Danone in India free essay sample

India is today a gigantic part in crafted by internationalization of the French gathering Danone. This auxiliary was set up in two stages. Danone first settled in 1989 a merger with an Indian gathering called Britannia, they were simply participative. At that point in 1993, they assumed the responsibility for Britannia so it turned into a Danone auxiliary. As of now, it was said that this purchasing had required a speculation of RS 150 centers. Danone becomes after this merger the main in scone and water on the Indian market on account of three chief brands: Aqua, Britannia and Tiger. The way that these three brands were at that point notable and increase in value by the Indian buyers license to Danone to win advertise parts rapidly. The full scale natural condition The Republic of India is a nation that involves most of the Indian subcontinent. It has a coastline of more than 7,000 kilometers (4349 miles). India is the seventh-biggest nation by topographical territory and has one of the most assorted populaces of natural life, geological landscape and atmosphere frameworks. In reality it is the second most crowded nation on the planet with almost 1. 1 billion individuals in 2005. It additionally is the universes biggest liberal vote based system. India has 28 states and 7 domains, and perceives 22 authority dialects spoken over its various districts. Following quite a while of concentrated endeavors to battle the broad neediness, lack of education and helpless everyday environments the nation over, Indias economy is today the fourth-biggest on the planet regarding buying power equality (PPP) and the tenth-biggest in ostensible terms. When dependent vigorously on agribusiness, Indias economy is one of the quickest developing on the planet, and the country knows about present day organizations and high-innovation enterprises. Outer examination: PEST investigation Indian market is today still extremely hard to infiltrate and especially for western firms. In any case, the methodology of Danone which comprises to enter the market on account of mergers or purchase out permitted a progressively secure and productive entrance. Danone is today the pioneer in bread and water on account of the name of its three brands which were at that point set up in India. So today the outcomes in India are excellent: India speaks to 20 % of the income of the Asian pacific territory. Political investigation (see map p. 7) Population: 1. 1 billion Capital: New Delhi GNP: 620 $ per capita India has been a vote based system since freedom. The leader is the top of the administration. The president is the top of the state. India hosts to major political gatherings which are the Bharatiya Janat Party and the Congress. It is today the National Congress party which is on the top of the express, the BJP lost force in 1999. Since autonomy, India has kept up agreeable associations with most countries. During the Cold War , India attempted to keep up its nonpartisanship and was one of the establishing individuals from the Non-Aligned Movement Recent suggestions by the Indian government have fortified relations with United States, China and Pakistan. In the monetary circle, India has cozy associations with other creating countries of South America, Asia and Africa, particularly Brazil and Mexico. As of late, India has assumed a compelling job in the ASEAN, SAARC and the WTO, and it is a signatory to the milestone South Asia Free Trade Agreement. India has been quite a while supporter of the United Nations, with more than 55,000 Indian military and police staff. Efficient investigation The economy of India is the fourth biggest on the planet as estimated by buying power equality (PPP), with a GDP of US $3. 63 trillion. India was he second quickest developing significant economy on the planet, with a GDP development pace of 8. 1% toward the finish of the principal quarter of 2005â€2006. The countrys economy is various and contains farming, painstaking work, enterprises and a great deal of administrations. Administrations are the significant wellspring of monetary development in India today, however 66% of the Indian specialists work straightforwardly or by implication through farming. As of late, India has taught individuals who are conversant in English to turn into a significant area for worldwide organizations redistributing client care and specialized help call focuses. It is likewise a significant exporter of talented specialists in programming administrations, money related administrations, and programming designing. India has clung to a communist motivated methodology for the vast majority of its free history, with severe government command over private division cooperation, remote exchange, and outside direct speculation. Since the mid 1990s, India has bit by bit opened up its business sectors through monetary changes by lessening government controls on remote exchange and speculation. Privatization of open possessed enterprises and opening up of specific parts to private and remote players has continued gradually in the midst of political discussion. The financial issues India faces are a thriving populace and absence of foundation, just as developing disparity and joblessness. Neediness additionally stays an issue despite the fact that it has seen a reduction of 10% since the 1980s. Economy of India Currency 1 Indian Rupee = 0. 02283 US dollar = 0. 01897 Euro Central bank Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Trade associations and settlements SAFTA, ASEAN, WIPO and WTO Union financial plan $67. 3 billion (income) $104 billion (use) Inflation rate (monthly)3. 