<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0" xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" xmlns:googleplay="http://www.google.com/schemas/play-podcasts/1.0"><channel><title><![CDATA[Moffeine | Mo’s Space]]></title><description><![CDATA[Let's embark on a journey of Versatility!]]></description><link>https://www.moffeine.com</link><image><url>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yuss!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F572bf35c-9bbc-41f7-b743-f29941b35a1e_1024x1024.png</url><title>Moffeine | Mo’s Space</title><link>https://www.moffeine.com</link></image><generator>Substack</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2026 22:24:19 GMT</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://www.moffeine.com/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/><copyright><![CDATA[Mohammed Almalallah]]></copyright><language><![CDATA[en]]></language><webMaster><![CDATA[moffein@substack.com]]></webMaster><itunes:owner><itunes:email><![CDATA[moffein@substack.com]]></itunes:email><itunes:name><![CDATA[Mohammed Almalallah]]></itunes:name></itunes:owner><itunes:author><![CDATA[Mohammed Almalallah]]></itunes:author><googleplay:owner><![CDATA[moffein@substack.com]]></googleplay:owner><googleplay:email><![CDATA[moffein@substack.com]]></googleplay:email><googleplay:author><![CDATA[Mohammed Almalallah]]></googleplay:author><itunes:block><![CDATA[Yes]]></itunes:block><item><title><![CDATA[Whatever it Takes: The One Solid Plan (Essays 3&4)]]></title><description><![CDATA[Get ready to dive into the fun and challenging path to writing your Chevening's Study in the UK and Career Plan essays.]]></description><link>https://www.moffeine.com/p/whatever-it-takes-the-one-solid-plan</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.moffeine.com/p/whatever-it-takes-the-one-solid-plan</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mohammed Almalallah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 08 Aug 2025 17:20:11 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!yuss!,w_256,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F572bf35c-9bbc-41f7-b743-f29941b35a1e_1024x1024.png" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Hope the title looks catchy as I expect lol. No really, you should seriously do WHATEVER IT TAKES in these 2 essays.</p><p><strong>DISCLAIMER:</strong> This year&#8217;s application has new guidelines for writing the essays. The word count has been deducted to 100-300 words, and the requirements are also a bit different in some context. This article represents my OWN point of view and recommended approach according to my experience; therefore, use it wisely.</p><p>To recall, Chevening is not your bank of luck! It is an extremely challenging battle field that you need to survive. They are not going to fund your degree just because your dream is to study in the UK, but rather, you should have a purpose that would leave no option for them but to pick you. What I mean by this is you should have a solid plan that is well connected and serve a purpose that you know and made an intensive research on.</p><p>Form answers in your head. What do you exactly want to study? Why do you want to study it? What does your country lack with regard to what you want to study? What are the issues you want to solve using the knowledge and experience you want to gain from the UK? Why do you want to study this specifically in the UK? What makes the UK so unique in this field? What universities are you aiming for? Why those universities? What are your short, mid, and long-term career goals that you want to achieve in order to solve the issues your country is experiencing within your field?</p><p><strong>Newly added:</strong> you should align your essays with the UK&#8217;s priority areas for Chevening. There are 4 categories that you must align your course study with. This should be carefully described.</p><p>In a nutshell, there are some problems in your country, you want to study in the UK to get the knowledge, experience, and the connections that would help you solve those problems, period. The distinction between the 2 essays? You should answer all the questions in the previous paragraph in essay 3, along with your short-term or immediate plan upon returning from the UK, then focus on your mid and long-term goals along with the rest of requirements needed for essay 4.</p><p>Let us take an example on how this all works together. First, remember, it is okay if you do not study the same thing you did during your undergrad, but you do however need to know the W questions: what, why, where, and when you want to do it, and how. Chevening used to not care about that, universities do however. You must illustrate why you want to do that shift in career and what the transferrable skills you got are that will help you with your career goals.</p><p>I will create a hypothetical example for you to comprehend and get an idea on how you should think and structure your essay.