Personal Statement
Applied Program: Advertising
Among the 26 English alphabets, the one I like most is the capitalized D because this alphabet, simple as it is, is the most beautiful one. The two strokes, one vertical line and one curve, adumbrate two totally divergent trajectories as if serving as constant indicator of the psyche of the professionals in the advertising industry: to travel from one point to another, there is an infinite number of routes to choose; but ultimately speaking, there are only two routes: one is along a straight line, the other along a curve. While the general public may opt for the first, advertising professionals should decide on the second. A curved trajectory may well enable one to expand his horizon, enrich his experience of life, and cultivate his capability for excellent interpersonal exchange and communication. I maintain the conviction that the longer the journey of life that one travels, the richer the experience one can derive from life and hence the greater the novelty that he can create out of the apparently commonplace.
In 1998, I entered XX University with remarkable performance at the National College Entrance Examination (among the top 10 percent of the participants majoring in Humanities Disciplines). During the first year of my undergraduate studies, I majored in International Law but it immediately dawned on me that I was not meant for studies in this field and my real interest lied in advertising. Therefore, with extra efforts I audited all the major courses in advertising and in the second year, with a solid command of all the theoretical knowledge of the basic courses, I transferred to Advertising Speciality. Once I embarked on studying what really interested me, I made rapid progress and my GPA reached 3.5 (among the top three for 26 students of my class). In addition, I achieved the highest score of the class in four most important courses in the field: History of Chinese and Foreign Advertising, Principles of Advertising, Advertisement Planning, and Mass Communication.
As I delved deeper into my subject, I came to acquire an increasingly profound understanding of the nature of advertising. As a matter of fact, advertising is an art of persuasion, concerned with how the advertiser can influence the behavior and value orientation of the general public with his individually unique mentality and perspective. It is an integral branch of mass communication, inextricably intertwined with both art and economics. At the same time, it requires a framework of scientific management. In the course of my studies, I learned to exploit another form of language, my advertising designs, to conduct dialogues with my audience and to convey through those work my ideas and perceptions in order to achieve the objective of affecting the recipients' psychology and conduct and realizing the value of communication. But I ventured beyond the mere designing of individual advertisements. I also attempted at a series of coordination work that included the planning, execution, solution and effect of advertising. This process helped me to perfect my framework of theoretical conceptions concerning such notions as personal communication, interpersonal communication and mass communication. I immersed myself in a wide variety of advertising courses. By studying advertising, I could feel the joy of thinking and the charm of knowledge.
Advertising is an art more to be practiced than theorized. For my extra-curricular practice, I worked part-time for the WuHan Silver-Horse Advertising Corporation, an advertising agency which enjoys very prestigious reputation in and around WuHan. After being subjected to the most rigorous screening test, I was recruited as one of the five undergraduate students from my university and worked on several projects under the direct leadership of the chief supervisor of the Planning Department. On account of my distinctive notion and original creativity, my design for an advertisement for an automobile maintenance center was adopted, a fact which adequately evinces my professional qualities and tremendous potential. Later, with strong recommendations from my teacher, I worked at a medium-size advertising company in Beijing, responsible for the advertising agent business in the magazine Global Weekly. With the company's support, I participated in a number of designing contests ranging from the 10th Golden Calf Advertising Contest sponsored by the Taiwan's China Times, the 2nd Academy Advertising Competition sponsored by China Advertising Association to the Annual CAC Public Welfare Advertising Competition sponsored by the publishing house of International Advertising Magazine. My participation in those events not only brought me important awards but also enabled me to derive much professional knowledge from the exchange and cooperation with other staff, apart from enhancing my hands-on ability and practical problem-solving skills.
I took part consecutively in two authoritative Competitions for Young Advertisers, which aroused my attention to the discrepancies in the advertising level and the advertising consciousness between Taiwan and mainland China as well as the disparity in the advertising management. In order to call the serious attention of China's advertising industry to those problems, I published a full-length academic paper entitled On the Eve of WTO Accession: A Perspective on the Present Conditions of Advertising Management on Mainland China on the website of China Advertising Communication and Research (this website is launched by XiaMen University, the first university in China to have established an Advertising Department and which enjoys a very high academic prestige).
Historically speaking, China's advertising industry can only be described as underdeveloped compared with that of the advanced Western countries. Although China's advertising industry is achieving remarkable development around the turn of the century, challenges and obstacles are equally serious. For instance, the relationship between the client, the media and the advertising company has not been properly established. The advertising agent system and the relevant legal regulations of advertising are not fully developed. The awareness of self-discipline is weak within this profession and a sound system of social supervision over unlawful advertising practices is lacking.
With China's immediate accession into WTO, China's overall advertising industry will face severe challenges presented by major international advertising agencies. On the other hand, China promises a bright and alluring prospect in advertising industry as China has the largest advertising market among the developing countries. The profit of the advertising industry maintains an annual growth rate of 39.73. Such a growth momentum is sufficient to indicate the tremendous dimension and the exciting prospect of China's future advertising industry. This situation necessarily calls for the emergence of a large number of highly qualified advertising professionals, especially those who can incorporate both their intimate knowledge of China's domestic advertising market and international advertising background.
