Personal Statement

个人陈述

申请专业：UCL Banking and Digital Finance MSc

Intrigued by the discipline of finance where the learners and practitioners are dedicated to sensible decision making with uncertainties and challenges, and hoping to take advantage of my undergraduate academic background of information and computer science, I chose to specialise in Financial Mathematics after standing out in the fierce competition and being admitted to Peking University.

金融学科的学习者和从业者致力于在不确定性和挑战的情况下做出明智的决策，对此我很感兴趣，并希望利用我在信息和计算机科学方面的本科学术背景，在激烈的竞争中脱颖而出并被北京大学录取后，我选择专攻金融数学。

(开门见山介绍金融和自己的背景,表达兴趣)

My non-stop effort at such a China’s top-ranked academic community combining academic rigour with innovative spirit enhanced my specialist knowledge in finance, and after graduation, I landed my job in CITIC Securities as a senior associate at the Fixed Income Division. Releasing my strengths in interdisciplinary studies of both computer science and finance, I primarily assisted in the workflow automation and settlements of over-the-counter options with programming methods to improve the accuracy and efficiency of the whole procedures; Meanwhile, I involved in liquidity risk management of bond repurchase and checked the qualifications of clients for bond repurchase strictly based on the company’s rules and regulations, ensuring our clients’ huge amount of capital flow, alerting and resolving the risks in advance.

我在北大这样一个中国顶级学术界的不懈努力，结合了学术严谨性和创新精神，增强了我在金融方面的专业知识。毕业后，我在中信证券找到了一份工作，担任固定收益部门的高级助理。发挥我在计算机科学和金融跨学科研究方面的优势，我主要协助工作流程自动化和场外期权结算，用编程方法提高整个程序的准确性和效率；同时，我参与债券回购的流动性风险管理，严格按照公司的规章制度对债券回购客户进行资格审查，确保客户的巨额资金流，提前预警和化解风险。

（介绍自己毕业后的工作情况，工作与金融相关。注：作者是已经毕业的学生）

Despite my well-acknowledged working performance in back-office support, I realised my real passion actually lies in the banking services and digital finance revolution. It is easily observed that advanced information technologies are bringing revolutionary changes to traditional banking services, such as the popularisation of Alipay and WeChat payment that are taking place of some banking businesses and even functioning more efficiently. The emerging cryptocurrencies have also pushed many banks to design their own cryptocurrencies, which reveals the tendency of banks’ transferring to digitalisation. I thus desire to release my advantages of interdisciplinary backgrounds of computing and finance in the banking industry. Moreover, at work, I noticed the increasing tendency of domestic financial institutions to cooperate with overseas counterparts in various forms of trading and cooperation, which made me realise the significance of developing my global vision and cross-cultural communication skills in preparation for my longer-term dedication to this ever-changing industry. Enthusiastic about the British culture and admiring one of the world’s financial hubs, London, I thus determined to pursue my second Master’s degree related to banking and digital finance studies in the UK.

尽管我在后台支持方面的工作表现得到了广泛认可，但我意识到，我真正的激情其实在于银行服务和数字金融革命。不难看出，先进的信息技术正在给传统的银行服务带来革命性的变化，例如支付宝和微信支付的普及正在取代一些银行业务，甚至更有效地运作。新兴的加密货币也促使许多银行设计自己的加密货币，这揭示了银行向数字化转型的趋势。因此，我希望在银行业释放我的计算机和金融跨学科背景的优势。此外，在工作中，我注意到国内金融机构越来越倾向于与海外同行开展各种形式的贸易和合作，这使我意识到培养我的全球视野和跨文化沟通技能的重要性，为我长期致力于这个不断变化的行业做准备。我对英国文化充满热情，并对世界金融中心之一伦敦心生敬佩，因此我决定去英国攻读与银行和数字金融研究相关的第二个硕士学位。

（介绍了自己对银行金融业务方面的理解，以及为什么想去英国留学）

To achieve my new academic goal, I am quite confident owing to my adequate preparations both academically and practically during my past few fulfilling years at university. When studying Information and Computing Science at undergraduate Beijing Jiaotong University, I enhanced my mathematical foundation and honed programming skills in such modules as Advanced Mathematics, Probability Theory and Mathematical Statistics, Operation Research, Optimised Theory, Data Structure, and C Language Programming, etc., keeping my 3-ranked GPA of 91% in my grade. Opting for such courses as International Finance and Investment Evaluation, I developed my basic knowledge framework of Finance and began to apply my programming skills to the financial and economic issues. After starting my advanced postgraduate studies of Financial Mathematics, I exposed myself to a wider range of topics, including financial statistics, derivative securities, and risk management, and delved more deeply into modelling-based analysis, such as Copula Model, risk-neutral pricing , Multi-factor Model, Decision Tree Model, as well as Markov process.

