to increase their fair-trade products in Kenya and rope in more tea and coffee factories in their supply chain. In addition, I will advocate for Diageo to replace imported grains with local crops such as sorghum and cassava for their beers. This will promote trade between Kenya and the United Kingdom, deepen our relations and create jobs in the country. By following this career progression, it will be possible to make necessary adjustments based on my experience and the prevailing circumstances.

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Accepted Admissions Blog

Everything you need to know to get Accepted

February 29, 2024

• Writing Your Career Goals Essay

Check out all the blog posts in this series:

• Identifying the Ingredients of a Winning Essay
• Finding a Theme for Your Statement of Purpose
• Revise and Polish Your Application Essays

Your career goals essay demands a laser-like focus. A personal statement, by contrast, allows for some flexibility in its content, though you can – and often should – discuss your career goals. But a career goals essay has a particular and packed agenda. In fact, the prompt for a career goals essay could actually include multiple questions, and in such cases, you want to make sure you address each of them.

For example, in 2022, Kellogg asked applicants to its one-year program to respond to the following prompt: “Please discuss your post-MBA career goal, the current experience you will leverage to support the transition, and the Kellogg 1Y opportunities that will help you reach this goal.” 

This prompt has three parts: (1) What do you want to do post-MBA ? (2) Why is the 1Y program appropriate for you? And (3) what experience has so far prepared you to succeed in your target role? 

So, always pay close attention to your target school’s prompt to ensure that you answer all the questions within its “single” question. 

Three elements of a successful career goals essay

In addition to having a distinct theme , your career goals essay should achieve the following:

• Highlight specific career achievements. Choose from your most notable or defining experiences. These could be related to your work, community involvement, or extracurricular activities. The experiences you select should showcase your leadership skills , creative thinking, collaborative abilities, and personal reflections about what you learned or gained.
• Explain why your experiences and influences make your career goal a logical and wise choice.
• Demonstrate why you are suited to a particular field as a result of your education, experience, abilities, and enthusiasm. Ideally, the material you choose to include will also allow you to prove your knowledge about industry trends and suggest how your abilities and strengths can help you contribute to that field.

It’s a very tall order to achieve all this.

Putting these elements together to create your goals essay

Let’s take a look at a sample MBA Goals Essay and see how these three key elements are incorporated.  

You should be able to easily recognize why the writer’s opening is attention-getting for all the right reasons. The writer introduces herself as the supremely busy executive she visualizes becoming in the future. She trades large amounts of stock, rushes off to a Zoom conference, hurries downstairs, flags down a taxi, then hops on a plane. As she describes this whirlwind of activity, we can practically feel her heart pumping.

After establishing her voice and personality in this opening, she offers context for her MBA goal. Notice that in writing about her work as an accountant for a major firm, she provides relevant details, including how many years she has been in the field, her bilingualism, and her specialty area as an auditor. This information is her springboard to explain why she is pursuing an MBA: she’s bursting out of her limited role as an accountant. Her eyes and ambition are set on a larger playing field as an international investment manager.

Write an essay, not a list or CV

Outstanding career goals essays are not lists of an applicant’s roles and achievements. Instead, they have a narrative flow and arc that convey the candidate’s palpable excitement about their career choice. This writer’s enthusiastic, dreamy first paragraph achieves this, and she returns to that image at the end, where she paints her idealized (if frantically busy) future. She also proves her seriousness by noting that she registered for the CFA exam.

Connect your career goals to your reasons for choosing a particular program

Many essay questions, especially those for MBA programs , will ask why you have chosen the school you’re applying to. Be prepared to respond knowledgeably and enthusiastically. And the only way to become knowledgeable – and enthusiastic – is by visiting campus in-person or virtually, attending student recruitment meetings, participating in forums, reading student blogs, watching videos of students speaking about their experiences, communicating directly with students and/or recent alumni, and otherwise doing your homework. As part of your research, make sure you have familiarized yourself with the courses and specializations that are relevant to your goals.

Summary Tips

• Focus on answering each and every question asked in a career goals essay prompt. Often, there is more than one.
• Highlight specific achievements vividly and in a way that shows that your career choice is logical for you.
• Do the research so you can write about why the school is a good fit for you and do so with genuine enthusiasm.

In the next post in this series , we’ll explain how to take all this advice and apply it to create an exemplary first draft.

Work one-on-one with an expert who will walk you through the process of creating a slam-dunk application. Check out our full catalog of application services . Our admissions consultants have read thousands of essays and know the exact ingredients of an outstanding essay.

By Judy Gruen, former Accepted admissions consultant. Judy holds a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University. She is also the co-author of Accepted’s first full-length book, MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools . Want an admissions expert help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related resources:

• The Winning Ingredients of a Dynamic MBA Goals Essay , a free guide
• Grad School Personal Statement Examples
• Focus on Fit , podcast Episode 162

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• Planning for Post-study Work After Your International Degree

Hassaan Ahmed

Planning for post-study work after your international degree.

For most international students, a foreign degree isn’t just about the world-class education or the horizon-broadening experiences of being exposed to a variety of different cultures. It’s also a way to gain a competitive edge in their industry on a global scale.

This is especially true for international students with prior work experience in their home countries and corporations and businesses that are looking to attract a more diverse and international workforce.