It is precisely against this backdrop that I, equipped with a solid groundwork (at once theoretical and empirical) in the field of advertising acquired from my undergraduate education, wish to apply for a graduate program. My motivation is fairly simple: only the United States, a country with the most unparalleled development in advertising industry and the most prestigious institutions of higher learning in mass communication of which advertising is a part, can offer the necessary environment in which I can mature toward my professional goals.
Now that I have charted my course of action, I am on the verge of proceeding from one point of my life to another point. To return to my metaphor of the alphabet D, I have decided to relinquish the effortless straight line in favor of the beautiful curve, for I believe that whatever the turns and twists alongside it, it will ultimately lead to my prescribed ideal. The profound truth inherent in it has already been given the most poetical pronunciation by the poet Robert Frost at the conclusion of his The Road Not Taken: Two roads diverged in the wood, and I - / I took the one less traveled by / And that has made all the difference.
Recommendation Letter
Dear Sir or Madam:
The Advertisement Department of XX University's News and Broadcasting Institute is the third department in China that offers courses concerning advertisement for undergraduate students. As the dean and professor of the department, I am quite willing to recommend to you my student, Mr.Purcell, to study advertisement in your postgraduate school.
He was admitted into the law school of our university to study international laws in 1998 with excellent scored, and was in the same class with my daughter. He was energetic and elected as the monitor of the class due to his strong leadership and organizing capability, and his performance as a monitor was approved and praised by his classmates and teachers. His interests covered a variety of subjects, and this wide interest and curiousness had brought him into contact with advertising, a subject that gave him profound fascination and he finally made up his mind to devote all this life to this field. In a self-recommendation letter directed to me, he expressed his strong wish to be transferred from the law school to our department to study advertisement, and I had pictured in the letter a thoughtful and goal-directed young man and a life he planned for himself. After that I came to know him gradually and discovered that he really had keen perceptions to both life and learning, and was quite gifted for studying advertisement, and I was quite happy to accept him as a new member in our department. In China, changing major is rather difficult, less than one percent of the students in XX University successfully changed their majors each year. But Mr.Purcell had undergone all by himself the numerous and complicated procedures for the changing of his major and completed this turning point of his life, I admire him for his perseverance and the pursuit of his dream.
After the transfer, he was quick in catching up with his fellow students in academic learning, and soon revealed his strength in the study of advertisement and the professors all praised him highly. In the fall semester in 2000, I attended the (------) planned and organized by him, the activity further indicated his extraordinary organizing ability and I witnessed the growth and progress he made in his specialty studies. The article he published in (------) University really surprised me for his clear and penetrating analysis of the advertising administrative situation in China, it is rare for an undergraduate student to have such profound understandings. I still remember that during the award giving ceremony for the 3rd Broadcast Public Welfare Advertising Competition, I felt a strong sense of pride for my decision in accepting him into our department when he took the medal and prize from my hands.
I originally thought to let him stay in our department and continue to study advertisement for a master degree, but anyway I respect his choice to go to the United States and study advertisement in your country, I stand on his side in realizing his lifelong plans. I hope that your university to offer this excellent student an opportunity to continue his quest for knowledge and fulfill his dreams.
Yours Sincerely
本篇P.S.除了拥有一篇优秀的P.S.所应拥有的所有要素外，其最成功之处就在于开头的"创意"和结尾处的"呼应"。该生申请的是广告学专业。众所周知，广告人的价值就在于创意。然则，嘉文博译?所要追求的效果并非只是突出其客户专业上的素质，而是将其专业素质与其人生追求融为一体。第一段既要"标新立异"，又要借机"明志"。请看译文：
“在英语所有26个字母中，我最喜欢大写的D，因为在我的眼中，D是26个字母中最简单但最优美的字母，它笔划极少，只有两笔，但一条直线、一条曲线勾勒出完全不同的两种轨迹。这仿佛时刻在昭示作为广告人的心路历程：从一点到另一点，可以走过的路线可以有无数条，但归根结底是两种，一条直线，一条曲线。大众会选择直线单刀直入，而广告人应该择取曲线，曲折的轨迹也许会开阔眼界、丰富人生阅历、锤炼与人良好有效的沟通和交流能力。我相信走的路越长，人生阅历便愈丰富，就越能从生活的平凡事物中挖掘出新意。”
本篇P.S.的结尾是我深夜十一点在高速公路上驱车回家的路上构思的。这一构思当时令我十分兴奋。到家后迅速打笔记本电脑，写下了以下这段文字(译文)：
“现在，我既已为自己勾勒出了我的行动方向，我便行将踏上我的人生征程，从人生的这端迈向另一端。还是让我回到我关于D字母的那个隐喻吧。我已决定放弃那不费吹灰之力的直线而选择那优美的曲线。因为我相信，沿着这条曲线，无论有怎样的坎坷曲折，它终将将我引向我已设定的理想。这其中所固的深刻真谛早就被诗人Robert Frost在其The Road Not Taken一诗中赋予了最富诗意的表述：‘两条蹊径在林中分忿延伸，而我--/我则选择了不常有人行走的那条/ 而正是这一点产生了全然不同之结果。’”
显而易见，此结尾又是一箭双雕，甚至是一箭三雕的。一是呼应，二是通过引用美国读者最喜爱的本国诗人的诗句来间接反映出P.S.主人公的人文修养及对美国文学乃至文化的涉猎，体现其作为未来广告专业人士的综合素质。
