In this blog post, we’ll look at how you can use your love of numbers and responsibility to authentically explain why you want to study accounting.
Write about your academic experiences and impressions
Use social studies to study language arts
I always struggled with language arts in high school. I had a good foundation in English and math, and I always got good grades in social studies because it’s my favorite subject, but I was always stuck in language arts because I didn’t have a lot of interest in it, so I couldn’t concentrate on it, and as a result, I didn’t get good grades. So I was wondering how to get interested in the subject, and then I decided to study it using social studies, which I really like, and I thought I could make connections between the two subjects because literature is often related to historical and social backgrounds, and non-literary works often contain background knowledge related to social studies.
I decided to study literary works first. When studying literary works, I used to simply focus on the content and read only the text. However, I changed my method and looked at the historical background of the era in which the writer lived. For example, when studying “Cheongsanbyeolgok,” a Goryeo Sokyon, I first understood the historical background that there were many nomadic farmers during the period when the work was written before studying the work in earnest. Then, when I read the work, I understood the work better and focused on it by relating it to the situation at that time.
On the other hand, when I studied non-literary works, I read texts that were related to social studies, such as texts about cultural assets or texts that introduced economic common sense, and studied the structure of the texts and the way the argument developed. In the past, I found it very difficult to study the theoretical aspects of non-literature, but by studying texts that dealt with topics that I was interested in, I was able to concentrate better and study more easily. By studying Korean language subjects in relation to social studies, I realized that other subjects are not separate from each other, but are organically related, and it is fun to study from this perspective.
Write about your main school activities and impressions
Take small steps to increase your club membership
I was active in a Catholic club in high school. My school was a general liberal arts high school, so it was hard to get involved in any religious activities, so I joined the Catholic club as a freshman and started to get involved. I was worried that the number of members was too low. Of course, I liked the people I was in the club with, and I liked reading the Bible and having small masses with them, but if the number of members was too low, we couldn’t get funding for the club from the school, and it was hard to get it recognized as an official club, so we couldn’t do activities outside of CA time.
In my sophomore year, I became the president of the club, and I felt responsible for increasing the number of members so that we could be recognized as an official club. I then started to think about how to increase the number of members. At first, I simply went around the class to promote the club to students, or made a flyer and put it on the bulletin board, but the number of members did not increase much. I realized that the problem was that we didn’t differentiate ourselves from other clubs, we simply advertised that we were a Catholic club, and we didn’t have a personality that made people want to join, so there wasn’t much to make them want to join compared to other clubs. So I thought about how to lead the club as a religious club.
I thought that a religious club should have a more moral aspect than other clubs and should do exemplary activities. I also thought that we should do activities that contain the spirit of charity. So I started to do exemplary activities. First, we did environmental cleanup activities every lunchtime, going around the campus to pick up trash in the playground, auditorium, etc. At first, many of the students in the club found it annoying, and we were told that we were pretending to be nice, but as we continued to do so, we gradually began to be recognized by the other students as being sincere. We also organized a counseling session with a priest from a nearby church once a week to help students with their problems. The number of students who came to receive the priest’s sincere attention and advice increased, and we received a good response.
As a result of these two activities, we were able to convince students that the Catholic Club was something different, and as a result, the number of members increased, and we were recognized as an official club. Of course, we were most pleased to be recognized as an official club. But even more than that, I was happy to see that through our small actions, the perception of Catholic clubs among students improved a lot, and it was an experience that taught me that being a role model for people, practicing charity, is really important for religion, and that living a life of practicing such activities is really blessed and fulfilling.
Examples of caring, sharing, and cooperation and what I learned
Making concessions to enjoy physical activity
When I was in the second grade, I chose liberal arts. At that time, our school had a relatively small number of liberal arts classes, and there were fewer students in each class. Because of the small number of students in the class, there were some problems, especially in physical education. We had a lot of students who wanted to play soccer, some who wanted to play basketball, some who wanted to play futsal, and so on, but there weren’t enough students to play soccer, so they couldn’t play soccer properly. Basketball and soccer require relatively few people to have fun, whereas soccer is difficult to enjoy if there are not enough people. Therefore, students who wanted to play soccer often asked other students to play soccer with them. However, when other students did not play soccer, they gradually became more and more insistent on playing soccer, and fights broke out with other students.
I didn’t think that fights should break out in gym class when the class was supposed to be having fun together. In fact, it was a problem that could be solved with a little compromise. For example, one time, the students who wanted to play basketball and futsal would play soccer together, and the next time, the students who wanted to play soccer would play basketball together. In fact, there weren’t enough students who wanted to play basketball, so they were only playing two-on-two and three-on-three, but when the students who wanted to play soccer joined in, they were able to utilize the entire court and play basketball properly.
Just by making concessions to each other, the problem was easily solved. I’ve learned that it’s surprisingly easy to resolve conflicts by making small concessions to each other, and that sometimes it’s more fun to be in harmony with each other than to do what you want to do.
Motivation and preparation for the job
As an accounting major, preparing for public service in the field
When I was involved in clubs in high school, I found it rewarding to lead an organization to run smoothly. In fact, I enjoyed running the club as a captain, but more than that, I really enjoyed the planning and budgeting that went into managing the club’s expenses. This made me want to manage budgets for other organizations in the future and contribute to their operations, so I applied to the accounting department to develop my experience and expertise in budget management.
What I want to learn as an accounting major is professional accounting skills. I want to master the accounting information system so that I can handle related programs without any difficulty, and I want to prepare for the future by obtaining an accountant’s certificate. And although accounting theory is important, I will acquire a lot of practical experience so that I will not be lacking as a future professional. In theory, I will study related subjects such as accounting and business administration diligently, and I will not neglect basic studies such as Korean, mathematics, and English. As a result, my career plan is to prepare for the civil service examination to become a civil servant in the accounting field.
The reason why I thought of becoming a civil servant stems from my personality. I believe in Catholicism, and I think that I am happiest living with people who love and care for each other, so I usually have the sincerity to be considerate rather than competitive, and to be satisfied with the work I am given rather than greedy. In some ways, I don’t think business administration or accounting are the right fields of study for me because they are all about competition. However, another way to look at it is that accounting is a field that requires a lot of integrity and consideration. When you work in accounting at a public company such as the National Tax Service, it will be most important to do your job thoroughly and without mistakes, and to cooperate with other departments in an organic way. It will be rewarding if you can contribute to the work of the country through such efforts.