53% (September Social examination Geography India is the seventh greatest nation on the planet with a sum of 3,287,590 km. Indias geology ranges from mountain extents to deserts, fields, slopes and levels, while its atmosphere differs from tropical in the south to an increasingly calm atmosphere in the north. Greatest urban areas are Bombay Calcutta, New Dehli, Madras, and Bangalore. Just 29% of the populace lives in urban communities. Individuals are packed all in the North and the South of the nation. Indias all out cultivable territory is 1,269,219 km? (56. 78% of all out land region), which is diminishing because of consistent weight from a regularly developing populace and expanded urbanization. Indias inland water assets involving streams, waterways, lakes and lakes and marine assets containing the east and west banks of the Indian sea and different inlets and coves give work to about 6 million individuals in the fisheries part. India is the 6th biggest maker of fish on the planet and second biggest in inland fish creation. Indias oil holds, found in Bombay High off the shoreline of Maharashtra, Gujarat, and in eastern Assam meet 25% of the countrys request. Populace ( see map p. 7) India is the second-most crowded nation on the planet with an expected 1. 9 billion individuals in 2006. Practically 70% of its populace dwells in provincial zones. Indias biggest urban agglomerations are Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore. Endeavors to destroy lack of education have little accomplishment since Indias freedom with just 65. 1% of its populace ready to peruse or compose. Albeit 80. 5% of the individuals are Hindus, India is likewise home to the third-biggest Muslim popu lace on the planet (13. 4%). Different strict gatherings incorporate Christians (2. 3%), Sikhs (1. 84%), Buddhists (0. 76%), Jains (0. 40%), Jews, Zoroastrians and Bahais. 5] The quantity of primary languages in India is evaluated to be as high as 1,652. [6] Most of these dialects are gotten from two significant semantic families: Indo-Aryan (spoken by about 74% of the populace) and Dravidian (spoken by about 24%). Hindi is Indias national language however English is utilized by the administration for authentic purposes, and in advanced education. An extra 21 dialects are likewise given authority status. 29% of the populace lives underneath the destitution line. 86% of the populace lives under $2 every day, 44% under $1 and 25% needs more cash to eat ordinarily. These conditions include the float away from the land. Religion Religious acts of different beliefs are a necessary piece of regular day to day existence in the public arena. Instruction is exceptionally respected by individuals from each financial layer. Customary Indian family esteems are profoundly regarded, and thought about consecrated. Religion in India is an open undertaking, with numerous practices saturated with ceremony and essentialness going with their hidden profound characteristics. Mechanical examination Transportation (see map p. 8) Transportation in India is a huge and changed area of the economy. Both rail and street transports stay significant. Railroads are the central method of transportation for both cargo and travelers. The legislature is taking a shot at improving the transportation framework in light of the fact that the interest is today significant. Just 63% of street are cleared which hinder the correspondence between the various regions. There are 400 air terminals in India and worldwide ports, for example, Chennai, Haildia, Calcutta†¦ Although there is a huge private-division inclusion in transportation in India, the administration plays a huge administrative and formative job. The focal government has services to deal with common aeronautics, railways, and surface transportation. The area should likewise acclimate to outside exchange development, segment pressures and expanding urbanization, innovative change and out of date quality, vitality accessibility, and ecological and open security concerns. Vitality India being one of the quickest developing economies on the planet has a quickly developing vitality request powered by a regularly expanding pace of industrialisation and urbanization. Indias colossal potential for vitality creation and utilization has improved venture prospects in this field. Openings have augmented quickly with the opening up of this territory to control designers internationally. Then again there are connected fears being voiced by a few NGOs identifying with the inescapable increment of natural issues including populace relocations. Future development in vitality segment would rely upon the rise of fitting capital markets. This is valid for new creation limit, both customary and inexhaustible, just as measures coordinated at improving vitality effectiveness in

Humanitarian Reason by Didier Fassin essays

The Jack Roller

