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A Memorable Holiday Trip to Kuala Lumpur

Table of contents, embracing the skyline, delving into history and culture, a culinary odyssey, the melting pot of cultures, urban oasis and nature escapes, shopping and souvenirs.

• Chua, B. H. (2017). Cities in Motion: Urban Life and Cosmopolitanism in Southeast Asia, 1920–1940. Cambridge University Press.
• Abdul Rahim, A. (2008). Malaysians’ perceptions of quality in urban public spaces: The case of the Klang Valley. Habitat International, 32(4), 493-505. doi:10.1016/j.habitatint.2008.02.002
• Richards, R. (2019). A History of Malaysia. Macmillan International Higher Education.
• Sebastian, A. S., Gan, T. L., & Rasiah, R. (2013). Food security and the urban poor: A case study of Kuala Lumpur. World Development, 52, 89-97. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2013.04.006
• Yusoff, I., & Ismail, R. (2015). Historical evolution and future trend of street food in Malaysia. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195, 1524-1531. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.342

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what is your goals and aspirations essay

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Career Goals Essay For Scholarships (With Examples)

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Scholarship programs often want you to write a career goals essay to see that you have a clear plan for how you’ll apply your education to a specific career path. This helps show a scholarship committee why you’re seeking funds for the next step on the path toward your success.

Answering “what are your career goals” effectively can help increase your odds of impressing landing a scholarship opportunity. If you’re a prospective student applying for scholarships, this article will provide tips on how to write a career goals essay, along with essays on career goals examples to help you get an idea of what scholarship committees are looking for.

Key Takeaways:

When you’re writing a career goals essay, make sure to write about the goals that are relevant to the scholarship.

Be honest and use your own voice to stand out in your scholarship essay.

Go into detail about how the scholarship will help you achieve your goals.

What is a career goals essay?

Why scholarship essays ask about career goals, example career goals essay prompts, career goals essay examples, tips for writing a scholarship essay about career goals, what to write in a career goals essay if your goals have changed, career goals essay for a scholarship faq.

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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 .

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.

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Career goals essay example 2 – Where do you see yourself in ten years?

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.

Career goals essay example 3 – What matters most to you and why?

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.

Career goals essay example 4 – What are your short- and long-term career goals, and how will earning this degree contribute to achieving those goals? Please provide a minimum of 200 words.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

BLS – Career planning for high schoolers

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Sky Ariella is a professional freelance writer, originally from New York. She has been featured on websites and online magazines covering topics in career, travel, and lifestyle. She received her BA in psychology from Hunter College.

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Examples of Scholarship Essays for “Career Goals” Question

Writing an essay is often the trickiest part of the scholarship application, not to mention the most time-consuming. However, the essay section also allows room for creativity and individuality. If you can communicate effectively, you can use the essay portion to stand out from the crowd. Let’s go over some tips for writing, as well as a couple of scholarship essay examples about career goals.

How to write a scholarship essay 

At this point, you’ve probably gained plenty of experience writing papers for school. However, it may still take a couple of tries to nail the scholarship essay. Since scholarship teams often have to get through a lot of applications, it’s important to stand out while staying concise. Here are some simple guidelines for writing scholarship essays.

Take five minutes to brainstorm

Before you even start your essay, take some time to gather your thoughts. Think about what you’ll want the paper to focus on. Why did you choose to pursue your career path in the first place? Where do you want to be in five years? How would this scholarship help you further your studies and work toward your goals?

Once you’ve jotted down a few ideas, choose one or two to center your essay on. Identifying the focus of your paper, it’ll make it easier to keep your thoughts organized. In turn, it’ll make it easier for the reader to follow.

Stay within the word limit

Unlike the four-page essays that you may have written in English class, scholarship essays are often only a paragraph or two. In order to respect the selection committee’s time, be wary of going too far about the specified word count. A general rule of thumb is to stay within 20 words above or below the limit. That may entail a few rounds of edits to get the wording just right.

