Personal Statement Ava Assadi

I was 7 when my parents and I left everything behind in Iran to start a new life here in China. It was a whole other world for me, everything so delightfully different. Since I couldn’t communicate through words like everybody else, my ways of understanding my surroundings were through perceiving and then bringing all of that on paper through drawing. “When in China, do as the Chinese do” right? And so I did. I was enrolled in an all Chinese public school so I could take advantage of what will forever be the greatest opportunity 7 year-old Ava had. To learn Chinese. But until that day arrived when I suddenly started speaking Chinese out loud and had successfully grabbed everybody’s attention, my drawings, sign language and English had seen major improvements also, seeing as they were the only ways I could communicate with the outer world. I suppose my biggest inspiration behind learning all of the languages I have learnt in my life from Farsi to Spanish have all been because of my love for sharing everything I have to offer and learning from everyone I can. Learning languages in my opinion is what unites us, what takes away the boundaries and borders that have been made and put up to separate us. English has always been my favorite language, and my first grade teacher Miss Jenny and Disney are to thank for that. Despite only knowing how to say “Hello” “I am Ava” and “This is an apple” I would form tens of sentences with individual meanings and try having serious conversations with Miss Jenny using them. She was an inspiration to me, so kind and patient, taking our little conversations with even more little vocabulary just as seriously as I took them. In the afternoons my mom would put on my favorite Disney cartoons and TV series, I would watch and want so badly to understand everything, so out of my pure love for those shows and no other educational purpose, I would watch them again and again without realizing that I’m learning! The 8 years I spent in Chinese school taught me much more than just Chinese, I learnt teamwork, but at the same time the ability to stand strong on my own. I learnt responsibility, through those little daily chores we had to do at the end of each school day, I learnt so much about the real and beautiful Chinese culture, things I wouldn’t have gotten to learn if not for everyone I had the privilege of spending time with, growing up with. Things that most definitely groomed me for being able to handle any challenge that’s thrown my way.

Growing up there were two things inseparable from my childhood. Painting and Music. Art is innate within some people, I believe I’m the luckiest to be blessed with that too. I was raised amongst artists, of all types from accessory design to graphic, film to music. And there’s nothing in the world I would rather spend my entire life doing. I believe everything, if done with passion is art though. Say in business, the art of Negotiations is when businesswomen and men turn to their artistry to get that desired result. Marketing, is when statistics and data meet with art, all those things that corporations do to get our attention, at the end of the day, isn’t it the art that attracts us? The truth is taking away art, everything is bland. I aspire to be the artist in business. My dream without any exaggeration is to save our world. And where better to start than learning the tricks of the trade of what runs the world? My mother often says “When there’s profit in something and it turns into a business purely, that’s when things go south and humanity gets lost” I want to use the knowledge I obtain from my degree and my abilities to stop these exploitations. If business is where we can make the realest difference and impact, then positive changes should forever be our only aim.

My other love, music. When it comes to music I never know where to begin. The definition of my name is “beautiful sound” and I’m always going to try to live up to my name. Despite learning the violin and the guitar, my true instrument, is the one within me. Singing is my other happiness. My plan is to pursue both my dreams, I feel like I will never have to work a single day because I will always be doing what I love. I choose Shanghai University because it is the lifeline to my dreams. Shanghai University is the place that will make my plans and the achievement of my goals possible. Offering one of the top degrees in business nationwide, it would be my privilege to have learnt from the best. SHU is full of diversity, creating an opportunity for me to make new connections with people from all continents and cultures, thus making us all get more familiar with the world we’re trying to save. Business is a combination of all of my favorite things and I hope to start studying it this autumn at your university.