Career Goals Essay For Scholarships (With Examples)

A career goals essay is a personal written explanation that discusses your background, why you’re interested in participating in the program, and what career you’d like this degree to lead into. A scholarship essay functions to explain why you want to achieve your professional goals and how you intend to get there.

In almost every application process, a portion asks the candidate to answer an essay question. When applying to an educational program, like an MBA, the essay prompt usually relates to your career goals.

Why scholarship essays ask about career goals

Scholarship essays ask about career goals to assess your enthusiasm for the program, learn more about how the scholarship will help you, and ensure that you’ve considered how the program will help you achieve your goals for the future:

• Assess your enthusiasm. Passion is important for scholarship administrators, and if you’re able to articulate your enthusiasm for a specific career path, it will show that you’re determined to meet the requirements to reach that goal. The most specific and well-thought-out your essay is, the easier it will be for a reader to understand your devotion and commitment to the program and the field it will allow you to enter.
• Learn how the scholarship will help you. Having a firm grasp of your career goals is great, but it’s equally important that you express exactly how the specific program relates to those goals. This shows that you’ve researched the merits of the program and understand exactly how it fits into your professional goals.
• Show you’ve considered your future. This goes along with the first two points — show that you know how to set goals and consider the path toward achieving those goals, and you’ll have an easier time convincing the reader that you’ll know how to set goals while participating in the program. They’ll see that you know how to prioritize education because you have a clear vision for navigating your career path.

Example career goals essay prompts

While some scholarships might come right out and simply ask, “What are your career goals?” most will rework the question into something different that still accomplishes the same goal.

Below are some examples of career goals essay prompts that a scholarship program could pose to its applicants:

1. Discuss your career goals. Many scholarships prefer the most direct approach when giving an essay prompt to their applicants. This type of question gives the candidate a lot of wiggle room to discuss their passions, motivations, and career goals.
2. Where do you see yourself in 10 years? This question is often used as a prompt for a career goals essay because it gives the applicant a timeline to describe their aspirations. It forces them to be realistic about where their career will be and how they will accomplish this within the next ten years.
3. How will this scholarship contribute to your professional success? A scholarship committee wants to be sure that the money they’re giving will contribute to a student’s overall professional success. This question asks about the applicant’s game plan in the long-term and evaluates how this program is going to assist in their future.
4. What is your dream job? Since a dream job is often categorized as a person’s career goals, this is a common question phrasing in scholarship essays. Asking about a candidate’s dream job answers whether this program aligns with the student’s long-term career goals.
5. What matters most to you and why? Sometimes, a scholarship essay prompt won’t ask about your career or future at all. Instead, they’ll ask a question like this that assesses your motivations, values, and character. It’s important to a committee that they award the scholarship to a candidate who demonstrates career planning and drive, but it’s also crucial that they display a positive character.

Career goals essay examples

Use these examples of career goals essays for scholarships to help write your own. Pay special attention to how they’re organized, rather than the content, to inspire your own career goals essay:

Career goals essay example 1 – Discuss your career goals

When I was six years old, I was riding bikes with my older sister around our neighborhood. She had just taught me how to ride, and I was excited to have to freedom to explore with her. When she was rounding a particularly difficult bend to see around, a car happened to be coming along at the same time. It struck her. That bike ride changed our lives forever. Over the next year, I went with my sister every Tuesday and Thursday to her physical therapist’s appointments to help her regain walking strength. Watching her physical therapist patiently assist my sister back to becoming herself awoken something in me. A passion for helping others in the same way eventually turned into a career goal of becoming a physical therapist myself. I decided to get my bachelor’s degree in exercise science. After graduating in 2019, I knew that the next step for me was to attend a graduate program in physical therapy. I was accepted to Lassell University Master of Science in Rehabilitation Services. This presented me with my latest goal along my career path, and I’m eagerly waiting to start. This scholarship would help me afford the wonderful opportunity to be a part of the Lassell University class of 2023, allowing me to continue working towards my ultimate career goal of becoming a physical therapist and helping others to become themselves again.

In ten years, I will have been successfully running my own construction business for about five years. I’m currently a second-year student at the University of Texas, pursuing a master’s degree in business administration. I decided to get my MBA because I knew it would be a positive asset toward my long-term career goal of owning a construction business. In my high school years, I worked as a construction apprentice for a local business. I loved many aspects of the business, such as building something from nothing. I knew that I wanted to incorporate this work into my long-term career, but I didn’t want to work as an apprentice. This led me to pursue business. In ten years and with the help of this scholarship, I will have graduated with my MBA almost a decade prior. After graduation, I plan to take a business administration internship with a carpentry business to help myself get a footing in the field. After about two years of this, I will have started my own construction business.

The people I surround myself with matter most to me. Whether it be my relatives, friends, or professional acquaintances, I always care the most about the happiness of the people around me. Making the people around me happy matters the most to me because I truly because we find our happiness through others. I believe that this drive to make a positive impression on the people around me is what drove me towards a career as a nurse. I always thought of hospitals as places where people need someone to support them and make their day a little happier. I wanted to be one of those who spend their careers positively impacting people in need. This scholarship will enable me to finally afford nursing school and go after my dream job full force.

