MPA Public Affairs Personal Purpose Statement
- Dec 7, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 7, 2024
I am a young woman from Thailand who is deeply immersed in social administration causes. I hope to attain an MPA degree from the XXXX School to open doors of opportunity and provide me with the requisite tools for being an agent of creative, progressive social change in Thailand. I see your program as a special place that is most compatible with my progressive ideology and my interest in international non-governmental affairs and organizations. I earned a B.A. in Business English in 1999 from the XXXX Institute of XXXX in Bangkok.
I am currently working for the XXXX Fund as a Temporary Personal Assistant. Previously, I had positions with the XXXX Drug Control Program (Temporary Project Assistant), and the XXXX Organization (Staff, Administrative Assistant). This latter organization promotes HIV/AIDS prevention and care knowledge and understanding worldwide through a highly diversified program of research, education, and services. Previously, I worked as an Executive Secretary for an auditing firm.
I much prefer working for a non-profit organization because of the spiritual fulfillment that accompanies social service and a concern for the welfare or those most in need throughout the world, peace, children, the environment, etc. I feel strongly that my professional experience is the strongest asset that I can bring to your program since it has helped me to learn how to adapt to new situations and communicate effectively with a wide range of people from all over the world. I am also highly self-educated, and have learned a lot from UNICEF, UNDCP, FHI, and other public and charitable organizations about how to best go about preparing technical staff to meet professional goals concerning children, drug abuse and addiction, and especially HIV/AIDS.
I am deeply grieved by AIDS in my country; the presence in one's life of children with AIDS can be highly motivating, as it is for me and many of my colleagues. This specter helps to ensure our sense of urgency and special devotion to the cause of learning how to better help them, and future generations yet to be infected.
The XXXX School can provide me with the set of core analytical and technical skills that I need to better understand how public policy is made and implemented. Through a state-of-the-art education in Public Administration at the XXXX School, I hope to gain the necessary skills to constructively address enormously complex problems in Thai social administration and to battle the way in which social change in my extremely traditional society has a deep, inherent resistance to social progress, especially in terms of sexuality and health care.
Your statement radiates a genuine sense of purpose, and that authenticity is its greatest strength. What comes through immediately is a young professional who has already lived the realities of social administration in Thailand—not in an abstract, academic way, but through direct engagement with organizations tackling some of the most urgent issues of our time. The reader can feel your proximity to the work: the administrative backbone of NGOs, the emotional weight of HIV/AIDS in your country, and the moral clarity that guides your career choices.
There is a compelling emotional arc in how you describe your journey. You begin with a clear ideological orientation—progressive, internationally minded, committed to social change—and then anchor that vision in concrete professional experiences. The…