A critical part of having a competitive edge lies in the practical application of your education – evidence that grounds your learning in the practicalities of industry work that gives recruiters in your adopted country the opportunity to benefit from specialised, high-skilled labour.

That is why you’ll generally find that countries with strong international student presences will also have robust post-study work visa options such as the UK and Australia , a relationship beneficial to both.

Plans for post-study work, therefore, is a great way to make the most of your time as an international student and needs careful and extensive planning. While some steps may vary from country to country (my ongoing experience in Australia, for instance, may not completely be identical to yours in, for example, the UK), the overall strategy is quite similar. Let’s get to it!

Contact your university’s graduate recruitment team

The first thing you can do to kick-start your post-study plans is to contact your university’s graduation recruitment department and make the most of the services they offer.

And although many fellow international students may advise you that this is a waste of time and irrelevant – I strongly disagree.

Granted, there services cannot guarantee you employment or a visa at the end of your studies, they do provide essential information about how that country’s job market functions, what the work culture is like, how you are expected to conduct yourself and how best to present yourself on paper and in-person.

Without that basic information to help you make the right first impression, you’ll find your post-study career screeching to an unplanned halt immediately.

Leverage the power of every platform

Barring certain industries, most recruitment primarily happens online. We all have an updated LinkedIn profile, right? Right?

What some international students may not know when they move to another country is to consider the presence of online recruitment platforms that play a bigger role in the local job market in their home countries.

And if your main goal is to start your career, I’d even suggest giving those platforms a higher priority than LinkedIn, right up there with the recruitment portal setup by your university.

Learn the ins and outs of these platforms early, from putting up the right picture to building a profile that makes the most of the platform’s search algorithms.

This will be a tedious exercise the first couple of times, but then you’ll have built a profile that you can pretty much copy and paste to newer career networking platforms. Facebook now has a jobs portal, as does Google. Multinationals have their own private recruitment portals.

What I’m trying to say is, make sure you put yourself out there. You want to maximise your exposure to the right kind of employers and there is only one way to do it: be on every platform, optimised to their unique algorithms.

Learn to build targeted resumes

The biggest change between the resume you used for casual uni jobs during your studies and the one you’ll use to apply for graduate roles is that you won’t have ‘the one’ resume anymore.

Instead, you must learn to build and rebuild your resume for every role you apply to, making sure the right skills are highlighted, relevant experience (if any) gets the necessary spotlight and you’re conforming to the industry norms of your specific field. You can even consider creative ways to stand out, such as a video CV.  

Why is this important? As an example, a digital marketer and an SEO specialist will have some overlapping skills and tasks, but using the same resume for both may fail to bring out the best abilities.

So, if this you then you may want to highlight your marketing and content strategy skills for the digital marketing role and your technical SEO and analytics skills for the latter –critical distinctions you’d miss out on if you used the same generic resume.

To circle back, your university’s grad or careers services will be invaluable here. They will most likely feature training workshops and interview preparation services to help you build targeted resumes relevant to each unique job.

They’ll also help you with best practices and the common mistakes to avoid, and how to identify and leverage the soft skills gained from your work in other industries or odd jobs – invaluable. It still shocks me that people willingly refuse to utilise these (free!) services.

Embrace industry-specific upskilling

The job market is fierce and competitive, everyone is vying to stand out in an ocean of other highly talented candidates, so you’ll need to put in a lot of extra effort to impress.

In this, I’m motivated by the words of American radio personality Ira Glass. His advice, aimed mainly at those who do creative work but applicable to any work, discusses the importance of doing a huge volume of work to elevate your skill to the level of your ambition – that is something which has stuck with me for years and drives me to succeed.

How does this help you? It’s simple (but oh-so-hard). You need to scout the industries that interest you and see how they do work and get the job done, and just do it yourself.

Throughout your studies, you’ll be doing a lot of project work, so make sure you choose projects that are relevant to your favoured industries and will give you industry-specific skills and a body of work you can add to your portfolio to demonstrate those skills.

Additional upskilling in your free time can be a major boost as well. List down what secondary skills professionals in your industry of choice frequently possess and get cracking on them!

For instance, as a content writer, I’ve found a lot of my peers spend time learning HTML/CSS programming languages to help them better present their work on blogs or websites.

A few weeks of daily practice and I now had a secondary skill that instantly doubled employer interest in my skillset.

This is a time-intensive step so make sure you do your research before jumping into the learning, since you don’t want to waste your time and effort in doing something not relevant in your industry or career ambitions!

Look beyond the country you’re in

As the job market keeps getting more competitive with each passing day, you’ll might find yourself competing in a market that’s oversaturated with talent.

If you find yourself in that position, there may be hard decisions to make. Do you soldier on, hope for the best and put an incredibly burden on yours and your family’s finances? Do you pursue a side job while waiting for the job market to improve but potentially put your career on hold?

I propose a third, equally tough option: look beyond borders. The degree you’ve completed may be in a highly contested industry in the country you’ve studied in, but other countries may have a shortage of such professionals.

This is another time-consuming process and requires a lot of research and would require you to move countries (again) but this is a move that could prove beneficial in the long run.