Stay positive

Feel free to use part of your essay to talk about your life’s challenges. After all, the selection committee often wants to give the award to a candidate who needs it. However, make sure your anecdote doesn’t devolve into a sob story. If you’re going to bring up hardships you’ve endured, try to balance it by talking about how you’ve overcome them. By demonstrating resilience, you can show readers how you would use the scholarship to succeed in your current situation.

Leave time to proofread

Especially for a short scholarship essay, proofreading can take as little as 5-10 minutes. Still, it can be tempting to just hit “submit” after your first draft. However, being too impulsive can leave your essay riddled with typos and grammatical errors.

Try to avoid unnecessary mistakes by finishing your draft at least 24 hours before the scholarship deadline. That way, you can proofread it with fresh eyes before you submit it.

If you’re struggling to close out your essay, read How to end a scholarship essay in five steps .

How to write a 100-word “career goals” essay

When writing a 100-word essay, you’ll have to choose your content carefully. Since space is limited, you’ll want to identify the most important details to include beforehand.

First and foremost, make sure to clearly communicate your current pursuits. Talk about your academic and extracurricular activities related to your career goals. Additionally, it’s important to be specific about what you plan to do in the future. Then, if you have extra room, you can talk about how the scholarship will help you reach your goals.

My name is Alison MacBride, and I’m a sophomore at the University of Illinois. I’m currently pursuing a major in Journalism with a minor in Natural Resource Conservation. After completing my program, I plan to combine my areas of interest to become an environmental journalist.

During high school, I volunteered at an eco-conscious farm, where I learned about how our actions affect the earth. Since then, I’ve been set on raising awareness for the environment. This scholarship would go a long way in helping me finish my degree with the skills I need to investigate and report about critical issues.

Word count: 100

How to write a 250-word “career goals” essay

For the 250-word essay, you can go into more detail. Give the readers some context by talking about how you first got interested in your chosen career. Storytelling can be especially effective in engaging your audience. Try to capture their attention by choosing one or two concrete examples and relaying them vividly.

Additionally, you can spend more time talking about the scholarship and how it’ll make a difference in your studies. Go into more detail about how and why you need the award, but remember to keep it positive!

For more help, check out How to write a 250 word essay .

I first decided that I wanted to pursue a career in environmentalism in early high school. The summer after my freshman year, I joined a volunteer program at an eco-conscious farm in my community. In addition to helping out with the operations, I learned about current environmental issues related to farming and other consumer industries.

After learning about the agricultural industry’s impact on the planet, I was inspired to make a difference. The next year, I started a monthly earth magazine at my high school in which we broke down environmental issues and offered tips on how to be more eco-friendly. When I started college, I founded an on-campus publication with the same mission.

In recent years, I’ve been troubled to see how some media outlets downplay the gravity of issues like climate change and deforestation. I’ve admired reporters who publish trustworthy and comprehensible information about environmental issues, and I aim to follow in their footsteps.

When I entered college, I was initially concerned that I wouldn’t have enough money to finish my degree. Fortunately, I’ve been able to cover most of my tuition using merit scholarships and paychecks from my part-time job on campus. Receiving this scholarship would allow me more time to focus on acing my classes and pursuing environmental advocacy work on campus.

Word count: 261

Final thoughts

Planning is essential in making your “career goals” essay clear and concise. Hopefully, these scholarship essay examples about career goals can be your guide to writing a scholarship-winning essay. Good luck!

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How to Write An Outstanding Career Goals Essay for MBA Programs

A step-by-step approach to conquering the most important part of your mba application, with a full-length career goals essay example worthy of harvard business school.

Part 1: What is the career goals essay?

Part 2: how to define your career goals, part 3: how to write a career goals essay, part 4: career goals essay outline, part 5: career goals essay example .

Just as your undergraduate admissions application most likely required you to write a “personal statement,” at the center of almost every MBA application packet is the career goals essay. It can take on many different forms through varying prompts and word count requirements, but the approach to this seminal portion of your MBA application remains the same. No matter which programs you’re applying to, the career goals essay is your chance to explain why you’re applying to business school in the first place.

