Why I've Decided to Study a Degree in Business

Creativity. Innovation. Imagination. Its what drives me to pursue my passion for business management. Daring to dream with new business ideas which could revolutionize the way we live enthrals me. The notion of running a business and the risks involved in business has excited me for years from a very young age.

Whilst reading the book ‘Shoe Dog’ by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, I came across a quote ‘I had an aching sense that our time is short, shorter than we ever know, short as a morning run, and I wanted mine to be meaningful. And purposeful. And creative. And important. Above all different. I wanted to leave a mark on the world’. Nike is a globally successful company which all started with the desire to make the short time we had available ‘Purposeful’, ‘Creative’, ‘Important’, and ‘Different’ with a passion to ‘leave a mark on the world’. This had me thinking and further encouraged me to produce ideas on how I personally could make a difference to the world.

A few ideas have stood out to me. Firstly, is establishing a business which can deal with the efficient recycling of bottles and waste contamination in cities. I am an avid and passionate traveller and I regularly notice that many cities rich with tourists have problems with water bottles especially during the summer months, in particular places such as Rome, which led me to play on the idea of setting up a business which could deal with the seemingly out of control waste problem which poises the tourist rich cities of the world, in particular those of Europe. There seems to be a very inefficient or missing market at dealing with such. Secondly, is how my town centre could be revamped to attract more people into it. Over the years my home town’s town centre has seen a significant decline in activity with the growth in online shopping and the expansion of the local shopping centre. Such circumstances have led me to question how could the town centre could be revitalized in a modern age which poses difficult circumstances? I subsequently personally wandered around my town centre and informally queried to people what they think the town centre needs. I briefly spoke with a councillor over the councils plans for the towns and shortly after the council announced the Town Centre Masterplan to overhaul the town centre in the coming years. I also spoke with the owners of a few small stores who explained how online shopping and local shopping centres had affected their turnover and was a major problem for them to overcome.

In order to help me expand my knowledge and understanding of the functions of a business I obtained a job in NatWest. Here I work as a cashier. My job particularly stresses the need and importance of communication, eye contact, organisation, teamwork, and the ability to adapt to complex situations and the individual demands of customers of varying backgrounds. Within my role, my duties include assisting customers to make deposits and withdrawals, along with paying essential household bills. Subsidiary duties with the role include helping and showing customers how to use ATM machines, how to set up accounts with NatWest and so forth. During this time, I have developed many key skills such as learning to work under a commanded and instructed environment, with a structured chain of command, handling money and counting it out, the ability to communicate and meet the demands of the customer. Another part of my job is that I also regularly have many customers come in who do not bank with NatWest and so I must sell the bank to the customer and persuade them to bank with us. My decision to study a degree in business strengthened due to my enjoyment and success in my job at NatWest.

Through studying economics, history and business studies at A Level I have gained the ability to interpret data and successfully draw conclusions from it. The data often involves trends over time. This is a part of my lessons which I thoroughly enjoy as it gives the mind freedom to draw your own conclusions and thoughts to the data. I have excelled particularly at subjects associated with business such as business studies and economics throughout my time at college due to my mindset for such subjects. Although, I am a well-rounded person with skills and knowledge in many fields. This can be seen in my GCSEs in which I passed every single one. I believe this is a very important skill of someone in the business sector as they need to be able to have the ability to deal with a variety of challenges day to day.

In and out of school I am keen to be involved in helping with my local community. I volunteer at a charity shop on the weekends and help collect donations for charity, this has helped me to develop skills for passionately convincing people of a good cause. As well as that I help my dad run his driving school by taking phone calls and booking lessons on his behalf in his diary. Such has enabled me to communicate confidently and effectively with customers who seek driving lessons with my dad’s driving school while also taking any quotes or queries people may have. Outside of school I regularly attend football matches with my brother or dad to see my local team Rotherham United. I also played football regularly during PE and played for a football team for several years, serving as captain for a short while. I believe this has been vital in the development of many favourable skills such as being an effective communicator, leadership, working as a team, and working under pressure. In secondary school in Y9 I led an Anne Frank exhibition over several weeks in which the life of Anne Frank was explained in detail and her story was told to the school and external visitors. This experience gave me confidence in speaking to large audiences. As a result of this I won a Governors Award, which was the highest award that could be won at my school. From these roles and experiences, I have learned the importance of trust and dependability which are essential for success in business.