</p><p>Assume you want to study a degree in technology and human behavior. You focus on the safe use of social media among people, with the aim to target those with poor education and little awareness on how to safely browse and use the Internet and social media. Your third essay should start by highlighting how vital technology and social media are in the current era, and then you begin listing the issues you identified in your country that are making it lacking in comparison to other countries. For instance, your research showed that:</p><ul><li><p>People can easily get scammed through Facebook or WhatsApp</p></li><li><p>It is more common among people aged &gt;40 to click on suspicious links, which lead to their credentials get stolen and cause more serious issues</p></li><li><p>This issue is significantly increasing due to poor tech education that is not being covered by schools or external awareness workshops</p></li><li><p>Many fraudsters are leveraging this to their own interest</p></li><li><p>There is a huge lack of the necessary workforce that would combat this problem</p></li><li><p>There is a huge rise of misinformation and disinformation, and people are unable to identify the authenticity of the news being shared</p></li><li><p>Government is not supporting or implementing proper controls, campaigns, policies, or strategies to tackle the issues</p></li><li><p>There is a reported percentage of 40% rise of scams in the country, with the majority targeting old individuals</p></li></ul><p>A lot can be said, and they fall into the same purpose. You must state facts and statistics about the problem and identify real challenges that your country is facing. Following that, you should talk about why the UK and not other countries? What makes the UK special when it comes to studying technology and human behavior? You have to research and find out why you actually need to do this in the UK not somewhere else. Find real and actual reasons; something like: &#8220;according to the global cybersecurity index (GCI) by the ITU, the UK is one of the T1 Role Modelling countries and one of the top in the world, which comes from several factors that made the UK reach this stage including having the awareness about the threats emerging from technology utilization and the danger surrounding people&#8221;. This is just an example, not a neat one, but to show you the idea of how you should connect the dots and ideas and how to state facts and actual research not just ordinary and usual stuff.</p><p>After you are done with the UK, jump into universities. You have to choose 3 universities that offer that course and just talk about the first one. You order your choices based on what you need, but do noy worry, you can later on choose and study at whichever university you would like regardless of the order.</p><p>How you describe your university ain&#8217;t different from the way you did with the UK. You have to very well research your university and talk about actual, unfamiliar, and unusual information that made you choose it and not others. Again, this has to be something unique about the university, the course, its staff (like there is this professor that I have been following over LinkedIn and I would love to study under their supervision), the labs and how practical they are, he campus and its facilities, the city where this campus is based, etc. Talk about the uni and its course in a way that describes how this would contribute to solving the bigger problem your country is facing. Then connect this directly with your short-term plan (immediate and within 2-3 years after the degree) and how are you going to apply the skills you make after you return (use the SMART method here).</p><p><strong>Important:</strong> I talked a lot here; I mixed the previous instructions for Chevening with the new ones. I purposefully did that so yo get a better understanding of the umbrella and what lies beneath. Grasp all this, then form the answers in your essay with the right flow that does NOT exceed 300 words.</p><div><hr></div><p><strong>Now, moving on to the </strong><em><strong>Career Plan</strong></em><strong> essay.</strong></p><p>Recall when we talked about the issues your country is facing when it comes to tech and human behavior. You identified those issues, and you have the intention to solve them, but how?</p><p>Here comes the role of the career plan, which is the most critical piece of the puzzle. You must form a plan, categorized in 2 sections, that aims to solve the issues you identified in essays 3. Do you see the connection? Hehe.</p><p>Start the essays with a very short paragraph that re-emphasizes why studying such a degree is essential for your country (connecting your career plan with what you want to study in the UK). Then, the next paragraph should talk about the first section: your mid-term plan. This plan is what your goals are (the ones that solve the bigger problem) around 3-10 years after finishing your degree.</p><p>Once you are done with that, the next paragraph is the long-term one. Finally, conclude with a closure statement too on how Chevening will contribute to your achieving your plans or ambitions.</p><p>Throughout that, mention any challenges or obstacles you think you may face while you are working on applying your goals.</p><p>That was all about the structure; but, have you wondered about each paragraph is supposed to be written? How each goal is described?</p><p>Use THE SMART approach!</p><p>The SMART method should not only be the approach we follow when writing our goals, but it is a conceptual framework that should be embedded in our thinking. Each goal should not be random; it must be well designed and well expressed in your essay. You can not say something like: when I return from the UK, I plan to establish a company that fights cybercrimes (can be unrealistic and vague), or I want to change the human behavior and improve it by 70% (unrealistic, not attainable, and not time-bound). Do you have a bit of an idea now?</p><p>Each goal should cover and touch each of the 5 pillars of the framework. Let your essay and plan make sense together, connect the dots, connect the plans and goals together. Simply, just tell your story. You know your value, you know what you want, and you know the dream. All you need is just to have the right structure of putting it all together.</p><div class="captioned-button-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.moffeine.com/p/whatever-it-takes-the-one-solid-plan?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}" data-component-name="CaptionedButtonToDOM"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Moffeine | Mo&#8217;s Space! This post is public so feel free to share it.