You can even consider returning to your home country – there is a high chance that your highly contested degree might be cutting-edge back home, giving you major competitive edge in the market there, and the possibility to become an industry leader.

Again, this is not an easy call to make. It requires planning, discussion and preparation, and overriding the ‘glamourous’ lure of working and living abroad that brought many of us there in the first place.

Consider this, though. Being the first to do something has inherent challenges and difficulties, but the success and legacy that comes at the end of that tough road is an amazing opportunity.

Whether you choose to work in the same country, return home, or choose another destination, planning your post-study work career is a decision that may end up defining the rest of your professional career. Give this decision the respect it deserves: plan hard, prepare harder and aim high!

Did you find this article helpful?

You can explore more stories by international students in our blog.

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chevening career plan essay

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Defining your career plan ahead of your Chevening interview

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Here’s how to communicate a clear career plan in your Chevening interview, with advice from real interviewers.

When interviewing candidates for a Chevening Scholarship, there is no one “type” of person that we’re looking for. Excellence comes in many different packages, and the variety among Chevening Scholars is what makes our network so rewarding to be a part of.

However, all of our successful candidates do express, in their own ways, a few key qualities:

• Leadership and influencing
• Relationship building
• Enthusiasm for studying in the UK
• A strong career plan

In this blog, we’ll focus on communicating a solid career plan to your interview panel. Here are our tips – complete with advice from interviewers.

Reflect on your goals and values

Just as we’re not looking for just one “type” of person, there is no “right” answer when we ask you about your career plan. The best answer will be one that comes from the heart and aligns with your values.

Try to ask yourself some serious questions about what’s important to you in your life and work. This is big picture thinking, and don’t be afraid to be ambitious. Ask yourself questions like:

• What are you best at? What skills are you most proud of, and bring you the most satisfaction when you use them?
• What are you passionate about? What change would you like to see in your home country?
• What does career success look like to you? Does it mean running your own company? Working in government? Working for a charity?

At the end of this thought experiment, you should have a good sense of where you would like your career to take you, and how this relates to your individual skills, as well as your broader community.

Create a short-, medium-, and long-term plan

Once you know what your goals are, you can begin building your plan.

Here, we need to come down from the big picture thinking to get a more practical idea of how you would like to achieve these goals. You should be as specific as possible when outlining this plan.

Questions to ask yourself at this point include:

• What qualifications do you need to pursue this career?
• What roles will you be pursuing? Are there any specific companies or organisations that can give you the experience you need?
• How will this career help you to make an impact the areas you’re passionate about?

You should make sure that you have specific plans in mind for the short, medium, and long term.

For example, let’s say you are passionate about fighting climate change.

You are most skilled in the sciences and mathematics, so you decide that in the short term, you will pursue an industrial engineering degree.

In the medium term, when you graduate you will get a training contract at a company that is pushing forward sustainable building practices.

In the long term, you plan to work for the government in your home country, carrying out sustainable urban development projects.

See? Starting with your skills and passions, you can build a practical plan that benefits your community.

Advice from interviewers

Chevening interviewers say that the key to success is being as specific as possible about what your goals are, and how you are going to achieve them.

“Ambitious goals are welcome, but they shouldn’t sound as pie in the sky,” says an interviewer from the British Embassy in Yerevan, Armenia.

It is especially important to show where Chevening fits into your career plan.

“Candidates should demonstrate specifically how studying for a Master’s degree at a UK university and making use of the Chevening activities and network will help them achieve their career goals, and how those goals will benefit the wider development of their community and country.”

An interviewer from the British Embassy in Rabat, Morocco, agrees: “They should be as specific as possible. Simply saying ‘Improving my community’ is not a great response; they need to explain how and be detailed in their response.”

If you follow these guidelines, you should be able to put together a clear, actionable plan that uses your unique skills to create real good in your community. We can’t wait to hear about it in your interview. Good luck!

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Career Goals Essay For Scholarships (With Examples)

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Scholarship programs often want you to write a career goals essay to see that you have a clear plan for how you’ll apply your education to a specific career path. This helps show a scholarship committee why you’re seeking funds for the next step on the path toward your success.

Answering “what are your career goals” effectively can help increase your odds of impressing landing a scholarship opportunity. If you’re a prospective student applying for scholarships, this article will provide tips on how to write a career goals essay, along with essays on career goals examples to help you get an idea of what scholarship committees are looking for.

Key Takeaways:

When you’re writing a career goals essay, make sure to write about the goals that are relevant to the scholarship.

Be honest and use your own voice to stand out in your scholarship essay.

Go into detail about how the scholarship will help you achieve your goals.

What is a career goals essay?

Why scholarship essays ask about career goals, example career goals essay prompts, career goals essay examples, tips for writing a scholarship essay about career goals, what to write in a career goals essay if your goals have changed, career goals essay for a scholarship faq.

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A career goals essay is a personal written explanation that discusses your background, why you’re interested in participating in the program, and what career you’d like this degree to lead into. A scholarship essay functions to explain why you want to achieve your professional goals and how you intend to get there.

In almost every application process, a portion asks the candidate to answer an essay question. When applying to an educational program, like an MBA, the essay prompt usually relates to your career goals .

