My name is Nan Meng, I’m a Chinese international student in INTO Mason. I had wanted to apply for George Mason University after I finished my undergraduate degree. But when I prepared the TOEFL test, a serious food poisoning forced me to gave the test up. Because some chemical damaged my liver, I had to use the whole year to recover from it. After that, the strong desire to be a Mason student still in my mind, so I chose INTO Mason’s Pathway program to realize it quicker. I will finish my pathway program this semester, so I want to apply for Mason again to let the dream come true. Because Mason has the best MPP program in America and so many great professor can solve my confused issues and topics.
I studied Public Management in Nanjing Normal University. The reason for my choice not only base on the major of Public Management in this school can rank the top 10% of all university in China, but also the strong desire of serving people drives me to study it. During my four-years-study in university, I concentrated on reading classic books, from Plato to Hobbes and Locke, from Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu to John Mill, and then to Rawls, also from Max Weber to David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, end with Robert B. Denhardt and Janet V. Denhardt. I have read most of their classic works, even including some original edition in English, because I wanted to get their original ideas directly. I attached the book list in my application materials, but books I have read are more than what is listed. Knowledge accumulated during my college life will provide a huge help for my study as a graduate student.
Moreover, I pay attention to the balance between various disciplines in the process of reading and my undergraduate study. As a result, while studying political philosophy and political science, I also learned public management, public policy, comparative politics, sociology and history of other countries at the same time. The interdisciplinary style helps me get a unique perspective which leads me generate some different views and conclusions from others when I observe some social problems.
I learned many public management theories during my undergraduate study, some of them made impression to my mind, such as the theory of entrepreneurial government and new public management theory. The theory of entrepreneurial government represented by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler tries to use some way in private department to reform the government. People in China is looking for the government to improve the ability of providing public services. But the “big government” traditional makes it become a problem. The low efficiency of public service make market and society cannot develop in a high speed. The theory of entrepreneurial government is exactly a good way to solve these problems. What’s more, I carried out an in-depth study on the theory of government performance management presented by Marc Holzer and the theory of new public management put forward by Robert B. Denhardt and Janet V. Denhardt. The government performance management advocated by the former theory is definitely a high way for China government and will be adopted by the national system. The latter one are in the front of public management theory today, which will also be the direction of the transformation in China. All these three theories are originated in the United States, so I want to study these theories on a higher level in the future, try to combining the theory with actual situation in China, development and extend the three theories to solve China’s problem.
When I was a junior in university, I provided some suggestions about mobile public service for the mayor of Taiyuan, which is the capital of Shanxi province. I involved a research program about smart city and mobile public service. This program was controlled by Taiyuan’s Development and Reform Commission(DRC) which has the power to make a local development plan. After this research finished, basing on my suggestions and “Government on Hand” which I wrote as a junior student before I involve the study, the mayor decided to make a mobile app to provide public service for Taiyuan. I am so excited about this experience because the life of citizens in Taiyuan will become more convenient, the government will be more efficient as well. I consider the experience as a rare one among undergraduates.
I came to the US and been an INTO Mason student since fall 2015. During this period, I enhanced my English skills and tried to involve American life. I also finished two of required course which are ITRN-503 and PUBP-503. The former one, my grade is A-, the grade of the latter one still in progress. Last summer I helped my friends and family members build a new company as the vice general manager. This experience in private sector may benefit my graduate study to combine public sector and private sector in future potential research.
Recently I’m studying smart city and try to write a literature review about privacy in smart city era. Smart city is a tendency for urban development, but still need scholars do more research about it. Not only privacy in smart city, but also how to govern it is a good topic for my future research. There are many Mason professor study urban policy and science technology, such as Priscilla M. Regan, Laurie Schintler and Connie L. McNeely. If I can get advices from them, my research could be easy to finish.
City makes life better. Improving government performance is the key to make the city better. Because of the experience mentioned before, I believe the government of China can be better, but still need more scholar do some research to accelerate the progress. So I choose to apply for George Mason University to get advanced experience and ability in public policy and public management, which can help more people to enjoy a better public service and a life.