Two days work,finally finished! STATEMENT OF MOTIVATION I was brought up in an average Chinese peasant’s family. Like every family else living in our village, we live on the crops grew out of the soil and the livestocks we raised. We were devoted to attending rice paddy half the size of a football ground. There were pigs, herds of hens, dogs in our backyard to be fed everyday; ducks, gooses and fish in our pound to be watched. My father grew grapevines and gardened them into a small shelter where used to be my playground. From time to time, it became my responsibility to watch over our land and animals, I gathered left grains after the grownups reaping off the paddy, fed pigs in my parents’ absent, run flocks of chickens and ducks back to their cages before dark. As one could imagine, it’s the most rewarding time when we bought our harvests into the market and realise the value of our hard work into money, money for my tuition, a television, or a toy gun that I had longed for. Ever since then I became quite fascinated by those plants and animals that paid off our living expenses, made our living more enjoyable. I believe it’s this fascination that later on fueled my pursuit towards a greater depth in animal science. It’s in high school when I started to take biology classes. I tend to be extraordinary at it, I aced finals, and I was even appointed as the study monitor of Biology for the class for two years. Following my graduation in high school, I took biology as my major in 2004. In the university, Heilongjiang Bayi Agricultural University, once the university with the largest campus area in China, renowned for it’s great contribution to agricultural development in northern China, I was bought to lots of interesting theories explaining how the world of lives functions. Darwins The Origin of Species introduced a scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection. Central dogma of molecular biology illustrates how the encoded genetic information in the DNA double helix being transferred into RNA, translated into polypeptide chain and eventually leads to the formation of protein. Compared with all the theoretical concepts, I found experiments and fieldworks more tangible because I can grasp the principles by experiencing its utilization in real world situations. I remember the wonderment I had of looking through a microscope at an animal cell, the thrills of dissecting frogs to study the flexion reflex pathways, the fulfillment of growing a carrot plant out of a piece of carrot tissue. Visits to pharmaceutical factory, vaccine factory and wildlife reserves broadened my horizons how the knowledge we learned can be applied to medical use and environmental protection. My four years in the university ended with an efficient completion of a thesis in bioinformation. I was taught to use multiple bioinformatical tools to study a gene. And for the first time I realized how much the advance of computer science has promoted the development of biology science. For example, the sequencing of the human genome would not have been possible without computers to process and analyze massive amount of genetic data. As my schooling time goes by, I witnessed the remarkable economic achievements China accomplished in the last three decades. The advancement also is leading a revolution in the agricultural production mode, the traditional production system producing in the unit of household like I described formerly would vanish and incorporated into massive production to meet the increasing demand on agricultural commodity. I believe the knowledge I acquired in college could make me useful to contribute to the agricultural reformation. Bear the thought in mind, I furthered my education in one of the finest universities in China, Huazhong Agricultural University(HZAU). My tutor is one of the top scientists in animal husbandry. With his guidance and connections, I was entitled to associate with the best researchers and able to access state-of-art laboratory equipments. I enrolled myself in an animal breeding project, using molecular biology methods to study the association between genotypes and milk production traits, mastitis and lameness. The result of one project I was once involved was published on Molecular Biology Reports by the title of ‘EFFECT OF BoLA-DRB3 EXON2 POLYMORPHISMS ON LAMENESS OF CHINESE HOLSTEIN COWS’. During my three years working in the lab, I went down to quite a lot of farms, which made me see some problems that holding back the productivity of the farming and animal husbandry such as excessively exploitation of natural resources, poor management, environmental pollution by increasing industrial wastes, short of trained and skilled farm workers and lack of support from the government to push the traditional farming into much more efficient modernized intensive breeding farms. The EM-ABG program firstly caught my attention about half a year ago when I just finished my last job contract and seek to experience higher standard of education in Europe which is what I have been looking forward to since young. I was soon attracted by the diversity of this program offers. It is the idea of 5 excellent universities integrating their education in a joint course intrigues me the most. The internationally operated courses would surely entitle access to a broad range of subjects and a holistic view to the various livestock production systems and animal products in EU. Also the rotation in two different universities in two different countries in two years enables students to make the best of complementarity of different partner universities. Back in HZAU I was an active member of a multi-university English club for two years where I practiced spoken English and fostered friendship with people from all over the world, which gave me fresh perspective toward life and the world. However, I had never been able to travel outside of China. At some point, I see the EM-ABG program an opportunity to practice my knowledge of diverse cultures and international social ability. With market share up to 90%, the European animal breeding organizations plays a dominant role in farm animal breeding. I believe apart from the intense scientific expertise training, the internship offered in the program would pave one’s way to a promising career in animal breeding. Personally, after finishing the program, I would either go on to look for a Ph.D position or find a job where I can be an input to the development of sustainable farming in my home country like a counsellor in government organizations.
Posted on: Mon, 20 Jan 2014 06:44:14 +0000
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