Scholarship essays ask about career goals to assess your enthusiasm for the program, learn more about how the scholarship will help you, and ensure that you’ve considered how the program will help you achieve your goals for the future:

Assess your enthusiasm. Passion is important for scholarship administrators, and if you’re able to articulate your enthusiasm for a specific career path , it will show that you’re determined to meet the requirements to reach that goal. The most specific and well-thought-out your essay is, the easier it will be for a reader to understand your devotion and commitment to the program and the field it will allow you to enter.

Learn how the scholarship will help you. Having a firm grasp of your career goals is great, but it’s equally important that you express exactly how the specific program relates to those goals. This shows that you’ve researched the merits of the program and understand exactly how it fits into your professional goals.

Show you’ve considered your future. This goes along with the first two points — show that you know how to set goals and consider the path toward achieving those goals, and you’ll have an easier time convincing the reader that you’ll know how to set goals while participating in the program. They’ll see that you know how to prioritize education because you have a clear vision for navigating your career path.

While some scholarships might come right out and simply ask, “What are your career goals?” most will rework the question into something different that still accomplishes the same goal.

Below are some examples of career goals essay prompts that a scholarship program could pose to its applicants:

Discuss your career goals. Many scholarships prefer the most direct approach when giving an essay prompt to their applicants. This type of question gives the candidate a lot of wiggle room to discuss their passions, motivations, and career goals.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years ? This question is often used as a prompt for a career goals essay because it gives the applicant a timeline to describe their aspirations. It forces them to be realistic about where their career will be and how they will accomplish this within the next ten years.

How will this scholarship contribute to your professional success? A scholarship committee wants to be sure that the money they’re giving will contribute to a student’s overall professional success. This question asks about the applicant’s game plan in the long-term and evaluates how this program is going to assist in their future.

What is your dream job ? Since a dream job is often categorized as a person’s career goals, this is a common question phrasing in scholarship essays. Asking about a candidate’s dream job answers whether this program aligns with the student’s long-term career goals.

What matters most to you and why? Sometimes, a scholarship essay prompt won’t ask about your career or future at all. Instead, they’ll ask a question like this that assesses your motivations , values, and character.

Use these examples of career goals essays for scholarships to help write your own. Pay special attention to how they’re organized, rather than the content, to inspire your own career goals essay:

Career goals essay example 1 – Discuss your career goals

When I was six years old, I was riding bikes with my older sister around our neighborhood. She had just taught me how to ride, and I was excited to have to freedom to explore with her. When she was rounding a particularly difficult bend to see around, a car happened to be coming along at the same time. It struck her. That bike ride changed our lives forever. Over the next year, I went with my sister every Tuesday and Thursday to her physical therapist ’s appointments to help her regain walking strength. Watching her physical therapist patiently assist my sister back to becoming herself awoken something in me. A passion for helping others in the same way eventually turned into a career goal of becoming a physical therapist myself. I decided to get my bachelor’s degree in exercise science. After graduating in 2019, I knew that the next step for me was to attend a graduate program in physical therapy. I was accepted to Lassell University Master of Science in Rehabilitation Services. This presented me with my latest goal along my career path, and I’m eagerly waiting to start. This scholarship would help me afford the wonderful opportunity to be a part of the Lassell University class of 2023, allowing me to continue working towards my ultimate career goal of becoming a physical therapist and helping others to become themselves again.

Career goals essay example 2 – Where do you see yourself in ten years?

In ten years, I will have been successfully running my own construction business for about five years. I’m currently a second-year student at the University of Texas, pursuing a master’s degree in business administration. I decided to get my MBA because I knew it would be a positive asset toward my long-term career goal of owning a construction business. In my high school years, I worked as a construction apprentice for a local business. I loved many aspects of the business, such as building something from nothing. I knew that I wanted to incorporate this work into my long-term career, but I didn’t want to work as an apprentice . This led me to pursue business. In ten years and with the help of this scholarship, I will have graduated with my MBA almost a decade prior . After graduation, I plan to take a business administration internship with a carpentry business to help myself get a footing in the field. After about two years of this, I will have started my own construction business.

Career goals essay example 3 – What matters most to you and why?

The people I surround myself with matter most to me. Whether it be my relatives, friends, or professional acquaintances, I always care the most about the happiness of the people around me. Making the people around me happy matters the most to me because I truly because we find our happiness through others. I believe that this drive to make a positive impression on the people around me is what drove me towards a career as a nurse . I always thought of hospitals as places where people need someone to support them and make their day a little happier. I wanted to be one of those who spend their careers positively impacting people in need. This scholarship will enable me to finally afford nursing school and go after my dream job full force.

Career goals essay example 4 – What are your short- and long-term career goals, and how will earning this degree contribute to achieving those goals? Please provide a minimum of 200 words.

My short-term career goals involve working directly with underprivileged young people to increase the literacy rate in my community. As a student of an underfunded and understaffed school, I’ve seen firsthand how much of an impact early literacy education makes on long-term achievement. It broke my heart to see my peers embarrassed at their struggle with reading at an advanced age, and this shame added another dimension to their lack of opportunity. Being a literacy educator for young people would allow me to serve this community directly to show them not only the necessity of strong written communication skills, but the joy of reading for pleasure. This program focuses specifically on early literacy, and would provide me a direct route to a career in serving the community I hope to serve. As for long-term career goals, I hope to one day create a program where socioeconomically parents can bring their children for literacy education, not only to increase their ability to navigate the world of language, but also to instill confidence and joy in the written word. What drew me to this program was that it also has administrative, legal, and business dimensions that would set me on the path toward achieving this goal.

