Major: Accounting   Applying for: Economics

Personal Statement
                       
By Shuo Chen

My name is Shuo Chen. I am 23 years old. I graduated in 2002 from the Department of Accounting at Shandong University, Shandong Province, P .R. China with the Bachelor Degree of Management.

I would like to pursue an Economics (MSc) at University of Oxford. Based on my previous education and my learning interest, I feel that I am an ideal candidate to join the program. I am particularly interested in MSc in Economics.

To be an economist, my career goal

My learning interest in economics was ignited by my studying in university, Chinese economic environment and my family background, which were not accidental incidents but a gradual course of events.

During my training, my main energy and time were devoted to the study of enterprise management and corresponding macroscopical background such as theory of finance, international trade and economics law. Case teaching method in it plays an extreme important part, through which I touched a lot of colorful economic phenomena. Just like an old Chinese saying,” To know what it is and then to know why it is”, pursuing the rules behind these phenomena sparked my interest in economics. In addition, it is extremely amazing to me that the society that is made up of widely diverse subjective individuals who pursue their self-interest has objective economic rules. That whole concept also attracted me to go much further into this field of study.

My country China has been undergoing great changes, with vigorous economic reform, for nearly 20 years, China seems to have struck the right balance between answering the call of accelerating globalization and defending its negative side. The country’s average economic growth rate of nearly 10 per cent for almost 20 year makes its economy the fastest growing among all major economies. Confronting these, I want to know how China can build upon its impressive sustained growth record. On the other hand, China, just like other developing countries, is suffering the throes of transformation in economic fields, with many complex problems waiting to be solved. As the country tries to restructure and rejuvenate its large, state-owned enterprises, a host of challenges, not the least of which are financial crisis, unemployment, inflation and so on, are rattling her. Sophisticated settlement to these questions requires the support from basic economic theories. For this reason, I want to place myself on the cutting-edge of studies in economics and acquire broader perspectives and more profound insights.

In many ways, it is also thanks to my family background that I am in possession of my personality, talents and values. My father is an entrepreneur and runs his own business. Usually I help my father deal with all kinds of financial affairs and some daily problems, such as how to decide the level of salary, the number of workers, as well as the scale of raw and processed materials. All these processes contributed to the development of abilities that enhance the intellect of economic theories from practice, especially in the aspect of microeconomics. In my opinion, microeconomics is an analytical tool of the economic behavior concerning individual consumers, firms, and workers (for example, consumers decide how much of various goods to purchase, workers decide what jobs to take, and business people decide how many workers to hire and how much output to produce). From these processes, I especially know extremely well the key role markets play in the process of making economic decisions, which ultimately determines the price.
Because of the three factors mentioned above, I gradually stepped into the field of economics.

My study and research at university

During my university study, dedication to my hard work has helped me achieve excellent academic success. I was 7th in my department among 72 students in four successive years and I got five scholarships. Through my major curricula, I acquired a solid academic foundation of accounting science. Besides, I devoted nearly all of my spare time to the study of mathematics and economics. The first book on economics I contacted was 《The Economics, 6th edition》written by Paul A Samuelson. It showed me the charm of economics, gave me a whole structure about economics, and has continually influenced me though it is an abecedarium. Subsequently, I have read other economists’ works, such as Robert Solow, Ronald Course and Joseph-E Stiglitz and have systematically gained understanding and excellent insight. In addition, by self-studying and auditing a variety of classes, I have studied virtually all the important courses offered through our Economics Department, including International Economics, Econometrics, Financial Investment, Industrial Economics, History of Economic Theory and so on. Through those subjects related to Economics, which were offered by my department, I all got good achievement (refer to my transcripts with the mark “*”).

Just like a climber, during this process, I have worked hard and gained greater and greater heights of understanding through self-study in my spare time, so I know I can do well in my study of Economics. Because of my persistent endeavors, I feel that I will have no difficulty changing my major to Economics.