Diminish Wilke Professor Callais Analysis Paper February 11, 2013 The Jack Roller In the book The Jack Roller writer Clifford Shaw is a criminologist who has explored various energetic degenerates to see precisely when the abnormality starts and how it develops. The book plunges profound into the psyche of a specific instance of a kid named Stanley in Chicago during the 1920’s. From the earliest starting point of the book Stanley is mishandled by his stepmother regularly being saved so she could tend to here genuine youngsters. I accept this book is most precisely delineates the social learning theory.Stanley has been presented to a large number of uplifting viewpoints of wrongdoing from his loved ones at a very youthful age. I bolster the clear record hypothesis in light of the fact that in the absolute starting point of the book Stanley’s stepmother urges him to act in freak conduct. â€Å"One day my stepmother advised William to take me to the railroad yard to break into train units. † (52-53). So Stanley has been taken under the wing of his progression sibling who is taking stuff for there stepmother, consequently they are remunerated for taking. This is an ideal case of a presenting Stanley to an uplifting point of view toward crime.With this incident it launched Stanley’s degenerate conduct he started taking for the sake of entertainment for a long time, continually being gotten by the police and taken to detainments homes which were a sorry discipline for him. Stanley delighted in being in the confinement home more than his genuine home so the ramification for his criminal conduct nearly was an award for him. In the confinement home, Stanley had the option to meet other criminal that besides gave him encouraging feedback of wrongdoing, â€Å"I was truly awed by the courage and intelligence of the more established evildoers. Their accounts of experience entranced my puerile creative mind, and I felt attracted to them. (57). Th ese criminal that Stanley met roused him; they gave him somebody to admire, somebody that he could try to be through wrongdoing. Subsequent to being discharged Stanley was gotten by his progression mother just to flee once more to endure several days at that point be gotten by the police in the city. This procedure happened a huge number of times until in the long run he was sent to the St. Charles School for Boys. â€Å"The exacting control, hard discipline, no diversion, dread, and out of line breaks made life hopeless. † (68). St. Charles was the principal negative ramification for his crimes.Stanley was totally hopeless there and longed to get out just to return to taking. In watching this book you understand that all Stanley knows is wrongdoing, he much of the time is in and out of a vocation, and saves one for seldom longer than a month. Stanley knows only wrongdoing it has been engraved into his â€Å"clean slate†, and he has figured out how to get by off of it. In the wake of serving 16 months Stanley was discharged for St. Charles just to be captured not before long and return back to St. Charles for one more month. In the wake of being discharged Stanley tries to win his cash genuinely and goes however a large number of jobs.He begins living with this stepsister, just to be kicked out in view of missing rent. He at that point meets a cordial lady who brings him into her homes and allows him to live. Stanley appreciates the organization of this lady and utilizations her as fairly a passionate discharge, â€Å"This time I was not apprehensive, yet felt an influx of sorrow and pity come over me, on the grounds that a lady was offering me compassion; something I had never gotten. † (76). Stanley lived with this lady for about a month soon to discover she was a whore, in spite of the fact that he was stunned he didn't censure her for it and Stanley understood.He still left her to go to the YMCA just to come back to the detainment home . The collaboration with Stanley and the whore implements the social learning hypothesis since it is presenting Stanley to his first mother figure that is a crook. The main positive female impact in all his years makes her living dependent on wrongdoing; one could perceive how this could effect such a susceptible energetic brain. In the end the VP of an organization he worked for took in Stanley, the man had no youngsters and was very wealthy.Stanley appreciated living with him and his better half yet longed for the opportunity of his city, and at the principal opportunity get together his cash and fled. After this Stanley started to get engaged with significantly more intricate robberies and â€Å" Jack Rolling†, he became with a â€Å"gang† of different young men and was making a lot of cash ransacking and taking. â€Å"So we carried out our specialty with a yelling accomplishment for two months. At times we made as much as 200 dollars in a solitary day. † (97 ), this communicated a huge uplifting feedback of wrongdoing to Stanley.Stanley has never made this kind of cash in his life previously, it is substantially more fun and simpler as he would like to think than working a vocation and you can make significantly more than a vocation. In this book I trust Stanley was raised on an existence of wrongdoing, almost all that he was presented to gave an inspirational point of view toward this wrongdoing. He essentially never was presented to any genuine discipline before it was to late. The entirety of the well disposed individuals he met were lawbreakers, for example, the whore and his group, he made a lot of cash â€Å"jack rolling†, and he delighted in the sense of self from his criminal record with all the regard it earned him from the youth.The social learning hypothesis bolsters Stanley’s case since his family, companions, school, and his condition all guided him into an existence of wrongdoing. The other conceivable hypoth esis I could see one picking would be the control hypothesis, accepting that individuals are normally disposed to carry out wrongdoing could appear as though it could fit Stanley’s case. The explanation I didn't pick it is on the grounds that the condition that Stanley was in I feel made him. His stepmother, his kin and stepsiblings, the detainment home, his posse, and individuals, for example, the whore every single affected hello there degenerate life an extraordinary sum. The Jack Roller Diminish Wilke Professor Callais Analysis Paper February 11, 2013 The Jack Roller In the book