Here are some tips to keep in mind for writing a career goals scholarship essay:

Write about goals relevant to the scholarship. Although you may have many different kinds of goals for your personal and professional future, a scholarship essay only discusses objectives that are relevant to the program you’re applying for.

Be honest. Applying for a scholarship is stressful because the applicant’s education is usually reliant on receiving these funds in one way or another. Even though it’s tempting to exaggerate your skills or pretend you’re more passionate about something than you are to make yourself a more competitive applicant, it’s a bad move.

Use your own, unique voice. The essay portion of a scholarship application is your chance to stand out by using your voice. Nobody else, regardless of their academic or professional achievements, is you. Make this clear in your career goals scholarship essay by keeping your unique written voice engrained in the words you produce.

Be specific. A big reason that scholarship committees ask applicants to write a career goals essay is to determine how prepared they are in planning their long-term professional goals. They aren’t interested in providing a scholarship to students who aren’t going to follow through with their career plans.

Explain long and short-term goals . Even if the essay prompt asks you to describe where you see yourself in ten years, you still need to tell them the steps leading towards this picture of success.

Include the short-term goals that add up to your larger career objectives in your essay response. Explain how accomplishing the smaller goals gives you an advantage when tackling long-term ones.

Explain how the program and scholarship will help you. Before writing your career goals essay, consider how this program and scholarship will help you in your career. The answer to this question is essential.

Follow the essay formatting guidelines. This may sound obvious, but it’s surprisingly easy to forget this step when your essay is finally flowing and when you’re scrambling to get it submitted on time.

Check, double-check , and triple-check the essay guidelines for content, word count, and formatting requirements. If you miss any of these steps, your essay may be immediately disqualified no matter how good it or the rest of your application is.

Many times career goals essays are written by students who have already completed at least some college or are applying to a post-graduate program and need more money to continue.

There’s a good chance that your career goals have changed since you started or graduated college. For example, say you wanted to be an engineer , so you got your undergraduate degree in engineering but realized you didn’t like it after working in the industry for a few years.

You decided that nursing would be more up your alley, and now you’re applying for a scholarship for a nursing program. While this isn’t unusual, it can make it more difficult to write a career goals essay since your past work doesn’t necessarily match your future goals.

In this case, you’ll simply need to explain why you changed your career path and why this next one is the best choice for you. Share your decision-making process to show that you haven’t taken the switch lightly, and talk about what you’ve already done to try to pursue this path.

How do you write a career goal for a scholarship essay?

You write a career goal for a scholarship essay by sharing your passion, explaining both your long- and short-term goals, and relating your goals to the scholarship.

Explain why you want to pursue the career you’re pursuing, where you hope to be in the future and how you plan to get there, and how the scholarship will help you do this.

How do you describe your career goals in an essay?

You describe your career goals in an essay by explaining what you want to do in your career, why you decided on this career path, and what you’ve done so far to make that a reality.

You can usually work these factors into any prompt you receive, so think through them before you start writing so that you can use them as an outline of sorts.

What are career goals examples?

Examples of career goals include:

Working as a grant writer for a nonprofit organization.

Becoming a department manager and eventually an executive in your field.

Owning your own plumbing company.

Caring for underserved communities as a nurse practitioner .

What are some goals for success?

Some goals for success include growing in your role, building your network, and finding joy in the job. Most careers don’t just happen overnight and require you to set the right milestones that work best for you. Not everyone will have the same goals for success.

How do you start a career goals essay for a scholarship?

You can start a career goals essay for a scholarship by directly answering the prompt. Most scholarship prompts include a word count of between 200 and 500 words, so it’s essential that you immediately respond to the prompt. Attention-grabbing sentences and narratives can be helpful for setting the scene, but an efficient and direct answer will show a clarity of mind that helps enhance the quality of your answer.

BLS – Career planning for high schoolers

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Sky Ariella is a professional freelance writer, originally from New York. She has been featured on websites and online magazines covering topics in career, travel, and lifestyle. She received her BA in psychology from Hunter College.

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Make a Career Plan

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A career plan lists short- and long-term career goals and the actions you can take to achieve them. Career plans can help you make decisions about what classes to take, and identify the extracurricular activities, research, and internships that will make you a strong job candidate. Below are some helpful steps to guide you in creating a career plan customized to your interests and ambitions. Still have questions? We are here to help — set up an appointment  with a Career Advisor to get started or review your plan.

