Breath of Clarity

UW-Madison BBA Program Application Essay

My innate passion for business motivates me to pursue a degree from the Wisconsin BBA Program. This academic field is a natural fit for me. It all started at age ten when my mom would take me to the local forest preserve bike trail to sell water bottles. The thrill I felt from small-business success was nothing close to the feeling a typical little girl experiences conducting her first lemonade stand. It was more than that.

This exhilaration continued throughout the rest of my childhood. At age thirteen, I decided to sell all of my family members old possessions in a garage sale. The process was a lot of work, as I was independently responsible for all stages of the process- organizing the merchandise, marketing the event, and finally negotiating prices with the customers the day of the sale. These past four years, I started to think of innovative business ideas that appealed to my specific peer audience and also felt more purposeful. Music became a significant asset to my emotional high school experience and I wanted to spread the benefit it brought me. Freshmen year, I sold burned mixed CDs to my friends who wanted to explore new tunes. The summer I got my license, I started a regular transportation service for kids who needed rides to Chicago concerts. Without this series of business adventures, my sense of the field would’ve never developed enough for my Total Pro Slideshow custom video-making company to evolve and soar. This exposure to the business field at such a young age was a key to my mental development, as I now find myself analyzing even non-business situations from a logical economist’s viewpoint on a regular basis.

Walking around the University of Wisconsin student organization fair, the clubs that interested me most were service-oriented. The missions of the organizations caught my attention, and it worked out that there were fundraising positions available for all of them. This offered me a prime opportunity to get accustomed to business before starting the academic course work. All of the non-profit clubs were chapters of national organizations that depended on UW-Madison to contribute a specific quantity of money by the end of each semester. This was the first time I ever needed to raise money for a specific cause. My student organizations worked relentlessly working to earn money because they recognized the impact that each individual dollar made. There is so much amazing work to be done for the underprivileged, and often the missing variable in the equation is the funds. Finances are such a central component of society, both nationally and abroad. The International Business and Management majors at UW-Madison will allow me to further broaden my perspective on the way people of different cultures are interconnected economically. The knowledge I’ll attain from this program will prepare me to step into such an influential career field.

Admission Decision: Accepted