This is my original of what they called ‘statement of purpose.’ When I arrived in UQ, Australia, I had to quickly verbatim it into a USB after realising that geee..! most PCs here do not have floppy-discs’ slots. Pardon my grammar used in that piece. I just wanted to take across my message to a potential sponsor as well to some prestigious universities we were told to apply to round the world. From my memory the writing was directed to universities in Canada; (Ottawa, Saskatchewan who accepted me for something like chemical engineering + biotechnology dual degree) I cannot clearly remember the third one 
and Ottawa, who rejected my application. In fact before I go any further, let me remind you that the Botswana Ministry of Education yearly offers thousands of students some scholarship to pursue their respective degrees and higher education within and abroad. As a very huge blessing, I was one of the students in 2005.
To make things short, there was a need that I and other few students had to wait for the beginning of 2006 to be sent to Australia instead of Canada as planned before. My God, that was a bit of time-in-between without studies. From May 2005 to 2006 February, but there was nothing much I could do, instead I went to our cattle-post or farm to tend our small livestock and enjoy the serenity and peace of nature while looking after our goats.
'Mogobe' the drinking pond during raining season. The goats were doing well 
'Jimbos' the loyal guard dog. I hear he is still doing well taking care of them goats here.
In the mornings before taking some goats out, I usually enjoyed doing some backyard simple ‘experiments’ like;
1. trying to build my own radio receiver from scraps ( I never did),
2. trying to create a vacuum from a Mayonnaise bottle by using a 20 litre water tank as a pump ( the idea did not work too- but theoretically still possible- imagine having a big tank with two holes. Fill it with water, then empty the water. Another hole will be sucking in some air as the water goes out from one hole. So I thought that will be strong enough to suck all the air from a bottle. But atmospheric pressure is so huge it kept the water in the tank instead of sucking out the air in the bottle. 
3. ‘Proved’ to myself a line I got from a physics text-book, that when a motor rotates, it creates backward current that always opposes the inward one. Yay!- my red diode lit from that backward current from the spin of the motor with my fingers. Dynamo!!
4. Simple trigonometry: Sin90= 1( and the likes of opposite sides etc…) interesting that time for me,but dodgy. Do not know what I was doing. Silly me!
5. And the one which was enough to be patented was when I found a way of recharging a mobile phone from radio batteries (PLEASE DON”T TRY THIS AT HOME). I had a mobile phone that was always off in the farm because there was no power. I did bring it back in air with radio batteries. The idea became very useful to all the people in the near by farms, as I was designing some simple chargers and adapters to recharge my neighbours’ phones. Very simple but it became very useful.
In 2006 I had to start applying for universities in Australia\,and the University of Queensland (UQ) was one of them. I had to make a choice though since all the three I applied to accepted me. I found UQ to be the best for my interests; research, was cutting-edge. It was the same year Gardasil, the cervical cancer vaccine was making big headlines. Biotechnology course was very powerful at this uni with combination of science and commercialisation. The inventor of Gardasil, Professor Ian Fraser even lectured me in some of my second year courses.
Enough about that time and here is my statement of purpose that I would like to share with you. My mind was free-flowing, and each word was heart-felt. I will stick to the plan even though there are few to no clues with weeks left to get back home. Bless!
STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
RE: BIOTECHNOLOGY
Biotechnology includes any process in which humans use the metabolism of living things to arrive at a desired product, ranging from bread making to gene therapy. Biotechnology has just begun to reveal its potential in various disciplines like agriculture, medicine, industries and even in electronic- engineering with the advancement of the so called nanotechnology, the field that can bring about some nanomechanical devices like sensors, switches, and tweezers as well as computational devices with greater efficiency than one can imagine.
Botswana, has a semi arid climate, that is, it receives little to no rainfall, which brings about drought conditions hence less food production. But with the skills and knowledge gained from this course, I shall be able to develop some drought resistant crops, which will be able to withstand these drought conditions. Furthermore, with experience in the course I will help in developing some crops resistance to some pests and diseases, like the (Bt corn) hence improving food security. Botswana Meat Commission ,the country’s third largest foreign exchange earner last year lost P63.7 million (about US$12.7 Million) mainly of catastrophes like drought and outbreaks of cattle diseases like foot and mouth which with the understanding of biotechnology, i will be able to help in reversing their impacts by helping the department of animal health and production in developing breeds resistant or tolerant to drought and helping in control measures of cattle diseases.
My confidence and determination to study biotechnology comes from the fact that after obtaining the skills and techniques of the course, i will be in a better position of helping in combating AIDS, the major scourge of Africa with millions dying annually. In particular, since the government of Botswana is committed in launching a fight against the disease, it will make use of my knowledge of biotechnology skills in making drugs to be readily available for AIDS patients. One thing equally important is that biotechnology will help me to further understand the basic principles of science and statistics which will in turn arm me to be able to go in the direction of trying to predict diseases and finally be able to prevent them from people hence saving a lot of money to be used in treating patients, since prevention is better than cure. Biotechnological skills and techniques are widely applied in medical schools, and since Botswana is about to establish its own medical school, quite a number of biotechnologists are going to be needed to provide their service in the school.
In conclusion, biotechnology has proved to be a master key to a better health ,better food security or simply to the realisation of the long term vision of Botswana , “vision 2016”, a healthy, productive and educated nation. With all the above aspects in mind, to qualify as a biotechnologist from your institution will be a milestone not only for my future but also for some other fellow Batswana and even beyond.
Candidate’s Name: KEBAPETSWE LOPSON BALOPI
