In Form 4 Ijoined a volunteer trip to a mountainous county in Hubei, China, in which mytask was to teach students English at a primary school. It was an opportunityfor me to witness the economic development in China's interior. The county townwas rebuilt, with modern residential blocks and elaborate lampposts which arelit thrice a year. Commercial products like strawberries are now grownalongside rice. But, the income gap was also widened by progress. There arestudents in my group who wear the same well-worn suit every day, and farmersare still living in old, small cottages outside the town. It was after thistrip I decided to study economics, as I wish to understand the economic forcesthat shaped societies, and to learn how we can help in building a better world.
Since then I dofrequent reading into the subject. I was intrigued by the inner workings ofmoney after I read Milton Friedman's 'Money Mischief' and Joseph Stiglitz's'Globalization and its Discontents'. Though they disagree with each other onparticular issues, it is their common concern to bad monetary policies thatinspired me most. Friedman analyzed how Roosevelt's silver purchases in the USignited hyperinflation, civil war and communist takeover in China by drainingits monetary reserves, while Stiglitz resented how contractionary policiessuggested by the IMF, such as rising the interest rate, induced recessions inmany countries. Encouraged by their writings, I wish to help evaluate monetarypolicies, and prevent damaging ones from being made and enforced in the future.
Economics is asocial science. It builds models to explain phenomena in the real world, andmany of them are expressed in mathematical form. Since primary school, I haverepresented my schools in various competitions. I self-studied AdditionalMathematics for my HKCEE, and took my A-level Mathematics a year early. Ibelieve my passion in mathematics will help me to study economic models. Beforetheories are applied to the real world, they have to be tested by observations.In A-level Physics, I had to conduct experiments to verify some unrealistic,purely mathematical models such as 'simple harmonic motion', and learnt howthey could be useful in explaining phenomena around us. This helps me tounderstand the underlying scientific method, which is also central to theeconomic science.
I enjoy manyactivities. As a member of the Chinese Debate Team, I had prepared debates onvarious economic issues, such as minimum wage and privatization projects, andgave speeches on them from different perspectives. This experience allows me toexplore the actual effects of economic policies on our society, and is indeedrelated to my plan to work in making economic policies and developmentstrategies. In Form 6, I was elected as the Students' Association's President,and once I was in charge of a Singing Contest. In the first few weeks, ticketsale was disappointing. But I thought students were expecting us to shift tofree admission, as we did two years before in face of unsatisfactory sales. Iremained confident of coming sales, as I predicted the expectation would fadeaway, and thus demand would rise as the event approached. I was right - 57% ofall tickets were sold out in the last week. This is a vivid lesson on howmarket forces act in daily life. This event, along with my whole experience asPresident, has also improved my leadership and made me more persevering, whichI found particularly useful in my other responsibilities. I am aware of thatstudy in university will be challenging, and the perseverance I gained willhelp me through.
I now yearn tostudy the world in more depth. I believe my passion for economics will bring methrough the course successfully, and equip me to help building a better world.
Since then I dofrequent reading into the subject. I was intrigued by the inner workings ofmoney after I read Milton Friedman's 'Money Mischief' and Joseph Stiglitz's'Globalization and its Discontents'. Though they disagree with each other onparticular issues, it is their common concern to bad monetary policies thatinspired me most. Friedman analyzed how Roosevelt's silver purchases in the USignited hyperinflation, civil war and communist takeover in China by drainingits monetary reserves, while Stiglitz resented how contractionary policiessuggested by the IMF, such as rising the interest rate, induced recessions inmany countries. Encouraged by their writings, I wish to help evaluate monetarypolicies, and prevent damaging ones from being made and enforced in the future.
Economics is asocial science. It builds models to explain phenomena in the real world, andmany of them are expressed in mathematical form. Since primary school, I haverepresented my schools in various competitions. I self-studied AdditionalMathematics for my HKCEE, and took my A-level Mathematics a year early. Ibelieve my passion in mathematics will help me to study economic models. Beforetheories are applied to the real world, they have to be tested by observations.In A-level Physics, I had to conduct experiments to verify some unrealistic,purely mathematical models such as 'simple harmonic motion', and learnt howthey could be useful in explaining phenomena around us. This helps me tounderstand the underlying scientific method, which is also central to theeconomic science.
I enjoy manyactivities. As a member of the Chinese Debate Team, I had prepared debates onvarious economic issues, such as minimum wage and privatization projects, andgave speeches on them from different perspectives. This experience allows me toexplore the actual effects of economic policies on our society, and is indeedrelated to my plan to work in making economic policies and developmentstrategies. In Form 6, I was elected as the Students' Association's President,and once I was in charge of a Singing Contest. In the first few weeks, ticketsale was disappointing. But I thought students were expecting us to shift tofree admission, as we did two years before in face of unsatisfactory sales. Iremained confident of coming sales, as I predicted the expectation would fadeaway, and thus demand would rise as the event approached. I was right - 57% ofall tickets were sold out in the last week. This is a vivid lesson on howmarket forces act in daily life. This event, along with my whole experience asPresident, has also improved my leadership and made me more persevering, whichI found particularly useful in my other responsibilities. I am aware of thatstudy in university will be challenging, and the perseverance I gained willhelp me through.
I now yearn tostudy the world in more depth. I believe my passion for economics will bring methrough the course successfully, and equip me to help building a better world.