To illustrate, in the process of preparing myself for advanced research, I obtained a solid academic foundation in mathematics. Beside getting high scores in mathematics (83 in Advanced Mathematics, 90 in Probability and Mathematics Statistics, 95 in Mathematics for Economics and Calculus 86), I also attended the China undergraduate Mathematical Contest in Modeling on behalf of my university In September, 2001. Then I was selected to attend the Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) and was awarded honorable mention. During these contests, I cooperated very well with my team members (Zoujing email: snowinwinter@eyou.com and Yugang Wang email: mscenterboom@163.com). Furthermore, I learned how to solve the practical problems in mathematical ways and use MATLAB (Matrix Laboratory) to analyze the original date. In March, 2002, I honorably joined a research group (the name of my partner was Wenlong Zhang email: apaul119@sohu.com)sponsored by State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Bureau of Shandong Province, focusing on how to reduce the percentage of State shares in public firms of Shandong Province. With the cooperation of my partner, I applied the knowledge from Economics of Property Right and New Institutional Economics, and some other statistical tools into the practical economic problems, it not only made me understand how to do a research with the help of my economic knowledge, but also adds to my confidence in realizing my goal.

Liberalism has always been my primary hobby. Now I am still serving as the webmaster of the liberalism board of my school’s BBS, where I exchange my ideas with many students and scholars, from F A von Hayek to Milton Friedman, from Austrian School to Chicago School, which widens my horizon, broadens my vision, and complements my subject.

By the way, after graduation from my university, I spent several months in preparing my application, but I still did not give up my economics study. At present, I am serving in Microsoft Research Asia as an English editor, which is my part-time job. The main work I do is translating news-related Microsoft.

Insight I have gained on Economics

Through my study, I have come to realize that mathematics is an indispensable tool to economics; especially the fact that it can make economics more accurate and more precise, so I often train my mind to be analytic and systematic consciously. When I come up with an economics problem described in the textbook, I prefer to resort to mathematics ways such as formula deduction and graphs. If it is a problem combined with relative parts such as the relation between risk and return, I often try to use algorithm to solve it. At the same time, however, I also think that economics has its limitation in explaining some social problems and it also not good at considering the restraint condition (considering my learning background, management that is full of phenomena as a subject of science, I don’t expect that economics is an air castle), which reduces the scientific aspect of economics. To me, economics, as a subject of sciences, should have a strong connection with the real world.

After that, I intend to pursue additional literatures on economics to enhance such ability in the field, I began to read some of works from the Chicago School’s economists such as: Milton Friedman, Ronald H. Coase, Gary Becker and Henry Schultz and so on, who revived the Marshall’s Price Theory and put them into money field for ulterior reason. They introduced some restraint conditions such as institution, deal cost etc into economics and opened some new fields such as Institutional Economics and Law Economics. With these new tools, some social phenomena such as crime and marriage, which used to belong to society field, could be explained better. Such innovation was not an obviation but an answer to the real world.

My plans for postgraduate study and research at Oxford

In addition to further study in the fields and subjects mentioned above, I especially hope to become engaged in the following problems: what is the property of labor’s property right? The microcosmic basic of macroeconomics, the reform of land institution in China rural areas, the cultivation and development of primary products, and so on, I have paid attention to the economics curriculums provided MSc in Economics at Oxford such as: Econometric Methods and Applications, Economic Development Theory and labor Economics, etc. They are all my most desirable research areas, and I hope to acquire graduate-level skills in economic analysis and relevant quantitative techniques, I also realize that what I have learned in domestics is still far from enough to research in depth on these topics. I am compelled to gain greater access to advanced scholars in your esteemed university, whose work can serve as a model for me (clearly, from the Prospectus given by Oxford, the number of professors of Economics is far more than other universities have available in their graduate programs).

University of Oxford, Could you accept a willing heart?

Consequently, your MSc in Economics division will give me a closer access to various economics studies and will help me develop and put my academic potential into practice. With my solid foundation of mathematics and earning ability, I hope to join your department and develop more creative ideas with your distinguished faculties. After completing my MSc program, I will return to dedicate myself to teaching economics at a university in China
I am eager to get your information soon.
Yours sincerely

Shuo Chen

PS: The textbook of Microeconomics and Macroeconomics: <Economics> written by Bonghui Zhang, issued by Shandong University Press.
    
     The textbook of Calculus: <Calculus>  Higher Education Press

     The textbook of linear Algebra: <Advanced Mathematics: Linear Algebra >  Higher Education Press
  
     The textbook of Statistics: <Probability and Mathematical Statistics>  Higher Education Press