</p></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.moffeine.com/p/whatever-it-takes-the-one-solid-plan?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.moffeine.com/p/whatever-it-takes-the-one-solid-plan?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[Leadership and Networking: Your Core Values]]></title><description><![CDATA[Following the right structure is your key to writing a powerful Chevening's Leadership and Relationship Building essays.]]></description><link>https://www.moffeine.com/p/leadership-and-networking-your-core</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.moffeine.com/p/leadership-and-networking-your-core</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mohammed Almalallah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 11 Jul 2025 19:30:51 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/716de8d0-869d-4423-bd8f-b0720f723662_1280x960.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This will focus on the first two essays of your Chevening application.</p><p><strong>DISCLAIMER:</strong> This year&#8217;s application has new guidelines for writing the essays. The word count has been deducted to 100-300 words, and the requirements are also a bit different in some context. This article represents my OWN point of view and recommended approach according to my experience; therefore, use it wisely.</p><p>First of all, let us as usual start with the boring formal stuff: the instructions from the official Chevening website.</p><h4>Leadership experience:</h4><blockquote><p>Describe a time when you demonstrated leadership. In your answer, please address the following:</p></blockquote><p>What was the context or challenge you faced? What specific actions did you take as a leader? What was the outcome, and what did you learn? How has this experience shaped your approach to leadership?</p><p>You must enter a minimum of 100 words and a maximum of 300 words.</p><h4>Relationship Building and Influence:</h4><blockquote><p>Tell us about a professional relationship you have built and maintained. In your answer, please address:</p></blockquote><p>How was the relationship formed, and what made it important? What did you contribute to this relationship, and what did you gain? How have you sustained or developed this relationship over time? How will these skills help you build connections within the Chevening community and beyond?</p><p>You must enter a minimum of 100 words and a maximum of 300 words.</p><div><hr></div><p>As you can see. Chevening is not just a degree, you do not ONLY get selected based on your academic excellence, professional experience, or good-looking LinkedIn. They want people who can influence others, have a proven ability to lead, can communicate well, and are able to build mutually-beneficial relationships and long lasting friendships. You must be able to, with examples, show them that you are going there to kill it, not just finish a degree and leave. How do you do that needs certain criteria and structure.</p><p>Both Leadership and Networking essays have the same structure. Let me tell you what it is first then we dive into how each paragraph can be written.</p><p>I actually wanted to do a visual illustration for the structure but felt too lazy, so bear this boring-looking post. Okay, the way you do it is by first starting with a brief intro, stating what Leadership or Networking is, from your perception. Then, you mention 1 example. 300 words max is barely enough to show your value, that is why I suggest focusing on 1 powerful example and give it enough space and articulation instead of being distracted with 2 examples. What matters is how you write this example, which you will find down this paragraph. Finally, you wrap up with a conclusion statement describing how Chevening would help you to further enrich your leadership or networking skills.</p><p>Well, well, well, now the examples themselves, the interesting and challenging part. First and foremost: you might think: do I have examples to mention? If you think this way, you&#8217;re not alone, amigo. Preferably and ideally, the example should be related to your profession or what you want to study, but if it is not, that is absolutely alright. Think deeply, you&#8217;ll find something that you did before, at work or uni, that showcases your potential.</p><p>The distinction between the 2 essays is that when you talk about Leadership and write your examples, the examples should focus on the qualities of a leader and influence. In your example, do not say I have a vision, I am a good influencer, I can communicate well, blah blah. Rather, show this by mentioning a situation, what challenges you faced, what did you have to do, how did you do it, and what was the outcome. Yes, if this triggered something in your mind, then you&#8217;re on the right track: it is THE STAR APPROACH! It is extremely critical that you follow this approach when you write your examples, refer to my post on it <a href="https://www.moffeine.com/p/star-and-smart-from-raw-to-meaning">here</a>. You talk about a situation when you faced a challenge that you solved using you leadership qualities (research what and how a leader must be, and show that in real-life actions). What is new this year is that you should 2 more pieces of information. This is to talk about what did you learn from that example and how it shaped your approach to leadership. I believe this is clear enough, just state the obvious, supplemented from your own experience.