And, more broadly, this is your chance to demonstrate passion. The dirty little secret to MBA “goals essays” is that no one follows up with you in the future to see if you actually accomplished the goal you wrote about. Did you, for instance, really start that ethically sourced pants company? Did you successfully develop boutique exercise gyms? Start a niche media company? Whatever the goal, the most important aspect of your stated plan is that your choice proves you have a passion for a certain field, and that you’re dedicated to making big changes in that field.   

Much of the MBA is geared toward inviting you to explore new avenues of interest; so, not only is it possible for your goal to change over the course of your MBA educational experience, but it’s expected to.

Why, then, do these programs make such a big deal about your current goal if it’s expected to change? Admissions committees want to know that you’re passionate about something. They want to see how you think about the world, what problems you’ve identified in existing systems, and how you plan to solve them in order to effect long-lasting change. 

They want to see that you have set out to achieve a vision. The vision can change, but it’s imperative that you’re the type of person who has a vision in the first place. That’s the goal of this essay. Show your passion for accomplishing a vision. Show that your engine is revved–that there’s a fire under your feet.

Take a look at a few of the ways top MBA programs word their career goals essay prompts below:

Harvard Essay 1: As we review your application, what more would you like us to know as we consider your candidacy for the Harvard Business School MBA program? (No word-limit)

This prompt seems frighteningly open ended, but Harvard Business School (HBS) is being a little sneaky. The HBS admissions committee doesn’t want you to tell them just anything, as their one-and-only essay prompt might appear at first glance. They want to know why you’re applying, and your answer should center around your long-term goal.

Though there’s no word limit listed, based on our experience working with past successful applicants, you should aim for 750-1000 words. An essay over 1,000 words can bog down a reader, but an essay that’s fewer than 750 words–at least for the HBS application, where this essay is the only chance you have to impress the admissions committee–risks not being robust enough to prove your case that you , amongst thousands of others, deserve a spot in the HBS class.  

With the exception of HBS, most schools don’t disguise their prompts as general personal essays. Most ask you explicitly about your goals. For example:

Columbia Essay 1: Through your resume and recommendations, we have a clear sense of your professional path to date. What are your career goals over the next 3-5 years and what, in your imagination, would be your long term dream job? (Word limit: 500 words)

NYU Stern Essay 1: What are your short and long-term career goals? How will the MBA help you achieve them? (500 word maximum, double-spaced, 12-point font)

Chicago Booth Essay 1: How will the Booth MBA help you achieve your immediate and long-term post-MBA career goals? (250 word minimum)

LBS Essay 1: What are your post-MBA goals and how will your prior experience and the London Business School programme contribute towards these? (500-word limit)

U. Penn Wharton Essay 1: What do you hope to gain professionally from the Wharton MBA? (500 words)

With these, your task is clear: Why are you applying? What is your goal?

Other top programs word their career goals essay prompts a little differently. Case in point:

Yale Essay 1: Describe the biggest commitment you have ever made. (500 words)

Stanford Essay 1: What matters most to you, and why? (750 words)

For each of these examples, although your approach might take a slightly different slant depending on the wording, one aspect should be absolutely clear: what do you want to achieve in your career, in the short and long term? The “biggest commitment you’ve ever made” absolutely must tie in with your long-term goal. The thing that “matters most to you” needs to be nearly inseparable from what you want to accomplish in the future. Don’t let the different wordings fool you: these are all career goals essay prompts.

There are a handful of exceptions. In their 2018 application, Duke’s Fuqua program, for example, did not ask its applicants about their goals, but instead asked for a more personality-driven “list” essay calling for 25 “fun facts” about yourself. The University of Michigan’s program only asked explicitly about applicants’ short-term goals. However, chances are, if you’re applying to more than one MBA program, you’re going to have to tackle the “career goals essay.”.

In this article, we’re going to walk you through a step-by-step approach for acing your career goals essay. From identifying the “right goal” (because some goals aren’t the right ones to discuss on your MBA application) to breaking down the essay into its requisite components, to avoiding common pitfalls many applicants make, we’ll show you everything you need to know before you attempt to take a first stab at one of these prompts.