My short-term career goals involve working directly with underprivileged young people to increase the literacy rate in my community. As a student of an underfunded and understaffed school, I’ve seen firsthand how much of an impact early literacy education makes on long-term achievement. It broke my heart to see my peers embarrassed at their struggle with reading at an advanced age, and this shame added another dimension to their lack of opportunity. Being a literacy educator for young people would allow me to serve this community directly to show them not only the necessity of strong written communication skills, but the joy of reading for pleasure. This program focuses specifically on early literacy, and would provide me a direct route to a career in serving the community I hope to serve. As for long-term career goals, I hope to one day create a program where socioeconomically parents can bring their children for literacy education, not only to increase their ability to navigate the world of language, but also to instill confidence and joy in the written word. What drew me to this program was that it also has administrative, legal, and business dimensions that would set me on the path toward achieving this goal.

Tips for writing a scholarship essay about career goals

Here are some tips to keep in mind for writing a career goals scholarship essay:

1. Write about goals relevant to the scholarship. Although you may have many different kinds of goals for your personal and professional future, a scholarship essay only discusses objectives that are relevant to the program you’re applying for. If you’re applying for a scholarship specific to the field you’re pursuing, it’s simple to stay on track and only discuss career goals relevant to this discipline. For broader scholarship packages, stick to goals and accomplishments that are relevant to your educational major.
2. Be honest. Applying for a scholarship is stressful because the applicant’s education is usually reliant on receiving these funds in one way or another. Even though it’s tempting to exaggerate your skills or pretend you’re more passionate about something than you are to make yourself a more competitive applicant, it’s a bad move. Scholarship personnel is looking for genuine answers in career goals scholarship essays. Being honest about your prior experience and future goals in a personal statement essay betters your chances of being awarded a scholarship.
3. Use your own, unique voice. The essay portion of a scholarship application is your chance to stand out by using your voice. Nobody else, regardless of their academic or professional achievements, is you. Make this clear in your career goals scholarship essay by keeping your unique written voice engrained in the words you produce. While you want to maintain a professional tone in any application essay, it’s a wasted opportunity if you don’t dazzle them a little with your personality.
4. Be specific. A big reason that scholarship committees ask applicants to write a career goals essay is to determine how prepared they are in planning their long-term professional goals. They aren’t interested in providing a scholarship to students who aren’t going to follow through with their career plans. To better the possibility of being viewed as one of these well-planned applicants, be specific in describing your career goals. Make it clear that you know what you have to do to achieve your goals and plan to do so.
5. Explain long and short-term goals. Even if the essay prompt asks you to describe where you see yourself in ten years, you still need to tell them the steps leading towards this picture of success. Include the short-term goals that add up to your larger career objectives in your essay response. Explain how accomplishing the smaller goals gives you an advantage when tackling long-term ones. Including both long and short-term professional goals make your essay more comprehensive.
6. Explain how the program and scholarship will help you. Before writing your career goals essay, consider how this program and scholarship will help you in your career. The answer to this question is essential. The goal of providing students with a scholarship is to help them through the finances of an education. Your essay should be clear in how it will do this for you.
7. Follow the essay formatting guidelines. This may sound obvious, but it’s surprisingly easy to forget this step when your essay is finally flowing and when you’re scrambling to get it submitted on time. Check, double-check, and triple-check the essay guidelines for content, word count, and formatting requirements. If you miss any of these steps, your essay may be immediately disqualified no matter how good it or the rest of your application is.

What to write in a career goals essay if your goals have changed

Many times career goals essays are written by students who have already completed at least some college or are applying to a post-graduate program and need more money to continue.

There’s a good chance that your career goals have changed since you started or graduated college. For example, say you wanted to be an engineer, so you got your undergraduate degree in engineering but realized you didn’t like it after working in the industry for a few years.

You decided that nursing would be more up your alley, and now you’re applying for a scholarship for a nursing program. While this isn’t unusual, it can make it more difficult to write a career goals essay since your past work doesn’t necessarily match your future goals.

In this case, you’ll simply need to explain why you changed your career path and why this next one is the best choice for you. Share your decision-making process to show that you haven’t taken the switch lightly, and talk about what you’ve already done to try to pursue this path.

Career goals essay for a scholarship FAQ

1. How do you write a career goal for a scholarship essay? You write a career goal for a scholarship essay by sharing your passion, explaining both your long- and short-term goals, and relating your goals to the scholarship. Explain why you want to pursue the career you’re pursuing, where you hope to be in the future and how you plan to get there, and how the scholarship will help you do this.
2. How do you describe your career goals in an essay? You describe your career goals in an essay by explaining what you want to do in your career, why you decided on this career path, and what you’ve done so far to make that a reality. You can usually work these factors into any prompt you receive, so think through them before you start writing so that you can use them as an outline of sorts.
3. What are career goals examples? Examples of career goals include:
   • Working as a grant writer for a nonprofit organization.
   • Becoming a department manager and eventually an executive in your field.
   • Owning your own plumbing company.
   • Caring for underserved communities as a nurse practitioner.
4. What are some goals for success?Some goals for success include growing in your role, building your network, and finding joy in the job. Most careers don’t just happen overnight and require you to set the right milestones that work best for you. Not everyone will have the same goals for success.
5. How do you start a career goals essay for a scholarship?

You can start a career goals essay for a scholarship by directly answering the prompt. Most scholarship prompts include a word count of between 200 and 500 words, so it’s essential that you immediately respond to the prompt. Attention-grabbing sentences and narratives can be helpful for setting the scene, but an efficient and direct answer will show a clarity of mind that helps enhance the quality of your answer.

References

1. BLS – Career planning for high schoolers

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