</p><p>When it comes to Networking or how they call it relationship building and influence, it is quite different this year than how it used to be. A bit trickier I would say. My suggestion is that you also use the STAR method here and make it look like a story, not just answering the questions. Do the same as leadership, start with a very brief intro and then focus on one example, then conclude with answering the final question in the instructions (How will these skills help you build connections within the Chevening community and beyond?). This very last part should be in a separate final paragraph. In the previous one, where you talk about the example and tell a story that answers the required questions within the context, do it in a way like what was the situation through which you formed that professional relationship? What made it important? (the S), what did you have to do in that situation? How did you help that person or entity in the relationship, and what benefits that had on you? All T, A, and R fall here, but in a certain context. What I believe is that you have to be very smart in combining both the questions needed with a real-life scenario from your professional experience in a way that looks like a story that covers the STAR and look coherent and in a proper flow. What I am thinking of as an example, it could be something like you participated in a project, or you had task through which you had to collaborate with an organization or someone from a different team or company to accomplish that task. Mention what the task or project was, focus on the collaboration, what did you have to do, how did you contribute to this or how you helped that person, for instance, and how was that reflected on your work or improved or resulted in the desired outcome. The conclude the example with how you developed this relationship over time. Bare in mind that this specific piece can be within the example. By this I mean, you helped someone in a project, then you maintained this relationship with that someone, then at some point in time, you needed something, help, or anything in critical situation and that person helped you (this answers both what you gained from the relationship and how you developed or sustained it). See? It is tricky and all questions should be embedded within the example in a clever way.</p><p>Make your own research. Know what the qualities of a leader are, think deeply and connect it to yours, know what networking is, think of what you did before, and finally, familiarize yourself with Chevening, its global network and how you can contribute to it, and how Chevening focuses on stuff beyond just studying a degree.</p><p>Take the instructions, structure, and write your own story!</p><div class="captioned-button-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.moffeine.com/p/leadership-and-networking-your-core?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}" data-component-name="CaptionedButtonToDOM"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Moffeine | Mo&#8217;s Space! This post is public so feel free to share it.</p></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.moffeine.com/p/leadership-and-networking-your-core?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.moffeine.com/p/leadership-and-networking-your-core?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[STAR and SMART: from Raw to Meaning]]></title><description><![CDATA[STAR and SMART approaches are the core components of transforming your skills, experience, goals, and ideas into powerful storytelling weapons to show your value to others.]]></description><link>https://www.moffeine.com/p/star-and-smart-from-raw-to-meaning</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.moffeine.com/p/star-and-smart-from-raw-to-meaning</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mohammed Almalallah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 06 Jun 2025 18:59:48 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/d22bbf94-325c-4a46-ac2e-3a1223d44b4d_1536x1513.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A= [27, John, London, 2019, UCL, Computer Science]</p><p>B= John is a 27-year-old computer geek who lives in London and achieved a degree in Computer Science from University College London in 2019.</p><p><strong>WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?</strong></p><p>Be patient, and let me elaborate. Ever wondered what the difference between data and information is? Maybe you already know, maybe not, but let me connect all this together anyway. Simply put, data is a collection of raw, unprocessed facts. Data alone does not have a meaning unless it gets processed and analyzed, and that is when you can call it &#8220;Information&#8220;. Information has context; it is a meaningful data.</p><p>A was just a group of facts and raw data. When you read it alone, it does not mean something nor you can draw meaning unless you analyze it in your mind and try to connect the dots, for example. B conveys information after using the facts given in A. Now, we have a meaningful sentence not only some crap put between brackets.</p><p>You have to be sure that you gonna need this principle; mainly in your Chevening essays and interview since this post focuses on that, and also in interviews and situations when you need to show competence or describe past experiences. It all relates to performance management, career development, and project planning; but how? This is where <strong>STAR</strong> and <strong>SMART</strong> approaches jump in. You may have the power, ideas, experience, and knowledge, but unless you have the ability to showcase your strength when needed, especially in interviews and applications, then they will not be helpful in getting you the extra mile you deserve or dream of.</p><p><strong>STAR</strong> and <strong>SMART</strong> are two frameworks made to give meaning, structure your thoughts, and give them context.