Application Letter Critique

Joey Wang Kaile
ZZ, WZZZZZ Road, #ZZ-ZZ
Singapore ZZZZZZ
+65 9ZZZZZZZ
joey@ZZZ.com

15th September 2012

UP Singapore Team

Newton Circus Pte Ltd
138 Cecil Street, #01-01
Cecil Court
Singapore 069538

Re: Position of Researcher for UP Singapore

Dear Mr. Arnold,

I am a student from the Faculty of Science (FoS) at National University of Singapore (NUS). I am currently in my third year of studies and am pursuing a major in Chemistry. I am also the Co-Founder and Chief Researcher at Self Spark, a social enterprise that I had jointly set up with the recent events coordinator of UP Singapore 2012, Mr. James Norris. He had previously tried to recruit me to his team for the recent event in June; unfortunately, I was busy with my summer semester at NUS and was unable to commit during that period of time. I would appreciate the opportunity to assist the events coordinator for UP Singapore 2013 as a researcher as I truly believe that existing systems can and should be improvised through pragmatic and novel means.

As Co-Founder and Chief Researcher at Self Spark, I have done independent academic research in the field of psychology and have incorporated knowledge from scientific journal articles into personal growth events conducted at Self Spark (feel free to peruse them at http://www.selfspark.com/sparkdays/). We hosted our first ever Get Stuff Done (GSD) week for five NUS interns from the Social Entrepreneurship Experience and Development (SEED) Program in July, of which I had coordinated with swift leadership– the interns saw an average increase of 39% in terms of productivity by the end of the week and have responded positively from our post-GSD surveys. My altruism towards others has also driven me to share open source spark days to students at no cost by setting up Self Spark clubs in tertiary institutes within Singapore – Self Spark Club at NUS is already in the midst of club formation. As such, I strongly believe that I possess the right attitude of a researcher for a social entrepreneurial event such as UP Singapore.

I am part of the Special Programme in Science (SPS) at NUS, which is an intense program for a selected group of undergraduates with fierce passion and a strong aptitude for science. Having undergone the SPS curriculum, I showed passion, aptitude, and creativity as I conducted my own research projects, such as designing a self-cleaning surface with nanotechnology and fluid dynamics in bubbles. I have also been recently promoted to the position of an Academic Mentor and am currently guiding fresh undergraduates in their academic studies in SPS. The integrated science program at SPS guided me well in terms of applying multi-disciplinary approaches to solve real world problems, which I believe would be necessary for a researcher.

After I commissioned as an Officer of the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), I was posted to Signal Institute as a Deputy S3 (Operations). I was a Second Lieutenant (2LT) then and was promoted to Lieutenant (LTA) before leaving the force. I developed a novel post-training survey form which encompassed scientifically-proven Likert scale psychological assessment of trainees. In order to further increase accuracy and efficiency in data collection, I ported the survey on the SAF intranet server instead. These initiatives prove that I am not only resourceful, but creative and radical in my ideas to improve existing systems. I believe my experience during National Service would benefit the event coordinator tremendously if I were to be researcher for UP Singapore.

I sincerely hope that I will be offered the opportunity to take up the researcher position for UP Singapore 2013. I believe that my passion, creativity and resourcefulness will be an asset to the event.

I look forward to hearing from you soon and thank you for your time.

Yours Sincerely,

[Signature goes here]

Joey Wang Kaile