为了实现我的新的学术目标，我很有信心，因为在过去几年充实的大学生活中，我在学术上和实践上都做了充分的准备。在本科北京交通大学学习信息与计算科学时，我在高等数学、概率论与数理统计、运筹学、最优化理论、数据结构、C语言编程等模块中增强了自己的数学基础，磨练了编程技能。我的平均绩点保持在年级第三名91%。通过选择国际金融和投资评估等课程，我发展了自己的金融基础知识框架，并开始将我的编程技能应用于金融和经济问题。在开始我的金融数学高级研究生学习后，我接触了更广泛的主题，包括金融统计、衍生证券和风险管理，并更深入地研究了基于模型的分析，如Copula模型、风险中性定价、多因素模型、决策树模型以及马尔可夫过程。

（介绍自己的学术能力，自己在数学、编程、金融、经济和建模方面的能力）

Outside of the classroom, I would convert many of my competitions and internships into valuable experiences of improving my flexible knowledge application skills and developing other personal qualities conducive to my future financial practices. In the mathematical modelling competition in 2019, I, after realising the very near deadline of submission which posed huge challenges for our initial topic analysis and our knowledge gap in aircraft lines design, led our team to focus on a new topic about the relationship between extreme cold weather and global warming, to which we could better transfer our industry attribution analysis in our financial studies. Finally, with our modelling analysis of the historical data of global average temperature, we identified the increasing temperatures in certain regions and tried to predict the trend of average global temperatures, and further discussed a primary reason for such an upward trend-the faster temperature changes in polar regions than those in the areas of low and middle latitudes after reading a lot of reference materials. Such a process stimulated my interest in solving real-life problems with our expertise, and keeping close cooperation with huge pressure from very limited preparational time and peer competition also developed my leadership, teamwork spirit and anti-pressure flexibility.

在课堂之外，我会将我的许多比赛和实习转化为宝贵的经验，提高我灵活的知识应用技能，并发展有利于我未来财务实践的其他个人素质。在2019年的数学建模比赛中，在意识到提交截止日期非常近，这对我们的初始主题分析和我们在飞机航线设计方面的知识缺口构成了巨大挑战后，我带领我们的团队专注于一个关于极端寒冷天气和全球变暖之间关系的新主题，我们可以在财务研究中更好地转移我们的行业归因分析。最后，通过对全球平均气温历史数据的建模分析，我们确定了某些地区的气温上升，并试图预测全球平均气温的趋势，并在阅读了大量参考资料后，进一步讨论了这种上升趋势的一个主要原因——极地地区的气温变化比中低纬度地区的气温变化快。这样的过程激发了我用我们的专业知识解决实际问题的兴趣，在非常有限的准备时间和同行竞争的巨大压力下保持密切合作也培养了我的领导力、团队合作精神和抗压能力。

（通过介绍自己参与的一个跨学科研究项目，突出了自己的领导力、团队合作精神和抗压能力）

To test my knowledge application and hone all-around practical skills in the real work context, I made full use of my spare time to take internships in two securities companies, Guotai Junan Securities (from July to October 2019) and Dongxing Securities (from October to December 2017). From analysing and testing several asset-allocation models and seeking after influential factors to their performance, to conducting industry analysis based on multiple perspectives (e.g. geographical location, political support, managerial advantages, technological strengths, and capital etc.), I not only enhanced my understanding of various models to be applied in my future financial analysis practices, but also deepened my insight into the performance of certain business entities and the whole industry. I thus grew much more interested in industry research, especially an in-depth investigation into emerging industries, in preparation for providing advanced consulting services to help with the business sustainability of more companies. Additionally, the regular communication with many other seasoned colleagues enabled me to gain more frontier knowledge on investment and business management, which indeed broadened my vision and strengthened my determination to contribute more to this marvellous field pushing the practitioner to step out of his/her comfort zone through life-long learning, exploration, and practices.

为了在真实的工作背景下检验自己的知识应用，磨练全方位的实践技能，我充分利用业余时间在国泰君安证券(2019年7月至10月)和东兴证券(2017年10月至12月)两家证券公司实习。从分析和测试几种资产配置模型并寻找其性能的影响因素，到基于多个角度(如地理位置、政治支持、管理优势、技术优势和资本等)进行行业分析。不仅增强了我对未来财务分析实践中要应用的各种模型的理解，也加深了我对某些业务实体和整个行业业绩的洞察。因此，我对行业研究越来越感兴趣，特别是对新兴行业的深入调查，为提供高级咨询服务以帮助更多公司的业务可持续性做准备。此外，与许多其他经验丰富的同事的定期交流使我获得了更多关于投资和企业管理的前沿知识，这确实拓宽了我的视野，坚定了我为这一奇妙领域做出更多贡献的决心，推动从业者通过终身学习、探索和实践走出他/她的舒适区。