</p><p>Let&#8217;s start with <strong>STAR</strong>, and before we dive in, let&#8217;s assume you are an engineer (or whatever you are, I don&#8217;t care) and someone asked you the below question. I will show you 2 example answers to that:</p><p><em>Talk about a time when you participated in a project and faced some difficulties that delayed its delivery. What happened and how did you overcome that situation?</em></p><p>Let&#8217;s assume here that you are a tech professional. You had an idea of organizing some workshops for tech enthusiasts to guide them on market needs and how to build a successful career, etc. because tech education such in your country and you faced a challenge when you were looking for partnerships or funds with a coworking place that would host the workshops and attract applicants. The way you overcame this was through approaching an organization and explaining how this could work as a marketing campaign for them and pave the way for future partnerships. Now, how can you put all that in a structured answer that showcase your skills? The first example will be our raw data, and the second one will be the information, or the structured answer using <strong>STAR</strong>.</p><p><strong>Example answer #1:</strong> I once initiated a project to solve the lack of guidance in tech in my country. The idea of the project was to provide a series of workshops to people who study tech degrees or fresh graduates. The challenge was to find the necessary funds to host the workshops, so I approached an organization and was able to secure a  venue for the workshops. Throughout those workshops, I managed to explain what it takes to work in tech and guided the participants who enjoyed the lectures and use the gained experience to successfully land jobs.</p><p><strong>Example answer #2:</strong> In my country, there is lack in proper tech education. Academic degrees don&#8217;t guide students on the job market needs, the different specialties, what should be done aside from the academic courses to be prepared for jobs, etc., which results in students failing to land proper jobs due to the lack of practical experience and which in return creates a gap in the required workforce to drive digital innovation in the country. To tackle this situation, I had to step in and create a series of workshops where I invite students and fresh graduates to explain the market needs, what each path takes, recommended practical certifications/trainings, and how working in tech companies looks like. I faced a challenge when I want to find a coworking place that would fund the workshops so I can provide training to participants for free. I approached an organization, presented my project and explained the ROI and how it can be a successful marketing campaign  that would attract future partnerships that generate revenue. The deal was a success and I managed to present a series of 5 workshops and delivered the necessary information, knowledge, and expertise in a fun and engaging way and also maintained communication with participants through email for further advice and guidance. This initiative led to more projects and partnerships and enhanced the employment rate in tech by 30%.</p><p><strong>STAR</strong> stands for <strong>S</strong>ituation, <strong>T</strong>ask, <strong>A</strong>ction, and <strong>R</strong>esult. You structure your answer by explaining the <strong>S: </strong>what the situation was, what was the challenge? Then the <strong>T</strong>: what had to be done in order to solve that challenge or situation? Then <strong>A</strong>: what did you actually do or what approach did you take to achieve that task? Then <strong>R</strong>: what did your actions lead to? What was the result?</p><p>Notice the difference in the two examples? The first one had a bit of structure but not the one needed to answer the question and show your skills. It was not comprehensive enough and feels like there are missing parts. When comparing it to the second one, it is detailed, structured, and more accurate. I started my answer with the situation first or the challenge, which was the lack of tech guidance and a bit about securing funds, then I talked about the task which is to organize workshops and promote tech education, and my actions which involved partnering with an organization, delivering the workshops, and maintaining communication. Finally, the result which was statistical about the impact this project had.</p><p>Maybe the answer was a bit too long? Okay, not my problem. </p><p>Nah seriously, that was a detailed example for demonstration purposes, but it is on you how you fit it in your essays or talk about it in your interviews, so do you part of the job.</p><div><hr></div><p>Now moving to <strong>SMART</strong>. This is a framework that you should use when you want to set or talk about effective goals. When you think about a goal, it should meet certain criteria. This goal should be <strong>S</strong>pecific, <strong>M</strong>easurable, <strong>A</strong>chievable/<strong>A</strong>ttainable, <strong>R</strong>elevant, and <strong>T</strong>ime-bound/<strong>T</strong>imely. When you set an objective or talk about your career, it is imperative to structure your answer and talk about your goals according to these 5 pillars to transform your aspirations into concrete action plans.</p><p>Let&#8217;s break it down!</p><p><strong>S</strong>pecific: don&#8217;t make your goal general or vague. Your goal should be well-defined and state what exactly needs to be accomplished.  