Hello!
Great questions (none of them are dumb
). Here are my thoughts:
As for your career narrative, I think it is a fine narrative as long as you link the desire to work in government to your past experience. Think of your career narrative as an equation: a+b+c = d, where a = all the skills/experiences you've gained to date, b = all the skills/experiences you'll gain in business school, c = all the skills/experiences you'll gain in your short term career, and d= your long term goal. Your story should be so tightly woven that you could not reach "d" without any of the other variables, a, b, or c. They should build upon each other and ultimately lead to d, and your desire to get to d should be grounded in your experience to date. For example, it would make a lot more sense to say you want to work in the Department of Energy...
I would leave the family business bit out of your career narrative, though you can definitely include it on your resume, make a separate essay of it if you have a good story from it that fits, and discuss it in your interview. But it doesn't fall into your ultimate career plan, so I'd leave it out of that particular essay.
As for your GPA -- I think I need a little more clarity there. You started undergrad with a high GPA and then it went lower over the years? I don't really think you need to explain it since you ended up with a pretty strong GPA anyway, but if there is a very drastic drop in grades or a particularly bad grade (D/F) to explain, then you should explain that. Otherwise it probably isn't necessary.
I would probably categorize development financing as economics or development work if those are options? Let me know what other categories it could possibly fall into and I can help a little better. I'd put energy/utilities as your current industry, and current function as corporate finance. Make sense?
Hope this helps!
Mili Mittal
Senior Consultant
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