Personal statement for I/O Psychology program
Why do human beings act the way that they do? This may seem like a simple question, but it is hard to come up with an answer if you have not studied psychology. As a child I admired the way that my mother who was a guidance counsellor at my school related with people in our community. Students particularly loved her and they always came to her for guidance with various issues which greatly motivated me to be just like her. Though I did not want to become a guidance counsellor like my mother, I knew that I wanted to venture into a career that related with psychology so that I could help other people just like she did. When I first applied for college, I wanted to do a business course but I still had my passion in psychology and so the choice to do International Organizational Psychology course perfectly suited me.
The five years that I spent in University of Louisiana at Lafayette (UL) United States gave me the chance to see the world in a diversified way as I interacted with people from different beliefs and cultures. One of my professors, in the industrial organizational course, Dr. Christie Charles greatly motivated me to do well in this course with the passion that she had for I/O psychology. I currently have an overall GPA of 3.80, and I have been on the President’s list for multiple years in a row which has been a great honour. English is my second language and having come to the United States knowing very little English was a big challenge. I could not communicate effectively and I had to start learning English, I got into the Intensive English Program for eight months, which greatly helped me improve my both spoken and written English. I now have confidence speaking English to native and non-native English speakers.
The life at the university has taught me the importance and value of team work, which is equally important at the work place. I took a leadership communication class, which gave me the ability to work with other students, who can be difficult to collaborate with on projects. I gained some leadership skills by becoming a planning committee member for the International Student Council at the University. Being a leader helped me gain some experience in event organizing as well as public speaking because I was often required to deliver speech to the relevant audience.
I/O psychology particularly interests me because it tries to solve issues in the workplace in order to internally motivate employees to do their best job at work which increase the productivity of the company or organization. In the world today, all important projects require people in an organization to work together collaboratively to achieve a set of goals. My experiences have helped me understand how I/O psychology can solve conflicts at workplace or in any situation. The fact that teamwork can be hard to manage is one of the issues that I/O psychology tries to educate employees about. I believe that being able to communicate with others positively can have a big impact on their behaviors. It is for this reason that I want to expand my knowledge in this field of psychology so that I can learn effective ways of ensuring that employee satisfaction at the workplace. With a Master’s degree in I/O psychology I believe I can focus on the well-being of employees which will increase the productivity of a company or organization.
I am interested in pursuing a graduate course in Master of Science in the Industrial Organizational and Business Psychology. I believe that to achieve this goal, I require to be in an institution that is able to provide the resources, inspiration and opportunity for effective learning. University College London (UCL) is the place where these goals can be achieved, I have faith that the skills that I need in the field of International Organizational Psychology will be taught thoroughly and effectively here. My future goals is to provide Oman organizations with employees that are satisfied with their work and ensure a reduced margin between the way that people could feel about their work and how they actually feel.