The Jack Roller writer Clifford Shaw is a criminologist who has examined various energetic freaks to see precisely when the aberrance starts and how it advances. The book jumps profound into the psyche of a specific instance of a kid named Stanley in Chicago during the 1920’s. From the earliest starting point of the book Stanley is manhandled by his stepmother frequently being saved so she could tend to here genuine youngsters. I accept this book is most precisely portrays the social learning theory.Stanley has been presented to a large number of uplifting standpoints of wrongdoing from his loved ones at a very youthful age. I bolster the clear record hypothesis in light of the fact that in the earliest reference point of the book Stanley’s stepmother urges him to act in degenerate conduct. â€Å"One day my stepmother advised William to take me to the railroad yard to break in to freight cars. † (52-53). So Stanley has been taken under the wing of his progression sibling who is taking stuff for there stepmother, consequently they are compensated for taking. This is an ideal case of a presenting Stanley to an uplifting point of view toward crime.With this occurrence it launched Stanley’s freak conduct he started taking for the sake of entertainment for a long time, continually being gotten by the police and taken to confinements homes which were a sorry discipline for him. Stanley delighted in being in the confinement home more than his genuine home so the ramification for his criminal conduct nearly was an award for him. In the confinement home, Stanley had the option to meet other criminal that besides gave him uplifting feedback of wrongdoing, â€Å"I was truly awed by the fortitude and insight of the more seasoned hoodlums. Their accounts of experience captivated my puerile creative mind, and I felt attracted to them. (57). These criminal that Stanley met enlivened him; they gave him somebody to admire, somebody that he could try to be through wrongdoing. In the wake of being discharged Stanley was gotten by his progression mother just to flee once more to endure two or three days at that point be gotten by the police in the city. This procedure happened a large number of times until in the end he was sent to the St. Charles School for Boys. â€Å"The severe order, hard discipline, no entertainment, dread, and out of line breaks made life hopeless. † (68). St. Charles was the main negative ramification for his crimes.Stanley was completely hopeless there and longed to get out just to return to taking. In watching this book you understand that all Stanley knows is wrongdoing, he much of the time is in and out of an occupation, and saves one for infrequently longer than a month. Stanley knows only wrongdoing it has been engraved into his â€Å"clean slate†, and he has figured out how to make due off of i t. Subsequent to serving 16 months Stanley was discharged for St. Charles just to be captured not before long and return back to St. Charles for one more month. In the wake of being discharged Stanley tries to procure his cash genuinely and goes however a large number of jobs.He begins living with this stepsister, just to be kicked out in light of missing rent. He at that point meets a neighborly lady who brings him into her homes and allows him to live. Stanley appreciates the organization of this lady and utilizations her as to some degree a passionate discharge, â€Å"This time I was not apprehensive, yet felt a rush of discouragement and bitterness come over me, on the grounds that a lady was offering me compassion; something I had never gotten. † (76). Stanley lived with this lady for about a month soon to discover she was a whore, despite the fact that he was stunned he didn't censure her for it and Stanley understood.He still left her to go to the YMCA just to come bac k to the detainment home. The connection with Stanley and the whore upholds the social learning hypothesis since it is presenting Stanley to his first mother figure that is a crook. The main positive female

Topic For Essay Writing For School

Topic For Essay Writing For SchoolTopic for essay writing for school? My dilemma is this. The topic for essay writing for school, should be based on the idea of the teacher, not on you or your school. Let me explain.As college students we are not supposed to come up with something that will suit our teacher and make him happy. That is not how it should be done.The simple question is; what is the best topic? I would say that the only right topic is whatever will make you proud to be from your school.You should be able to put together a tip-top form for your school and the paper should also be completed accordingly. In that manner the professor will appreciate your efforts.You can even show your love for your school by writing about the students of your school in an essay. If the topic for essay writing for school is based on a group of students, the paper should be divided into two parts.One part will have to be dedicated to them and the other part will have to be dedicated to you. It is important to remember this aspect when looking for topics for your essay.The writer should focus on things that interest him and he should want to write down something that will make the professor proud of him. If your professor has provided good and constructive criticism then he will appreciate your efforts in essay writing for school.If he has not offered you anything then move on to another topic. Many things can happen during a semester. When it comes to the topic for essay writing for school, you have to be able to follow his ideas or directions so as to make your article as good as possible.

