PLEASE REVIEW MY SOP FOR COLLEGE

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kashmiraa.pawaskar

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During my undergrad in Mass Communication, through various assignments such as the summer internship at the Times of India as an assistant investigative journalist or the documentary made on the economic vulnerabilities of transgender community in Mumbai, I was drawn towards understanding the academic literature of societal power structures, discriminations and instruments of injustice.
I stood among the top 1% of thousands of applications and got admitted into a post-graduate diploma program at IIMC, an institute run by the Ministry of Broadcasting and Information in New Delhi. This program opened doors for the world of policy and advocacy for me. I got an opportunity to become a part of a performing arts/theatre group at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). We performed street plays across Delhi to protest and spread awareness against the mass scale destruction of ecologically sensitive habitats and forced displacement of at least 2, 50,000 people in New Delhi for the reasons of city `beautification’ during the Commonwealth Games 2010. This was the first time I was exposed to the interface of economic development and environment in the context of environmental justice. I was intrigued by the roles played by the state and individual action in bringing together development, sustainability, justice and equity.
After completing my education in mass communication, I joined a Corporate Communication Team in Accenture. Successfully climbing the professional ladder to become a Team Leader in three years, I cashed on every opportunity to inculcate and polish my management and communication skills. However, along with my professional achievements, I was actively involved with the Corporate Social Responsibility team. I volunteered for three years with Godrej Marine Ecology Centre to develop Mangrove Education curriculum depicting information about aspects of the mangrove ecosystem including world and Indian distribution of mangroves, associated biodiversity, and the ecological and economical importance of mangroves. We engaged with the local communities from the coastal villages nearby Mumbai and citizen’s forums to explore approaches for sustainable co-management of the mangroves along with the government, an initiative which was widely appreciated by the Bombay Municipal Corporation and Maharashtra State Government. This experience resonated with me the most, bringing back my age-old interests in exploring the societal power structures between the state and non-state actors and dynamics of development and sustainability. This experience primarily shaped my decision to pursue master’s education in Climate Change and Sustainability Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.
This course widened my horizon by introducing me to topics such as climate science, environmental governance, economics of climate change and energy modelling. The rural field research component gave us an opportunity to understand the real challenges of energy, environment and economy in a rural setting. We conducted a census type household survey with a detailed questionnaire to assess income and expenditure pattern of agricultural households in the tribal villages of western Maharashtra. I witnessed first-hand the importance of government support for basic facilities like water, sanitation, education, healthcare, energy etc. in a rural economy. The meanings of the terms like low carbon agriculture or sustainable energy completely changed for me when I saw how a village, merely 150 kms away from Mumbai is struggling for basic energy accessibility as less than 20% of the households had any electrical connection. Lack of continuous and affordable electricity directly impacts the market connectivity and affordability of agricultural inputs like water and technology.
During my summer internship with the Climate Change and Sustainability Services Division at Deloitte India, I worked on two projects namely, analysing the global trends of sustainability reporting and benchmarking renewable energy policy standards around the world to make a draft of renewable energy policy for the Zimbabwe government. Both the projects introduced me to the know-how of current investment scenario in sustainability and energy, however renewable energy project particularly interested me where I did extensive literature review of the energy policies, regulations and strategies for all African countries. I was thoroughly delighted to work on initial draft of any country’s renewable energy policy which further led to increased curiosity in energy regulations and carbon mitigation policies.
Keeping my Deloitte project in mind, I chose a dissertation topic which had the prospects to thoroughly study mitigation commitments of countries with regards to their current and further environmental regulations. The thesis employed the methodology of decomposition analysis of emissions and energy pattern. The aim was to study the trends and impacts of four major drivers namely; - economic activities, nature of economic activities, fuel mix and energy efficiency on CO2 emissions and their intensities. This analysis was further coupled with mitigations targets of countries committed during the COP 21. Some of the biggest challenges of this exercise was availability of latest data especially for developing countries and altering of Log Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) method as per countries’ current scenarios. The extensive thesis writing of six months gave me an in-depth knowledge of actual mitigation efforts and energy policies of top 10 emitters. Further, I got an opportunity to present the paper on the thesis at the Humboldt Kolleg on Climate Change and Energy Options in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, India (2017). The study was also selected for a poster presentation at the NSCJ International Symposium on Energy, Manchester, UK (2017) and SISC Conference, Bologna, Italy (2017).
Post my graduation, I started working with the ESG team at MSCI Inc. as a ratings associate. My profile involves preparing rating reports by assessing Energy and Utilities companies on their environmental, social and governance parameters. The report consist of companies’ business practices to provide insights for socially responsible investment. Even though, this professional experience has introduced me to plethora of factors used by the public and private sector to push mitigation efforts; I believe there is lack of concreate research associated with actual investment in mitigation and environmental policies. This has made me realize that as climate change research is progressing, other factors like society, politics, and law are constantly evolving along in a complex system of bargaining. Hence, a right blend of analytical tools and understanding of regulations on global level is required to navigate deftly in this system.
A multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary course like Environmental Policy and Regulation at LSE will give me an opportunity to understand all the factors influencing climate change regulations and policies in wider range. The course on Global Environmental Governance by Prof Kathryn Hochstetler interests me particularly to understand role of states and non-state actors in the politics of global environmental policy. Similarly, I can closely relate to the Dr Michael Mason work on climate change, environmental degradation and renewable energy as it was topic of my thesis which I would further like to continue working on while pursing PHD. Also Prof Simon Dietz course on Climate Change: Science, Economics and Policy interest me as it mentions to use interdisciplinary approach along with economic analysis to understand climate change impact on society. Another vital course of Environmental Regulation: Implementing Policy is of particular interest as it is an open window to understand evolving dynamics of environmental governance.
 

emsr2d2

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Welcome to the forum. :hi:

Wow, that is a huge block of text. Please click on "Edit Post" and add a line break (an empty line) between each paragraph. At the moment, it's unreadable.
 
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