This thread doesn’t seem as active as the previous year’s transfer thread, but hopefully we can get more people in here. I am applying to transfer in 2020 as well. Even with an Associate’s degree, I’ll be entering as a sophomore because my college’s two basic Intro to Macro and Intro to Micro econ classes only account for the basic class at stanford, and as an Econ major I’ll need to play catch up.
23, Male, East SF Bay Area JC
Army and Army Reserve veteran, transitioning to Air Force Reserve
GPA: 4.0, going on 60+ credits because I’ve changed my major
Current major: Liberal Arts in Math and Science
Transfer Major: Economics (My JC doesn’t have an Econ major, and I wanted something more focuses than a business undergraduate education)
Standardized tests: Took the ACT yesterday, I’ll feel pressured to retake it if it wasn’t a 33+ however.
Academics: My first two years in community college, I was heavy in law enforcement and criminal justice classes. Now, I’m focusing on math, English, and social sciences, although I’m concerned that I’ll only have up to Calc II under my belt by the time I transfer. Right now I have an honors English class and an Honors macroecon class on my transcript as well.
Experience:
Army + Army Reserve: I’ve served primarily in the Reserves with a brief activation in 2017-2018. I am an intelligence analyst (now a Sergeant and team leader) that extensively studied US-Korean peninsula relations, and US-Sino relations. I’ve been to Korea 4 times for the Army, and volunteered to serve on a US Forces Korea mission during the 20107-2018 high tensions between US and North Korea. I helped write the commanding general’s and then-Secretary Mattis’s Korea briefings. During this time, I also studied China’s “Made in China 2025” tech developments, which made me want to get back into economics.
Student Government: I was actively involved in student government both before and after I took a break from JC to do Army stuff. I ended my time there last semester as Vice President. I focused on improving student equity, primarily through promoting the zero cost textbook initiative to use open source education resources to save students money. The program has been successful so far, and more professors are getting on board.
Economics: My background in economics goes back pretty far, despite for a few years since high school when I was motivated to get into government service. I am very interested in how international economies and macroeconomics relate to each other, and using investments to drive technological change. In high school, I networked to the current New York Federal Reserve president (while he was at the SF Fed) to talk about economics. My publications include
-TEDx speech about US-China relations and the future of this dichotomy
-Presentation at Stanford University (for a state-wide JC honors research symposium) about North Korean monetary policy and paths to reunification
Policing: I spent the first 3 years after high school pursuing policing, I interned for a PD in a violent Bay Area city and fking loved it. It will always have a place in my heart, even if I left that to pursue economics. It’ll be a component in my essays.
Entrepreneurship: I’ve founded a couple businesses. I’ve had a side gig as a mobile notary public in my town, and over the summer started an LLC to bid on government contracts, although my focus is now on acquiring rental real estate like a private equity firm.
Recommenders-
-Econ department chair, my former econ professor
-Criminal Justice department chair, a great friend of mine
-Former boss from the Army. He’s not high up, but he knows me very well
-Economics mentor of 8 years, who is a cofounder/board member of a major investment firm and a donor to Stanford
Essays:
What I do know what I’ll be writing about
- What means a lot to you? When I was 19, my neighbor who was a policeman was shot and killed. I rode with a local PD (the same that I would intern at) and saluted my first flag draped coffin at 19. His memorial sign by the freeway means a lot to me, and I want to expand on the journey in policing that came out of that.
- What made me want to go into economics? In 2017, when I was in Korea for the Army, I contracted an antibiotic resistant skin infection that took very high levels of antibiotics to treat. I really got started thinking about the economics of drug discovery and production, and why these problems were so slow to be treated. This led me back down the rabbithole of economics, because I do want to use economics and investment to help treat the issue of antibiotic resistance. Seriously, these superbugs are spreading and they are no joke.
Again, I’m concerned that my ACT won’t be high enough, and that I won’t have as much math education to pass the econ department’s standards in admissions for a transfer.
Good luck, everybody!