For instance, instead of saying &#8220;I want to improve the technical skills of tech students in my home country&#8221;, say &#8220;I want to conduct regular workshops through partnering with organization X to deliver necessary tech training to students and fresh graduates during the summer to tackle the challenging situation of not having the needed tech workforce&#8221;. This is detailed and answers the W questions of what, why, where, when, and which. </p><p><strong>M</strong>easurable: here you define metrics or criteria for measurement to determine when you successfully meet your goal. You can say something like &#8220;I want to improve the employment rate&#8221;, and say something like &#8220;my plan would improve the annual employment rate of fresh tech graduates and increase it from 50% to 65%&#8221;. Notice the difference? Always stick to example 2.</p><p><strong>A</strong>chievable/<strong>A</strong>ttainable: You can&#8217;t invent a mobile application that ends poverty in the world and defend against nuclear weapons, right? Exactly, this is how your goal should be: Realistic! You should set a goal that is achievable given the time, skills, and resources you have. This does not mean you don&#8217;t aim for challenging goals, they are necessary to motivate you, but they should be realistic.</p><p><strong>R</strong>elevant: if you want to give a training in marketing, you don&#8217;t learn medicine to do so. Your goal should align with the overall mission and strategy and be relevant to your objectives, efforts, and needs.</p><p><strong>T</strong>ime-bound/<strong>T</strong>imely: define a timeline so you have better planning and can prioritize accordingly. This gives a sense of urgency and importance: when should this goal be completed? For example: I want to learn software development so I can build and sell apps by the end of 2028.</p><p>You might have the experience and skills, but unless you tell them properly when needed, they ain&#8217;t worthy (in certain context). This is a great skill! Show yourself, sell your skills so you can move up the stairs and achieve more. Whether in Chevening essays or others, or in an interview where competency-based questions is the style, being able to structure answers using those frameworks is quite powerful!</p><div class="captioned-button-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.moffeine.com/p/star-and-smart-from-raw-to-meaning?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}" data-component-name="CaptionedButtonToDOM"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Moffeine | Mo&#8217;s Space! This post is public so feel free to share it.</p></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.moffeine.com/p/star-and-smart-from-raw-to-meaning?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.moffeine.com/p/star-and-smart-from-raw-to-meaning?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p></div>]]></content:encoded></item><item><title><![CDATA[The Trigger: Chevening Awards]]></title><description><![CDATA[From a goal to reality: let's delve into your gateway to not only a degree, but a lovely global network and more!]]></description><link>https://www.moffeine.com/p/the-trigger-chevening-awards</link><guid isPermaLink="false">https://www.moffeine.com/p/the-trigger-chevening-awards</guid><dc:creator><![CDATA[Mohammed Almalallah]]></dc:creator><pubDate>Fri, 23 May 2025 17:11:26 GMT</pubDate><enclosure url="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!rrSH!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa1959792-b3d3-4280-8c6f-bb0fe7da5ae1_3024x4032.jpeg" length="0" type="image/jpeg"/><content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I decided that my first posts should be related to Chevening Awards as an appreciation to what triggered the idea behind creating this blog and to pay back to the community through a series of walkthroughs and detailed instructions on how to make an outstanding application and be part of a global long-life network.</p><p>This was supposed to start 2 years earlier lol. The plan was to start sharing tech and cyber security-related topics as well as stuff related to the UK and Chevening, but I really couldn&#8217;t. <strong>Mo</strong>, <strong>what happened then?</strong> REALITY hit! A lot happened there, starting from the culture shock I thought I will not go through to study workload and social activities I needed to catch. But hey! Better late than never, huh?</p><p>This article talks about Chevening itself, and there will be individual posts on each part of the application (i.e., the 4 essays, maybe more).</p><p>First and foremost, don&#8217;t apply to a scholarship that you can&#8217;t pronounce its name correctly. No, I am serious -_-. Chevening is pronounced as <strong>Ch</strong> + the word &#8220;<strong>evening</strong>&#8220;. Forget about any other pronunciation you know because it pisses me off. Also, this scholarship is not for fun or prestige, or just to say I want to study abroad! It is for people who know what they want, who are aware of their country-related issues related to what they want to study and have a clear plan to solve them.</p><p>Now back to work. Let&#8217;s first start with the ordinary formal and boring side of what Chevening is. It&#8217;s is the UK government&#8217;s international scholarships and fellowships program, funded by the <strong>F</strong>oreign, <strong>C</strong>ommonwealth and <strong>D</strong>evelopment <strong>O</strong>ffice (<strong>FCDO</strong>) and partner organizations. Wait, I didn&#8217;t like it this way, let&#8217;s make it bullet points instead:</p><ul><li><p>It is a scholarship where you get the opportunity to study a master&#8217;s degree in the UK (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland).</p></li><li><p>If you are not good at English, like really not good, then do not apply! Or work on your language skills first.</p></li><li><p>It is just a one-year full-time degree, so do not look for more. It starts from Sep/Oct each year to Sep/Oct of the following year.</p></li><li><p>The number of total selected scholars is not fixed, but I&#8217;d say it ranges from 1,300 to 1,500, something like this.