（叙述了自己的实习经历，通过实习，增强了自己的行业分析能力，为将来提供高级咨询服务以帮助更多公司的业务可持续性做准备）

Despite my strong academic passion, I have long been pursuing all-around self-improvement and would always love to explore new fields in some non-academic activities. For example, I once formed a debating team to take part in the debating competition of my school in 2014, and our collective preparation for the topic of whether paper-based reading should be replaced by electronic books pushed me to search information extensively and form my propositions with abundant case analyses and logical deduction. Our team discussion and debating rehearsal enhanced my public speaking skills a lot as well, and my quick response to the opponents’ statement and doubt along with my logical deduction also won me the title of the Best Debater. In the patriotism-themed micro-film shooting project, I led my crew to design the script, shoot and edit the video; to seek after the best artistic effect and meanwhile, relieve the working pressure of my crew, I borrowed advanced equipment for video shooting and editing, and took initiatives to master the editing software within only two days in order to facilitate the subtitling team’s work progression. Our collective endeavour was finally awarded the Second Prize, which was also a valuable recognition of my leadership that contributed to the overall work coordination and efficiency improvement.

尽管我有强烈的学术热情，但我一直追求全面的自我完善，并总是喜欢在一些非学术活动中探索新的领域。比如我曾经组建过一个辩论队参加2014年我所在学校的辩论赛，我们对纸质阅读是否应该被电子书取代这个话题的集体备考，促使我广泛搜索资料，以丰富的案例分析和逻辑演绎形成我的命题。我们的小组讨论和辩论排练也提高了我的公共演讲技能，我对对手的陈述和质疑的快速反应以及我的逻辑推理也为我赢得了最佳辩手的称号。在爱国主义题材的微电影拍摄项目中，我带领我的剧组设计剧本、拍摄、剪辑视频；为了追求最佳的艺术效果，同时减轻我的工作人员的工作压力，我借用了先进的视频拍摄和编辑设备，并主动在两天内掌握了编辑软件，以促进字幕团队的工作进展。我们的集体努力最终获得了二等奖，这也是对我的领导能力的宝贵认可，我的领导能力为整体工作协调和效率提高做出了贡献。

（陈述了自己在学术以外的一些能力，比如参加辩论，微电影拍摄，视频编辑等能力）

Recalling these impressive moments, I am glad to find myself travel this far, and I expect to travel farther. To scale a new height on my next-stage academic journey and strive for my career aspirations, I would like to study in the Banking and Digital Finance MSc programme at my dream university-the University College London (UCL), one of the world’s top-ranked universities gathering elite faculty teams, scholars and practitioners, along with vibrant and intelligent student cohort. As the courses offered by this esteemed programme are both highly applied and research-driven, they are believed to expose me to the most innovative aspects of digital finance and enhance my analytical foundation of the finance and banking industry. Such a course aim indeed matches my needs and expectations! Furthermore, I am quite interested in such core modules as Financial Analytics and Machine Learning, Big Data in Quantitative Finance, and Finance and Artificial Intelligence, which involve the frontier knowledge and technologies in digital finance and will develop my specialist knowledge and professional skills to contribute to the digitalisation of financial products and banking services at my future position. I believe my postgraduate studies will be a vital step towards this goal, and I sincerely would like to invite UCL as my advisor!

回忆起这些令人印象深刻的时刻，我很高兴发现自己已经走了这么远，我希望走得更远。为了在我的下一阶段学术旅程中攀登新的高度，并为我的职业抱负而努力，我希望在我梦想的大学-伦敦大学学院(UCL)学习银行和数字金融理学硕士课程，伦敦大学学院是世界一流的大学之一，聚集了精英教师团队、学者和从业人员，以及充满活力和智慧的学生群体。由于这个受人尊敬的项目提供的课程既具有高度的应用性，又以研究为导向，相信它们会让我接触到数字金融最具创新性的方面，并增强我对金融和银行业的分析基础。这样的课程目标确实符合我的需求和期望！此外，我对金融分析和机器学习、量化金融中的大数据以及金融和人工智能等核心模块非常感兴趣，这些模块涉及数字金融的前沿知识和技术，将发展我的专业知识和专业技能，为我未来职位上的金融产品和银行服务的数字化做出贡献。我相信我的研究生学习将是实现这一目标的重要一步，我真诚地邀请UCL作为我的导师！

（最后陈述了自己为什么选择UCL的银行和数字金融理学硕士，以及未来自己的职业目标）

笔者点评：

本文内容详实，基本上学术、科研、实习都介绍到了。另外还介绍了自己的跨学科研究项目以及课外活动如参加辩论，微电影拍摄，编辑视频等等。从而突出了自己不是一个书呆子，而是一个多面手，这样的人更容易获得学校的青睐。

另外，本文显示了作者的目标明确，本科就学习了金融相关的专业，实习也是在国泰君安证券和东兴证券两家证券公司完成的，所以其未来职业目标也是金融产品和银行服务的数字化方面。相比于朝三暮四的申请者，这样目标明确、知道自己想要什么的申请者更容易受到学校的认可。

你觉得这篇文书写得怎么样？有哪些优缺点？欢迎在评论区留言。另外，如有任何关于留学申请文书的疑问，可以在评论区留言或私信我，我将免费做出解答。