8 Steps to an Effective Career Plan

• Identify Your Career Options.  Develop a refined list of career options by examining your interests, skills, and values through self-assessment . Narrow your career options by reviewing career information, researching companies , and talking to professionals in the field . You can further narrow your list when you take part in experiences such as shadowing, volunteering, and internships.
• Prioritize. It’s not enough to list options. You have to prioritize. What are your top skills? What interests you the most? What’s most important to you? Whether it’s intellectually challenging work, family-friendly benefits, the right location or a big paycheck, it helps to know what matters to you — and what’s a deal-breaker. We provide skills and values assessments — set up an appointment with a Career Advisor to take advantage of this service.
• Make Comparisons.  Compare your most promising career options against your list of prioritized skills, interests and values.
• Consider Other Factors.  You should consider factors beyond personal preferences. What is the current demand for this field? If the demand is low or entry is difficult, are you comfortable with risk? What qualifications are required to enter the field? Will it require additional education or training? How will selecting this option affect you and others in your life? Gather advice from friends, colleagues, and family members. Consider potential outcomes and barriers for each of your final options.
• Make a Choice.  Choose the career paths that are best for you. How many paths you choose depends upon your situation and comfort level. If you’re early in your planning, then identifying multiple options may be best. You may want several paths to increase the number of potential opportunities. Conversely, narrowing to one or two options may better focus your job search or graduate school applications.
• S pecific — Identify your goal clearly and specifically.
• M easureable — Include clear criteria to determine progress and accomplishment.
• A ttainable — The goal should have a 50 percent or greater chance of success.
• R elevant — The goal is important and relevant to you.
• T ime bound — Commit to a specific timeframe.
• Create Your Career Action Plan.  It’s important to be realistic about expectations and timelines. Write down specific action steps to take to achieve your goals and help yourself stay organized. Check them off as you complete them, but feel free to amend your career action plan as needed. Your goals and priorities may change, and that’s perfectly okay.
• Meet with a Career Advisor. Our advisors are here to help you make effective career decisions.  Make an appointment on Handshake to talk about your career options and concerns.

The Scholarship Mentor

📚 Step 5: Chevening Scholarship Career Plan Essay

Hi friends,

Welcome to our prestigious Chevening Scholarship journey, we're now on Step 5 of our six-part series in the Chevening Scholarship Essay Writing Guide.

⚗️ Part 1: Crafting an Award-Winning Career Plan Essay for Chevening

The Career Plan essay is your canvas to paint a vivid picture of your career aspirations for your country/community and how the Chevening Scholarship will propel you towards your goals. Here are some tips and an outline to help you craft a compelling Career Plan essay:

Outline Tips for the Career Plan Essay:

Outline: You should follow the standard rule of writing an essay.

INTRODUCTION

Write one paragraph with a clear statement to introduce the problem in your country, your goals to tackle them and your vision/impact once you achieved your goals.

Introduction of the problem

Before you talk what you want to do, it is important to first tell what the problem is. Providing solutions without describing what the problem is, is not logical of course.

What is the problem?

How many people are impacted?

What is your vision?

This means, after you explain your goals, your vision should appear.

Short term Goals

Short term goals are normally for 1-5 years upon your return.

Mid-term Goals

Mid-term goals are between 5-15 (average 10 years) after you return to you home country.

Long term Goals

Long-term goals are typically 15-25 years

Tips for Writing a Career Plan Essay:

Start with Clarity: Begin by clearly articulating your career goals. What impact do you aspire to make in your field and community, and how?

Pathway to Success: Describe the steps you plan to take to achieve your goals. This includes short-term, mid-term, and long-term goals.

Alignment with Course: Explain how your chosen course or program aligns with your career aspirations. How will it provide the necessary skills and knowledge?

Impactful Vision: Showcase your vision for how your career will address a critical issue or problem in your country or field. Highlight the significance of your work.

⚗️ Part 2: Problem, Solution, and Impact

Beyond career aspirations, Chevening Scholars are expected to be Agents of Change, and are expected to think about how they can contribute to solving pressing problems in their countries or fields. Here's a framework to consider:

Problem: Identify a significant issue or challenge in your country or field that you're passionate about addressing.

Solutions: Describe the short-term, mid-term, and long-term solutions you envision to tackle this problem. These become your goals in the course of the next 1-20 years.

Impact: Explain the positive impact your proposed solutions will have. How will they transform your community, country, or field?

Vision: Summarize your overarching vision for your role in creating positive change. What legacy do you aspire to leave behind?

This part of your essay demonstrates your commitment to making a difference and aligns with Chevening's mission to empower future leaders who are dedicated to improving the world.

Do you have problem writing your essays: Here is how I can be helpful.

Learn more: You can enroll in my essay writing course which I brought a huge discount. Check it out here .

🏗️ Example:

In the short term, my focus will be on building a robust foundation for my career as a Women's Rights activist in Iran. Over the next 1-5 years, I aim to achieve the following:

Raise Awareness: Launch targeted awareness campaigns to highlight the pressing issues faced by women in Iran, including discriminatory laws and practices. Utilize social media, workshops, and partnerships with local organizations to amplify the voices of marginalized women.

Legal Advocacy: Collaborate with legal experts and organizations to challenge discriminatory laws and policies through legal means. Work towards the repeal of laws that perpetuate gender inequality and advocate for the enforcement of existing laws protecting women's rights.

Mid-term Goals (5-15 Years): In the mid-term, spanning 5-15 years, I envision building on the foundation laid in the short term and expanding my impact:

Policy Reform: Engage in sustained advocacy efforts to influence policy changes at the national level. Collaborate with like-minded organizations and activists to draft and promote legislation aimed at gender equality and the protection of women's rights.