</p></li><li><p>Per country seats? It depends on the population, funding, how developed the country is, and maybe more. For example, you may see 1-2 Canadians only, while 40 from Pakistan. Just apply and do not pay attention to this, really.</p></li><li><p>Applications open each year around August/September until early November.</p></li><li><p>The whole process takes until June when the last results get announced. It is a lot and requires time and efforts in addition to your job and other things so if you are not willing to give it what it takes, then quit.</p></li><li><p>Applying for the scholarship is different from applying to universities. You should select 3 universities to put in your Chevening application then apply and get offers, which is a separate process (I will explain this later here).</p></li></ul><p><strong>Should we make it a bit more fun? What is Chevening? </strong>In a nutshell, Chevening is a tragic romance, believe me. </p><p>If you win an award, you get a student visa for like 16 months, which means you can stay in the UK for up to 4 months after you finish your studies. Okay, what is the point here? You fall in love with everything for 12-16 months, then you dump each other after you go back to your country. First, it starts with the culture shock. Folks, it took me 2-3 days to find some pots to buy so I can cook! Then you get hit by the deadlines and the workload, and being a lone potato without your friends or family.</p><p>The beauty lies within how things get progressed, embracing challenges, and how things get better with time. Throughout these tough times, you meet people, be it in your class, accommodation, or somewhere else. You find it comforting talking to people who share the same struggle, you talk to your classmates after the danger alert kicks in of how the hell are we going to do the first coursework or assignment? And with time, you feel you are changing, turning to a mentally stronger person and you figure out your routine such as when to study, when to hangout, how to cook, manage finances, etc.</p><p>Chevening is a journey of growth. There are multiple learning factors that extend beyond academic and professional learning. With Chevening, you do not learn from your degree only, but you also learn from people, your experience, the challenges you go through, and once again, the people you meet, your friends, how they add new perspectives and how the exposure to new cultures can be beneficial. Believe it or not, depending on what you go through, but your degree might be the least factor among those!</p><p>Why a tragic romance? Because even though you leave as a refurbished, more powerful person, you part ways with a city that you shared moments of happiness and sorrow with, a land you fell in love with its charming nature, friends you will hold in your heart for good. Nothing would prevent you from experiencing these emotions but being aware of such facts beforehand would help make them more bearable.</p><p>One last thing that is worth mentioning is that in the UK, there is almost something for everyone. By this I mean there is a lot of activities you can do. I enjoyed going to concerts, visiting different cities, going out for walks, and much more. But most importantly, at least for me, conferences! I went to 5 or 6 conferences in IT and Cyber Security which were very helpful. You meet like-minded people, experts you can connect with or have an advice from, and stay up to date with what&#8217;s currently going on in your field. I even went to a masterclass on how brains and memory work, which I don&#8217;t remember anything from lol.</p><p>Enough about this because I got emotional and let&#8217;s jump into the requirements.</p><p><strong>What is needed to apply?</strong></p><p>All the requirements are clear and mentioned in Chevening&#8217;s website. Don&#8217;t be lazy and count entirely on this post or others, do some research! To not make it too long, I will highlight some important points below:</p><ul><li><p>Full-time, part-time, private sector, public sector, and voluntary work are all inclusive in the 2,800-hour work experience requirement (but they all should be after you finish your undergraduate degree).</p></li><li><p>All fees are covered by the scholarship. For the tuition fees, all degrees are covered except there is a fee cap for MBAs.</p></li><li><p>You need to satisfy all the eligibility criteria or else you&#8217;ll be eliminated quite early.</p></li><li><p>The 4 essays are the core of your application. You need to write them using your own words, without having someone writing them on your behalf or using AI. They must be professional, authentic, and reflect your real experience as you need to provide examples on some occasions. All your essays need to make sense together and demonstrate a clear plan.</p></li><li><p>You need to provide reference letters and have them ready in case you get invited for an interview, then you have to upload them.</p></li><li><p>The process works by first sifting applications against eligibility criteria, then your essays will be read and a longlist is created which will be delivered to the British embassy/consulate in your home country who will make a shortlist out of it of the candidates who are invited for an interview.</p></li><li><p>Invitations email are sent in February in waves, with rejections emails usually starting first followed by acceptance and rejections too.</p></li><li><p>Interviews take place around March and April. It differs between countries. Each interview takes between 15 minutes to an hour based on my experience. You get assessed on the same core points of your essays.</p></li><li><p>Each candidate gets a score on each question they are asked. We now have a descending list of candidates from the highest to the lowest. Let&#8217;s say Chevening decided to give country X 15 seats, then the highest 15 get accepted.