Should Films and Computer Games with Violence be Restricted Essay

Should Films and Computer Games with Violence be Restricted - Essay Example Today PC games, for example, Grand Theft Auto permit clients to effectively take part in vehicle robbery and murder. Movies, for example, Die Hard praise brutality. With the expanding progression of topic, a developing collection of concern has risen regarding the degree that movies and PC games with savagery ought to be limited. This paper looks at this inquiry through an assessment of sentiments both in favor and against limitations on film and PC game brutality before eventually contending that there ought to be a degree of limitations on savage computer games and movies. Investigation Perhaps the most inescapable contention for prohibitive measures on brutal movies and computer games is that these news sources cause genuine wrongdoing through desensitizing the watchers and game players. There are an assortment of viewpoints on this issue. Probably the most remarkable and persuading contentions have risen as an immediate aftereffect of mental research. Dill (2000) led an examinati on that is contended to exhibit commitment with vicious movies and computer games â€Å"provide a gathering for learning and rehearsing forceful answers for strife situations† and there is the understanding that such brutality â€Å"appears to influence hostility by preparing forceful considerations. Longer-term impacts are probably going to be longer enduring also, as the player learns and rehearses new animosity related contents that can turn out to be increasingly more open for use when genuine clash circumstances emerge. If valid, these are amazing ends. Basically, Dill is contending that through support in vicious computer games and movies, members are really ready to practice how they will act in brutal or criminal settings. This viewpoint isn't unrealistic when one thinks about that brutal movies frequently certainly request that the watcher relate to a hero who is happy to take part in fierce goes about as a methods for understanding clashes. Computer games go signif icantly further in permitting the client to really take an interest in the savagery. At last, it’s away from the potential desensitizing impacts of brutal movies and computer games is a squeezing concern. Another noticeable concern is that rough computer games detrimentally affect the individual’s psychological turn of events. While conventional computer games have been shown to contain addictive characteristics, developing assortments of analysts contend that the addictive nature of vicious computer games has an inexorably negative effect on subjective turn of events. The addictive idea of computer games has been a since a long time ago settled actuality with an organization of players alluded to as ‘gamers’ in many cases taking an interest in as much as 40-50 hours of computer game playing every week. At the point when such computer game playing happens with regards to a brutality gaming world, the potential for negative intellectual advancement events i s contended to turn into a promptly clear truth. To be sure, various examples have been recorded where extraordinary outcomes have happened for people. In one cases, with respect to a kid in Moscow it’s noticed that, â€Å"He had gotten terrible stamps as well as known for awful conduct in class.â Denial of computer games is, by all rights, proper discipline and I’m sure nobody felt that it would prompt his jumpingâ from his nineteenth floor condo

Essay Topics Associated With a Sense of an Ending

Essay Topics Associated With a Sense of an EndingThere are many essay topics associated with a sense of an ending, some obvious and some not so obvious. An essay topic that is associated with a sense of an ending has one end in mind, but the process involved is not as clearly laid out. Some common topics associated with a sense of an ending include:Characters and their journey. When thinking about any end, the journey of the character should be a major factor in the process.Conclusion. The whole point of an essay is to develop the author's personality, perhaps a reflection of himself. He is still alive and writing, and therefore there is no point in sticking to one logical conclusion. The idea is to leave the reader wondering if there is more.Theme. There can be no ending without a beginning and a theme is what establishes that starting point. An end without a beginning creates a gap in the story.Conclusion. There can be no ending without a beginning and a conclusion, if you wanted t o make a statement, you would have to start out with the beginning, your own words, then describe the ending.Ending. The sense of an ending might be the death of the author himself, as it were. There might be a break with his previous work, leaving the reader to imagine what is to come.Well, that was the beginning. There are many more topics associated with a sense of an ending and the usual way of thinking about this is to picture the end of something that has happened.I hope you enjoyed reading about some of the most popular essay topics associated with a sense of an ending. If you are trying to formulate a theme for your next essay, you might find this helpful.