Crisis Intervention: Develop a comprehensive crisis intervention system to provide immediate assistance to women facing domestic violence, discrimination, or other forms of abuse. Establish safe shelters and helplines for those in need.

Long-term Goals (15-25 Years): Looking 15-25 years into the future, my long-term goals are aimed at creating a lasting legacy for gender equality in Iran:

Cultural Transformation: Work towards a cultural shift that recognizes and celebrates the contributions of women in all aspects of society. Promote gender-sensitive education and media representation to challenge stereotypes and biases.

Political Participation: Encourage women's active participation in politics and decision-making processes. Support women to run for political office and ensure their voices are heard at all levels of government.

International Collaboration: Foster international collaboration with women's rights organizations and activists to apply global pressure on Iran to uphold human rights and gender equality standards. Engage with international bodies to monitor and report on the state of women's rights in Iran.

Vision: My overarching vision is to see Iran as a nation where women enjoy full and equal rights in all spheres of life, where gender-based discrimination is eradicated, and where every woman has the opportunity to reach her full potential. I envision a society that embraces diversity and empowers women to be leaders, decision-makers, and agents of positive change.

🚀 Essay Writing Support

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💁🏾 Part 3: Receive Essay Writing Support and Empower Girls’ Education

I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for your support, as the funds generated through my Courses , Mentorship , Consultations, and Essay Support go directly to the Roshna Social Organization (roshna.org) . This organization is dedicated to providing educational opportunities for underprivileged girls and children who are banned from going to school in Afghanistan . Your contributions are making a significant difference in the lives of these young girls, helping to break the cycle of gender apartheid and poverty through education.

By investing in your Chevening Scholarship journey, you're also investing in a brighter future for those who need it most. Thank you for your commitment to both personal growth and community empowerment.

🤑 Part 4: Special Discount for Essay Writing Courses

Great news! I've listened to your feedback, and in an effort to make my Essay Writing courses more accessible and affordable, I've reduced the price exclusively for my newsletter subscribers. Check the link above…

🆘Important Updates on Essay Writing Support

Starting from October 1, there will be a price adjustment for my essay writing support program.

Standard Support Price Change

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55$ → 65$ > 16 October to 31 October

65$ → 75$ > 1 November to 7 November

Premium Plan Support Price Change

95$ → 105$ > 1 October to 15 October

105$ → 110$ > 16 October to 31 October

110$ → 120$ > 1 November to 7 November

NEED Help : Don't hesitate to find mentors or friends to help you with the writing process. You can book consultation sessions with me at www.sirathaidary.com or you can enroll in my essay writing course to learn tips and tricks to prepare yourself and win the award.

Stay tuned for our next issue, where we'll delve into the Career Plan essay. Crafting a compelling career plan is essential for your Chevening Scholarship application, and we'll provide you with expert guidance to make it stand out.

If you are interested to book 1 on 1 consultation with me, Click here

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'Dermatology career' - Post study career plan. Chevening scholarship essay

Aysha13 4 / 6   Sep 20, 2016   #1 Finished writing my post study career plan essay for Chevening, looking for corrections and suggestions. Chevening is looking for individual who have a clear post-study career plan. Please outline your immediate plans upon returning home and your long term career goals. You may wish to consider how these relate to what the uk government is doing in your country. Upon completing my Master's degree in dermatology, my first option would be to work as a dermatologist in a well reputed hospital back home and use my new abilities to good practice.Treating a variety of skin diseases on a daily basis is sure to boost my confidence and gain me the work experience to pursue my long term goal of establishing an exceptional international standard dermatology centre in India. As we know universally recognised credentials are more important than ever in today's global healthcare market. Hence, after working for few years I would like to apply for the MRCP UK examination in dermatology as this will give me the international recognition needed to be a consultant dermatologist. My second option upon returning home would be to apply for a PhD degree in dermatology most favourably from the UK (if I would be able to support it financially), and upon completion would like to work as a dermatology professor in India and teach medical students. Teaching my desired field for several years would help to broaden my knowledge and use my passion and interest to aspire and mentor medical graduates to become future dermatologist. Teaching would also give me the opportunity to implement broad based awareness campaigns, seminars and lectures about the impact of skin diseases and there available treatment's specifically in the rural and peri-urban population in India. Apart from that it will help me interact with doctors, professors and students of similar interest, which would be very beneficial for my long term goal. Weather I choose option one or two my ultimate goal (10 years from now) would remain to establish a Skin Care Centre in India. One that caters all skin care facilities under one roof, which uses all the updated technologies and affordable treatments needed for patient care and provides them with a clean hygienic environment. A centre that has all - medical as well as cosmetic and surgical dermatology procedures available to the diverse population of my country. Apart from that I would like to start a training fellowship program sponsored by my organisation for medical graduates interested in this field, to be able to impart my knowledge and skills which I would have gained from my work experiences and my renowned education from the UK. As our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said 'India and the UK make an unbeatable combination'. This hold true specially in the healthcare department where the UK have been a major partner in helping India develop in four specific areas - the improvement of healthcare services, education and training, digital health, and hospital infrastructure. Several healthcare events have taken place in India recently under the auspices of the Indo - British Health Initiative. The most recent one was held in June 2016, where the Chairman of NHS England, its Managing Director and 23 British organisations were on a visit to India under the theme of 'smart healthcare'. As India's plan for 100 smart cities has a goal to provide accessible, affordable, and effective healthcare system for more than 1.2 billion citizens. Many such missions and projects will take place in the near future between the two countries for mutual benefits.The UK with its experience of universal healthcare provided by the NHS has a lot to offer to India in this endeavour. Similarly as India is one of the fastest growing economics in the world, with over one billion people, and since its investment in its healthcare system is increasing it's becoming a vast market for UK healthcare services and technologies. Chevening scholarship will be the brilliant launch pad for my dermatology career; I would be honoured to be part of a scholarship that will strengthen the ties between the two countries. To take the world class education, skills and wonderful experiences of a multi-cultural community back home and use it to benefit and serve my country.

