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University of Alberta MBA Sample Essays

University of Alberta MBA Sample Essays for 2023-2024

The statement of intent introduces you to the Admissions Committee as an individual, and not only showcases your personality but how you are unique as compared to other applicants with a similar profile. It is recommended that the statement of intent be approximately 1 to 2 pages in length, and should outline details around but not limited to the following:

  1. Why you want to enter the program?
  2. What your career goals are?
  3. How the strengths of the program match your career goals and will support you in achieving your goals?
  4. What you will contribute towards the program?

University of Alberta MBA Sample Essay – 1

Essay 1: The statement of intent introduces you to the Admissions Committee as an individual, and not only showcases your personality but how you are unique as compared to other applicants with a similar profile. It is recommended that the statement of intent be approximately 1 to 2 pages in length, and should outline details around but not limited to the following:

  • Why you want to enter the program
  • What your career goals are
  • How the strengths of the program match your career goals and will support you in achieving them
  • What you will contribute towards the program

Ultimately, the statement of intent reveals important information about which candidates will contribute to and benefit the most from the program.

I am a Mechanical Engineer with 6 years of professional experience in Coal India Limited (CIL), the largest coal producing company in the world. In the last 6 years, I have acquired wide range of skills, experience, including an international experience in USA, and have achieved many milestones. After this valuable hands-on operational experience in the energy sector, I want to move into a consulting or a senior management role in a natural resource focused consulting firm or a corporate. In order to achieve my short-term goal, I aspire to do an MBA with specialisation in Natural Resource Energy and Environment, which can help me imbibe critical leadership and management skills. I believe given past experience in the CIL, an MBA from University of Alberta in Natural Resources Energy & Environment, is a perfect fit that can help me achieve my career goals.

After graduating with Mechanical Engineering, I started my professional journey with CIL as a management trainee where I worked in different capacity in all the different departments for one year as part of the training program. After training, I joined the maintenance department as a full-time assistant manager leading a team of 20 odd maintenance personnels. My journey in Coal India, has been full of learning’s. Over the year, I have achieved much success and learned a lot. One of my biggest achievements was, when I led a team of 15 maintenance personnel to carry out the overhauling a coal cutting machine, at underground site. We were allotted 75 days, including the time to bring the machine to surface and then back to underground site, to carry out the overhauling of the machine. I implemented innovative ideas to set up a complete workshop with all facilities underground. My team and I helped set up a complete movable overhead crane, used different types of transformers to step down voltage and provided many different accessories to carry out the operation. This not only saved us 30 days of the overhauling time between surface and underground mine location, but also helped us to achieve the given target for that financial year, resulting in a total profit of 2.8 million U.S dollars. My team effort was recognised by the senior management and we received a special achievement award. 

Soon after the success of the Continuous miner machine overhaul, in April 2016 I was promoted to Deputy Manager, and was given charge to commission longwall mining technology and equipment. At present, I lead a team of 30 maintenance personnel who are responsible for the maintenance of the complete longwall package to achieve a seamless production of 6000 Tons of Coal every day.  

Now, after leading a big team for more than a year, I have realised some gaps in my knowledge as well as leadership and management skills. Today while doing my day-to-day job, I make best use of my technical skills and experiences to lead my team efficiently. But, Now I plan to fulfil the gaps in my skill set and aspire for leading much bigger teams and handling larger responsibilities. To fulfil this gap, an MBA is the perfect path ahead, it will not only help me develop my managerial skills but also help me acquire new knowledge about the best management practises in developed countries.

The 3 aspects which attracted me to University of Alberta’s MBA are:

  1. The specialization in Natural Resource Energy and Environment: This unique MBA program of UofA will help me to build on my experiences and broaden my horizon in the world of natural resource and energy industries outside of coal sector. The class profile is very diverse which will help me to get more insight about international perspective from my peer group.
  2. The NREE program’s compelling CAPSTONE course which includes the option to participate in an international study tour can provide me the opportunity to garner an hands-on international exposure. This course will help me to gain a real world experience by solving issues faced by today’s organization and also help me to apply my learnings of mba in real world environment.
  3. The UofA mba student club, Net impact chapter, really fascinates me. I think being a part of this chapter will help me provide wide range of opportunities. It can help me put my beliefs into action through sustainability efforts, enlarge my professional network with other like-minded individuals who have demonstrated their commitment to corporate social responsibility. 

