Personal Essay

You’ve just landed your dream job with a dynamic organization that puts you on the fast track to management in your industry. The head of the organization is very charismatic and makes a point to have lunch with every new employee. You’ve been following his career for several years through the alumni news from your university, since he graduated about 10 years before you and has had a successful career as an industry leader. He was recently interviewed for the New York Times column “Corner Office,” and commented that he attributes some of his success to engagement with employees, and his efforts to identify new talent and match people’s passions to projects. He says that he often asks employees about the core beliefs that inform their professional choices. You’re wondering if he might ask his signature question at your scheduled lunch today, so you prepare by organizing your thoughts and jotting down some talking points: What motivates you? What’s your passion? What do you believe?

In this project, you will write a short essay that reflects your belief or passion about a particular part of your professional experience. This project will help you refresh your writing skills to prepare for the rest of your graduate program. Organizing complex and divergent thoughts to write a single page requires prewriting, perhaps an outline, and thinking about the mechanics of writing an essay paragraph by paragraph. That means starting with a topic sentence, adding supporting sentences, and concluding with a sentence that provides a bridge to the next paragraph. Your essay is intentionally limited to 500 words to engage you in the structural process of writing.

When you submit your project, your work will be evaluated using the competencies listed below. You can use the list below to self-check your work before submission.

1.1: Organize document or presentation clearly in a manner that promotes understanding and meets the requirements of the assignment.
1.2: Develop coherent paragraphs or points so that each is internally unified and so that each functions as part of the whole document or presentation.
1.4: Tailor communications to the audience.
1.5: Use sentence structure appropriate to the task, message and audience.
1.6: Follow conventions of Standard Written English.