</p></li><li><p>Final results get announced in June. You either get accepted (woohoo you are going to the UK!), or put in a wait list (this is actually worse than rejection, you need to wait in case further seats or funding become available so the highest in the reserve list get qualified, either one or two, idk, it depends), or someone wakes you up from your dream to tell you that you are rejected, go back to your life.</p></li><li><p>I do not believe in what they say about the criteria of allocating seats based on specialties or sex, your qualifications speak for you, so just do your best. However, take into consideration what the UK is doing in your country and what your country actually needs to improve.</p></li></ul><blockquote><p>How can you write powerful essays that make sense and are connected together? This will be explained individually in separate articles, in details, and with examples.</p></blockquote><p><strong>Finally, let&#8217;s talk about universities:</strong></p><p>In your Chevening application, you need to provide 3 university choices. Let&#8217;s say you want to study Marketing. You research universities in the UK who offer degrees in Marketing through whichever platform you prefer; I used Chevening&#8217;s <a href="https://www.chevening.org/scholarships/find-a-course/">Find a Course</a> page. The order of your choices is not a thing. But do put your most preferred one first because you will talk about it more I&#8217;d say. But later, you can study in any of them without explaining why.</p><p><strong>Remember</strong>, the idea behind Chevening is that you have a plan that your country would benefit from. You identify issues related to Marketing in your country that you want to solve through applying what you learn from your degree in the UK. Therefore, choose 3 Marketing-related courses in 3 different universities.</p><p>In your Study in the UK essay, you need to talk about what pushed you to apply, why you want to study Marketing in specific, why the UK, which universities did you choose and why. Then in your Career Plan essay, you talk about the goals you want to achieve in order to solve the issues you identified in your Study in the UK essay.</p><p>With that being said, choose wisely. Choose what would help you to learn and solve the problem. Look at the course structure and the modules, eligibility criteria and entry requirements, academic staff, research, how popular your university is in Marketing, and perhaps find alumni over LinkedIn and talk to them. Do not mind the ranking, look deeper.</p><p><strong>Important:</strong> Chevening does not care about your GPA actually, but universities do, put than in mind. Apply for highly-ranked universities, try, but if you do not have a high GPA, then there is a high chance of rejection. Also, do not apply for a university that has high English language requirement that you can not meet!</p><p>You should start applying for universities once you are done with your Chevening application. Work in parallel. Apply for universities outside your 3 choices too because if you get shortlisted for an interview, you can make a change to your choices. If you eventually get the scholarship, then a program officer will be in touch with you asking you to send your offer. If you do not send the offer by the specified deadline, then your award will be withdrawn.</p><p>You made it to the end of this! I know it was a lot, so congrats!</p><p>A lot will be also covered after the coming articles get posted: Leadership and Networking, Study in the UK, Career  Plan, and the STAR and SMART approaches.</p><p>I tried to explain the scholarship differently in a way that I do not think is covered elsewhere. However, do read a lot online in Chevening&#8217;s website, other people like me, and YouTube. Make you research, understand as much as you can, then start the battle.</p><p>Last but not least, this is a tough battle, do not go through it if you are not willing to do whatever it takes!</p><p>Now, I&#8217;ll leave you with my two favorite UK moments: my trip to Lake District, and a shot taken right after my graduation:</p><div class="image-gallery-embed" data-attrs="{&quot;gallery&quot;:{&quot;images&quot;:[{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/a1959792-b3d3-4280-8c6f-bb0fe7da5ae1_3024x4032.jpeg&quot;},{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/jpeg&quot;,&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/6c04e65b-9904-4f8b-9b85-97b53f79df93_1200x1600.jpeg&quot;}],&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;UK, 2024.&quot;,&quot;alt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;staticGalleryImage&quot;:{&quot;type&quot;:&quot;image/png&quot;,&quot;src&quot;:&quot;https://substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com/public/images/45e827bc-18ea-49aa-8d62-9bb0dab9c0ab_1456x720.png&quot;}},&quot;isEditorNode&quot;:true}"></div><div class="captioned-button-wrap" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.moffeine.com/p/the-trigger-chevening-awards?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}" data-component-name="CaptionedButtonToDOM"><div class="preamble"><p class="cta-caption">Thanks for reading Moffeine | Mo&#8217;s Space! This post is public so feel free to share it.</p></div><p class="button-wrapper" data-attrs="{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;https://www.moffeine.com/p/the-trigger-chevening-awards?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share&quot;,&quot;text&quot;:&quot;Share&quot;}" data-component-name="ButtonCreateButton"><a class="button primary" href="https://www.moffeine.com/p/the-trigger-chevening-awards?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p></div><p></p>]]></content:encoded></item></channel></rss>