While the MBA at U of A will help me immensely, I believe, I with my rich experience in coal and energy sector I can also add great value to the class of NREE from my past learning’s. The coal sector, which I worked in, is the central point of any nations energy policy and it is full of challenges. The mine conditions are difficult and you have to take some big decision at site in face of unknown consequences. These experiences and kind of exposure has transformed me into a confident individual. I think, I can add valuable points to class discussion by sharing these invaluable experiences of mine. I am not only looking to contribute in the class but also out of it. I am a wildlife enthusiast, wildlife photographer and a member of save our Tigers initiative, and have organised numerous of wildlife tours for school and college children in India. I personally feel that the importance of natural resource will be better understood if we start caring for our environment. I think sharing this experience would definitely add value to the program and thus I am excitedly looking forward to being part of U of A’s class of 2020.

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University of Alberta MBA Sample Essay – 2

Essay 2: The statement of intent introduces you to the Admissions Committee as an individual, and not only showcases your personality but how you are unique as compared to other applicants with a similar profile. It is recommended that the statement of intent be approximately 1 to 2 pages in length.

I have been working in business operation (Procurement & Purchase) of Honda Motorcycles for approximately 2.5 years. While working in the procurement and purchase department, I have earned competency in vendor/supplier management, and supporting strategic direction for process quality and development plans. 

The most crucial aspect of my sojourn at Honda remains the development & fine-tuning of my leadership skills and international exposure. The fundamental profile of my job requires me to coordinate among very diverse groups of suppliers and colleagues from different Honda departments and Honda R&D in Thailand and Japan. Therefore I have learned how to lead negotiation among diverse groups and bring them into an agreement on important issues.

However, such a diverse challenging role has also enabled me to identify the limitations in my theoretical knowledge and my business skills. With my engineering background my understanding of business concepts is limited and I believe a business degree would be a perfect fit to help me gain the requisite knowledge to meet my short term career goals.

Now in the short term, using my prior experience and the knowledge gained from an MBA program, I aspire to make a transition towards business operation and development roles in the supply chain domain at global companies such as Walmart, Amazon etc. In the long term, I would like to come back and give better direction to the product services business of my family that is in its rudimentary stage right now and will require a more professional approach when it grows in size in course of next few years.

After thorough research and conversations with a few alumni of Alberta, I believe that Alberta’s MBA is perfectly synchronized with my desired learning from an MBA program. The vital aspects that I found particularly enticing are:

Industrial Experience – The provision of a capstone course will give me great insight into the troubleshooting process of business firms. This I believe is better even than a small internship or exposure as on learns more during the process of correction of problems than the normal course of routine activity. I really liked the option of an international study tour which would be an added compliment to my current international exposure in Thailand and Japan.

Flexibility & Relevance of the Program- The process of acquainting the students with broad management domains by setting up the base with a core curriculum of the subject followed by electives of choice will permit me to make informed selections of my electives. This flexibility provides me the option to have a degree tailor-made to my career requirements with adequate professional guidance to avoid any shortcomings. 

Strong recommendation by current students- In an unequivocal tone, I have been suggested the merits with a recommendation to join this program by almost every student / former student whom I contacted. Mr.Zubair Virjee (Former Student) was kind enough to share with me the details regarding teaching methodology adopted in the classrooms and he spoke highly about the strong network growth as an auxiliary benefit on account of the small size of Alberta school’s community and city as a whole.

Therefore, I am confident that Alberta’s MBA can pave the way for my career progression and enable me to make a transition towards business operation and development roles at global companies such as Amazon, or Walmart and all this will synchronize towards development of skills needed for my long term goal. 

And at last, I would like to suggest that based on my current experience, team-oriented approach, and leadership skills, I will be a good fit in this MBA program and can add value to Alberta’s community and reputation to the batch starting in 2020. Though I may not have any certificate or method to prove this claim but I would like to assure the admissions committee that I exhibit the above-mentioned characteristics and if given the opportunity to be part of this MBA program I’ll play my part as a student, peer and as alumni in future to the best possible extent and with utmost dedication.

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