But before we begin, we want to lead with an important caveat. What follows will offer you an excellent, time-tested template for how to write a strong career goals essay. That said, the best essays don’t follow a formula. The absolute best-of-the-best essays find their own form that’s most suitable for the individual essay’s content.

What’s the difference between an MBA ‘career goals essay’ and a ‘personal statement’ I might have written for other applications?

A personal statement, by nature, is personal. It can take on a pretty amorphous shape, and oftentimes the more creative you make it, the better. A personal statement’s purpose is to allow an admissions officer to get to know you as a person.

And while admissions committees want to see who you are as a person, they also want to know who you are as a leader.

This is an important distinction. A personal statement can address whatever you want it to, as long as it allows the reader to get to know you more fully. But the career goals essay is far more pointed. In it, your primary job is to show where you’re headed, why it matters (both to you and to the world) and why you’re the best person for the job.

Business schools want to know what kind of impact you’re going to make on the world. If you can work your personality into the mix while doing so, great, but the “personal” should always come secondary to the essay’s primary focus: your future, and the plan you have to achieve it.

Look up “goal” in your nearest dictionary, and you’ll find a definition somewhere along the lines of “the end toward which effort is dedicated.” What does that mean? Who knows! That’s exactly our point. Forget Merriam Webster’s definition. The MBA goal is a totally different beast.

There are two distinct types of “goals” that the “career goals essays” ask for: the long-term goal and the short-term goal. Below, we’ll break down both goal types to help you identify the “right” goal for each.

The Long-term Goal

The long-term goal is your “big picture” vision. It’s what you see yourself accomplishing ten-plus years down the line from receiving your MBA. This should be the culmination of your life’s work, as you see it from your current vantage point.

There’s really no such thing as a long-term goal that’s “too big,” but there are long-term goals that are too general. You don’t want your long-term goal to be something as broad as “saving the world.” In what way will you save the world? What part of the world will you save?

You want a long-term goal that has a big impact, sure, but your reader also needs to believe that you can achieve it. While you need to exhibit passion for a vision, the MBA admissions committee wants to see that you’re level-headed enough to be able to execute on that passion. They want to see that you’ve made a plan, and that an MBA is an essential next-step in accomplishing that plan.

Your long-term goal also needs to be achievable based on your experience. If you studied finance in college and worked as a banker for the past five years, your long-term goal in this essay should not be about curing cancer.

However, if you, our health-conscious banker, do want to move from finance into a cancer-related field, you might define your long-term goal as “optimizing the existing healthcare field using my business expertise.” You might therefore argue that an MBA can help you expand your existing knowledge base into the underlying business principles behind the healthcare field. In this way, the MBA becomes a crucial part of your plan. 

Below, we’re going to give you a check-list to work your way toward choosing a strong long-term goal, but first let’s understand what exactly a long-term goal should look like.

The easiest way to think about the long-term goal is to consider it a solution to a problem that you’re passionate about. That’s the crux of the formula. Let’s break this down into two general types of long-term goals:

1.)   Solve a problem that affects people through an innovation in a field

This is the long-term goal for the free thinking entrepreneurial type. If your ultimate goal is to start your own company, then this is probably the route you want to take. Let’s say you’re passionate about alleviating world hunger. Maybe you have a history with agriculture start-ups, and you’ve seen first-hand the negative effect poor crop yields have on sub-Saharan African farmers. You’ve gained conviction that creating an NGO focused on tool sharing amongst farmers could increase crop yields. Creating this organization would be an innovation that will solve a problem that you care about. In this case, it could be your long-term goal.

2.)   Capitalize on an inefficiency in a field through existing means

Let’s say you don’t have a groundbreaking new idea. No big deal. Not every MBA applicant needs to start their own company. Instead, you could identify an inefficiency as a problem and propose a solution.

Perhaps you work in the tech industry, and you’re focused on semiconductors. You’ve noticed that your company’s manual engineering process is creating a lag-time for your business’s design cycle. Maybe you want to encourage companies like yours to adopt machine learning technology to free up engineers’ time and resources. That’s a way to solve a problem by addressing a current inefficiency. Facilitating the adoption of machine learning into semiconductor engineering could thereby be your long-term goal.