The Personal Statement That Got Me a Large Scholarship to Cambridge

In October 2008, I submitted an application for a Masters program in Latin American Studies at Cambridge University. At the time, I was a bit lost in life; I was what they call a â€Å"super-senior† at UCLA, taking my last three General Education requirements during Fall quarter of a fifth year. I had already walked for graduation the June before and the future was oddly wide open, and incredibly empty to me. Like many students who are â€Å"good at school,† I thought that a graduate program seemed like a reasonable idea, especially because 2008 was a year during which jobs for recent graduates were extremely hard to come by. So I opened a number of applications for PhD programs in the United States and, on the advice of a professor, I applied to Cambridge because of the opportunity to win a Gates Cambridge Scholarship. While the application to Cambridge’s Latin American Studies program did not differ greatly from that of most global graduate schools, in order to be considered for funding opportunities I needed to submit an additional personal statement. The prompt was daunting: In not more than 500 words, please describe below how your interests and achievements, both academic and extra-curricular, demonstrate a capacity for leadership, commitment to using your knowledge to serve your community and to applying your talents to improve the lives of others. I was 22, and I had never really tried to articulate how my curiosity about foreign languages, Latin American literature, and film could demonstrate â€Å"a capacity for leadership,† or the ability to â€Å"serve my community.† But I gave it a go. hbspt.cta.load(58291, '332ce827-d7de-4f9f-9f9e-ecbe72f20b41', {}); The statement of purpose I wrote and submitted to Cambridge on October 15, 2008: I grew up in Oakland, California, one of the most violent and disparate urban communities in America. While I knew this as a child, I only knew it in a distant sense. I caught glimpses of newspaper headlines with phrases like â€Å"gang violence† and â€Å"high homicide rate.† I heard rap songs on the radio that referred to the infamous â€Å"O-town of the West,† or the area code â€Å"510.† Those were always funny references to my hometown, but they were words and sayings; they never felt like realities to me as I grew up. To my great surprise, these newspaper articles, statistics, and song lyrics only became real to me when I left Oakland and America to spend my junior year abroad in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and then return home. Before I arrived there, Brazil only existed on paper, in books like Peter Winn’s Americas, and on screen in films like City of God. The mesmerizing topography and diverse population of Rio de Janeiro were realities that I approached with trepidation. But after a year, I abandoned my preconceptions about the city and was even comfortable using unofficial vans, or kombis, to navigate my way through the chaotic and sprawling city. I overcame my fears and learned how to assert myself appropriately in difficult situations. Just as I had become comfortably aware of the realities of Oakland, I became inured to the violence and class conflicts that had frightened me before arriving in Rio. With regards to this experience, the most educational and enlightening moments of shock came to me as I drove through Oakland on my way home from the airport. I had not been home for a year, my eyes were glued to the car window, and I saw everything differently. Though the terrain between the Oakland airport and my home is relatively flat, that day the socio-economic inequality was as clear to me as the diverse topography of Rio de Janeiro. To put it simply, there were houses with fences and window guards, and houses with large driveways and beautifully landscaped gardens. Through subtle markers and contexts, the issues and conflicts that had surprised and scared me in Rio were suddenly applicable to the scenery and media of my hometown. Both of these experiences, of arriving in Brazil and returning to Oakland, are powerful instances of where academic or literary knowledge solidifies through the experience of real events. I want to know more about issues of urban Latin America because they are directly related to urban American issues. Emotional and analytical access to these socio-economic issues through literature and film is a bridge that I passionately want to extend towards students. Every person who enters a college classroom is profoundly privileged with the opportunity to see herself and her surroundings differently. It is my dream to inspire others to see education as an opportunity to travel, to experience difference, and to return home with critical points of view, and the desire to create positive change. What Is a Scholarship? And Why Didn’t I Get One? Here’s what happened after I submitted: On December 10, 2008 I received an email from the Center of Latin American Studies informing me that I had been accepted to the program and would be hearing from the Board of Graduate Studies shortly. On December 14, 2008 I was informed that I had made it to the finalist round for Gates Cambridge, and that interviews were to be held on February 7, 2009. After finishing my coursework at UCLA, I moved home in December, picked up a job as a waitress at a local diner, and started applying for office jobs in the Bay Area. And on January 1, 2009, 22-year-old Oscar Grant was fatally shot by a BART cop at Fruitvale Station in Oakland, California. How I was shocked during my Gates Cambridge interview: During my 25-minute interview with the Gates committee in February, I was completely stunned by a question that one of the British members posed as a research question. It was something like: â€Å"Given that you propose to study Latin American film as part of your research, what do you think of the footage of Oscar Grant’s death?