Ontario colleges to face biggest hit from foreign student cap

Doug ford government announces plan to divvy up shrinking international student permit numbers.

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Only one Ontario university will see its international student intake shrink this year while more than half of the province's public colleges face a drop, under a plan announced Wednesday by Premier Doug Ford's government. 

Ontario's plan comes two months after the federal immigration minister announced a national cap on study permits for international post-secondary students, amid complaints that an explosion in their numbers was driving up housing costs in cities across Canada. 

Some 240,000 international students were issued permits to attend post-secondary programs in Ontario last year, and the federal cap will see that number drop by roughly half this year. 

Ontario's priorities for its smaller allotment will be programs that train students for "in-demand jobs" in such fields as skilled trades, health, human resources, hospitality, child care and STEM (science, technology, engineering and math), the Ford government said in a news release.   

Colleges rather than universities will face the biggest drop in their international student numbers. 

• Thirteen of Ontario's 24 colleges will see their allocation of study permits decline from 2023 numbers, according to the news release.  
• Only one of Ontario's 23 universities will see a decline: Algoma University in Sault Ste. Marie. 

"This approach recognizes that Ontario's universities have been responsible in their recruitment and management of international recruitment," said Steve Orsini, president and CEO of the Council of Ontario Universities, in a statement posted on the organization's website.

The announcement comes one day after the Ford government's 2024 budget revealed that Ontario's colleges will lose out on $3.1 billion in revenue over the next two years from the expected drop in international student enrolment.

Marketa Evans, president of Colleges Ontario, the organization representing the 24 public colleges, said the revenue losses will have a severe impact on the fall academic term. 

College funding model 'broken'

"No organization can absorb such losses without significant cuts to operations," Evans said in a statement posted to the Colleges Ontario website on Wednesday. 

"The business model for funding public college programs is severely broken," she said. "While recent stabilization measures from the province are welcome, the majority of the financial support continues to go to Ontario's universities."

• CBC Investigates Canada's international student spike was blamed on private colleges. Here's what really happened

In 2019, the Ford government froze direct provincial funding to the post-secondary sector, cut tuition by 10 per cent, and explicitly encouraged colleges to recruit international students. Foreign students pay significantly higher tuition fees than Canadians. 

Last month the government  announced  a $1.3 billion boost to post-secondary funding, spread over the next three years. It falls well short of the $2.5 billion increase  recommended  for the same timeframe by the government's own panel of experts in November, before the cap on international study permits was imposed.

The government said the biggest declines in study permits this year will be seen at Conestoga College in Kitchener and at public colleges that contract private colleges to deliver programs tailored to international students, known as public college-private partnerships .

More than 30,000 international students were granted study permits in 2023 to attend Conestoga, more than any other post-secondary institution in Canada. Conestoga led the country in study permits for foreign students in four of the past five years, according to federal data. 

• Ontario deficit will triple as economy weakens, 2024 budget shows

"We have been working with post-secondary institutions to ensure international students are enrolled in the programs to support a pipeline of graduates for in-demand jobs," said Minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop in the government's news release.  

Dunlop said 96 per cent of Ontario's foreign student allocation this year will go to publicly funded colleges and universities, with the remainder to language schools, private universities and other institutions. Private career colleges will not get an allotment.

Private colleges were not the key drivers of Canada's explosion in international students, according to federal immigration data obtained and analyzed by CBC News in February. 

Data reveals Ontario public colleges account for biggest share of international study permits

Just 10 Ontario public colleges accounted for nearly 30 per cent of all study permits issued across Canada since 2021, the data revealed .

In 2023, permits were issued to 175,000 international students to study at Ontario's public colleges, more than four times the number issued for the province's universities, according to the data. 

• Analysis What the cap on international students means for Doug Ford's government 

The government said no school will be permitted to receive more student permits in 2024 than in 2023, and its permit numbers must not exceed 55 per cent of its first-year domestic enrolment.

Federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller has said the cap is in response to a recent surge in international students and is meant to curb bad actors from taking advantage of high tuition fees while providing a poor education.

"Eager to review the details of this announcement in more depth, but this appears to be a very reasonable response by the Government of Ontario," Miller said on social media Wednesday.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Senior reporter

Mike Crawley covers provincial affairs in Ontario for CBC News. He began his career as a newspaper reporter in B.C., filed stories from 19 countries in Africa as a freelance journalist, then joined the CBC in 2005. Mike was born and raised in Saint John, N.B.

• Follow Mike Crawley on Twitter

With files from The Canadian Press