Last year, I went to Tsinghua University for a lecture on the study of the rules of foreign parliaments’ working procedure, in which Mr Thomas Hadamek, the Director of the PD2 Bureau of the Executive Department of the Bundestag, and Mr Maichael Schaefer, the Secretary-General of the Social Democratic Party, introduced how the Bundestag works. Before the lecture began, the host introduced other scholars who came to attend and, surprisingly, noticed that, other than students, there was an old lady sitting at the front of the hall with a notebook. When asked why she came, the lady replied, “If China wanted to improve its system, it cannot fail to understand the law. China must first learn from other countries’ legislative operation modes to make its own country law system more advanced.” Her words were responded with the applause of the whole audience. She did not say who she was and what did she do, but her speech made everyone in awe and begin to think about the value that everyone can bring to society. The contents of that lecture and the words of that old lady have been lingering in my mind, and I can still recall the applause at that moment.

At that moment, I began to think about how I, a student majoring in financial economics, could help ordinary people. My answer is to be a policymaker in the country's policy bank to formulate economic policies that are more suitable for China's development, surmounting the current development barriers to help national economy grow better. The old lady’s words inspired me and made me believe that there was a possibility of becoming a policymaker in my life, and I decided to apply for the MSc Local Economic Development at [University Name] as my second master's degree to pursue this goal.

To be prepared, I cherish my one-year study of Finance and Economics at [University Name], where I chose the courses that interested me, such as Economic Policy in Development. It inspired me to think about poverty alleviation.

Throughout my sophomore year, I usually went to the Affiliated Primary School of Capital University of Economic and Trade for voluntary teaching. Every Friday afternoon, I gave a financial English class to the third graders to teach them English and knowledge related to finance and economy and play some simple games to enhance their learning. In class, children were full of enthusiasm for new knowledge. They took the initiative to answer questions and ask all kinds of questions. Some students even discussed the words they have learned with their parents. This was the student work experience that I enjoyed most in my undergraduate life.

However, not every child is lucky enough to have this kind of education. According to Premier Li Keqiang, who said in the third session of the 13th National people's Congress on May 28th, China's average annual income is 30, 000 yuan, while 600 million people still earn less than 1000 yuan a month. China has nearly 60 million workers in the areas of minimum living security, unemployment insurance, and special poverty relief every year, and the number will be even higher this year because of the pandemic. Children in most areas cannot receive excellent education because of poverty. Trying to do more than an ordinary teacher, I am more interested in studying about poverty alleviation and helping the poor get not only excellent education, but all the excellent things that we are now enjoying.

I am deeply fascinated by the application of the significant Push Model. Bandiera (2017) discussed the issue of vocational training for women in particularly poor areas and allowing them to work in non-poor women, which eventually lifted them out of poverty. Banerjee (2018) also found that multi-faceted plans to provide productive assets, training, tutoring, and savings for the extremely poor could enable them to achieve a sustainable income. But Banerjee found that only giving them help in productive assets or savings could not achieve the same results, which I believe highlights the importance of education and training. In this case, Mbiti (2019) found that combining financial aid (the default policy) with improved teacher incentives could greatly improve the cost-effectiveness of public education expenditure.

The above cases have confirmed the significance of education (especially the training that can bring about a qualitative change in students’ abilities) to poverty alleviation. For developing countries, a small amount of investment might only lead to a waste of resources. It is necessary to invest in the construction of an industry on a large scale to achieve the above-mentioned poverty alleviation effect, and leads to the country's all-round economic development. I am deeply fascinated by this theory because its hypothesis is very suitable for China's national conditions. I am highly concerned about the current distance education programs in some areas of China, that is, using online teaching to help students in remote areas make up for the impact caused by the lack of educational resources. This is a low-cost method and can quickly train and educate students in poor areas.

However, as the problems of China's poverty alleviation work summarized by du Zhixiong and Zhan Lin (2015) shows that although the general direction of China's poverty alleviation is similar to that of the significant Push, there are some difficulties encountered in these specific implementations. Under the premise that income alone is no longer suitable for the current poverty alleviation task, how the government should achieve "accurate poverty alleviation", whether there are more diversified choices in poverty alleviation methods, and how to establish an efficient and accurate poverty alleviation management system and realize the supervision of public power remain unknown. I believe promoting the "socialization" of poverty alleviation projects will aid in solving this problem, that is, making the whole people pay more attention to poverty alleviation projects can avoid the inefficiency and corruption of some public rights.

I hope to gain the ability to analyze and solve these problems at [University Name]. The MSc Local Economic Development curriculum of [University Name] covers background knowledge of geography, energy, and other disciplines. Most of the courses are combined with real examples to study development economics and emerging economics, which attract me more than that of the single economic model and theory. Among them, I am most interested in the Italy study program in Local Capacity and Economic Development Policy. Studying local economic development policies on-site will teach me more skills in economic development analysis and will also play a great role in my future work.

I believe my existed accumulation, coupled with the harvest after a year of [University Name] study in the future, is enough to support me in working in the policy work. A policy bank is an institution that analyzes the problems encountered in local economic development, finds out better economic policies, and carries out some investment projects that commercial banks cannot complete from a macro perspective. Upon graduation, I aspire to enter a policy bank as an analyst. After a year, I will independently complete the work of foreign investment and financing, medium-and long-term credit, and bond research. Seven to ten years later, I will lead a group to carry out support for domestic key industrial projects, promote the development of urbanization, plan projects that are of guiding significance to reality. In 10 to 15 years, and become an excellent and respected policymaker.