† I was pretty much speechless when this question was asked, and I had a hard time composing myself. Footage of Oscar Grant’s killing was impossible to avoid in Oakland. The cell phone recordings of Oscar Grant’s death were also the first reel of raw film images that I had ever seen to depict the end of an actual person’s life. I had seen American History X, a movie in which a white man brutally commits racist and fatal hate crimes, but those were fictional images. Most of the films that I studied regarding Latin America were also made of fictional images. The footage of Oscar Grant dying was a visceral reality for me, and it came with weeks of rioting in my hometown, a series of incredibly tense conversations with neighbors and family, feelings of guilt about my whiteness, and a deep sense of helplessness about the world around me. What I learned from writing my Cambridge statement of purpose: None of those words came out in my interview. Overwhelmed with emotions, I just wasn’t able to express myself in that moment, and I tried to move on as quickly as possible. But since then, I’ve thought a lot about that question. In hindsight, the question was a genuine response to my personal statement, which means that the statement had been effective even before it became timely. Remember, I was selected for the shortlist before Oscar Grant was shot, but the setting that I created by observing my own surroundings in the personal statement is what allowed for the committee to connect with a reality that was still unfolding around me. When I first wrote this statement, I was afraid it didn’t say enough about my achievements, past leadership experiences, or meaningful accomplishments. I didn’t talk about an obstacle overcome, I acknowledged my privilege, and I didn’t know anything about what the essay was supposed to be like. But after my many years of working with students from a variety of backgrounds on diversity statements and scholarship applications, I understand why this was a successful statement. All I did was observe myself in the world, genuinely and honestly. I described my relationship to Oakland from an insider’s eyes, and an outsider’s eyes, and that allowed the committee to learn about me within the context of where I grew up. Because I described Oakland from the eyes of someone just off of a plane from Rio de Janeiro, I gave the committee concrete insights that they couldn’t have surmised from the first sentence: â€Å"I grew up in Oakland, California.â₠¬  This is an issue that comes up a lot when I work with people on personal statements. Oftentimes the things that you know about yourself and your surroundings are so obvious to you that you forget to describe these insights to your audience. That’s your job in a personal statement, to explain who you are, what drives you to accomplish your goals, and why your current course of study matters to you, and others. How to Write a Compelling Personal Statement If you’re working on a statement like this and you start to wonder what it’s supposed to be, or what you’re supposed to talk about, tell yourself to stop asking that question. Instead ask yourself, what do you know intuitively about how you move in the world? How can you observe yourself so that someone else gets a glimpse of how you think, what you care about, and why you want to do the things that you want to do? I didn’t end up getting the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, which felt like a blow at the time. But as a result of this same essay, I was shortly thereafter awarded a Cambridge Overseas Trust Scholarship for  £10,000 ($17,000) which covered most of my tuition, and I ended up going to Cambridge and studying Latin American film. I also took away some incredible lessons from that interview, and those personal insights made the whole process worth it. Working on your SOP? Get the help you need to write a personal, meaningful graduate statement of purpose. Work one-on-one with an experienced admissions advisor – one who has personally been there – to create an application you’re proud to submit. And did you know that Accepteds clients received over $1 million dollars in scholarship offers in the last application cycle? Learn more about how Accepted can help when you check out our Graduate School Admissions Consulting Services. hbspt.cta.load(58291, '4751002f-5aa9-40d8-bb71-6d43a4318bd2', {}); By Rebecca Lippman, Accepted consultant. Prior to working at Accepted Rebecca worked as a Student Affairs Advisor at the UCLA Scholarship Resource Center. She has taught undergraduate and graduate students how to write large grant applications for grants awarded by organizations such as Fulbright Student Program, Gates Cambridge Scholarship, Knight-Hennessy Scholars, Ford Foundation, Paul Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans, and the National Science Foundation. Rebecca has a masters degree from University of Cambridge, and is currently pursuing a PhD in Comparative Literature at UCLA. Want Rebecca to help you get Accepted? Click here to get in touch! Related Resources: †¢ What I Learned about Grant Writing from Putting Together 3 Fulbright Applications Before Finally Being Selected †¢ What Is a Scholarship? And Why Didn’t I Get One? †¢ Awards! Grants! Scholarships! Oh My! a podcast episode