Notice that both of these “goal types” include solving a problem. Selecting a goal that solves a problem is the easiest and most effective approach to writing the career goals essay.

Let’s be real, though. Often, people apply for MBA programs because they want to make more money or change jobs. And here lies one of the most common mistakes applicants make in the career goals essay. Maybe you’re applying for an MBA to get promoted ahead-of-turn, transition out of your role, or get recruited at a bigger firm. That’s fair. But it’s not the “goal” you write about in this essay.

If this describes you, consider this third approach to the career goals essay.

3.)   Create a narrative around your past experience 

If you don’t already have a big solution or problem in mind, you can reverse engineer one using what you’ve already done in the past.

Think about what you studied in college, the career you’ve had so far, your favorite work projects, any extra-professional activities you’ve devoted your free time to--what connects these experiences? If you followed that through-line all the way to fruition, what would your professional life look like?

For example: let’s say you were premed in college but worked in finance afterward. Your longtime passion has been for science, but your work experience is in distressed debt. The through-line here might be that you enjoy solving problems, whether in the lab at school or on a spreadsheet at work.

A strong “goal” could therefore be going into healthcare administration, where you could combine your science knowledge with your financial training to make an impact in the field.

Through this approach, you take what you care about and what you’ve done so far and spin them together into a big-picture goal that makes sense for your future.

Stress test for choosing your long-term goal 

If you’ve now got your long-term goal in mind, run it through our stress-test below to see if it holds water. If you don’t yet know your goal, try to work your way through this stress-test and see where you land.

The first test accounts for categories 1 and 2, innovation and optimization.

Stress Test 1

1.)   Is there a real-world problem you care deeply about?

a.     What keeps you up at night?

b.     If you could change one thing about the world to make it a better place, what would that change be?

2.)   Does the problem relate to your professional history?

a.     If your answer is “YES,” you have the perfect set-up for your MBA goal. This is the problem you’re going to solve.

3.)   Can you dream up a solution?

a.     What job would allow you to work toward solving the problem above?

                                               i. Starting your own company?

                                             ii. Becoming the CEO of an existing company?

1.     This job role = your Long-term Goal

If you breezed through that stress-test, you’re ready to move on. However, if not…

What if that test didn’t work?

If you snagged at some point in the above stress test, even if it was on the very first point, don’t fret. You can reverse engineer a strong career goals essay goal. Here’s how:

Stress Test 2

1.)   Your area of interest. What field do you work in or hope to work in?

a.     Can you genuinely talk about this field to show that it’s your passion ?

b.     Look back over the things you’ve done in your life, professionally and personally. Is there a through-line?

2.)   What’s the major problem facing your area of interest?

3.)   How might you solve that problem? Can you propose a solution?

a.     Is there a job function that might allow you to work toward solving the major problem facing your area of interest?

                                               i. This job role = your Long-term Goal

To reiterate, the most important takeaway from this section is that your long-term goal isn’t just what you hope to do in the future. A strong long-term goal is a solution to a problem that you’re passionate about.

Before moving on to the short-term goal, let’s take a moment to look at how an example applicant approached this stress test. We’ll use her essay to illustrate many of the points we make throughout this guide. Check her out:

Elinor (our example applicant) studied Evolutionary Biology as an undergraduate, but ultimately realized that practicing science (via a career in medicine, etc.) wasn’t her passion. Instead, what she valued most about her biology education was the rigorous, empirical, and experimental framework it gave her to view the world through. In other words, she valued the education itself, and to learn more about the system of higher education, she pursued a one-year Masters Degree in Education post-undergrad. 

Following her masters in education, Elinor landed a job at the Gates Foundation, where she worked for three years to design and implement cost-effective approaches to increasing classroom learning in rural Indian schools. 

Having worked in educational development financing for some time, Elinor is ready to utilize the expertise she’s acquired from the Gates Foundation in order to make a humanitarian impact on higher education in the US, her lifelong passion.

How would Elinor approach the stress-test in order to land on her ultimate goal? Take a look at her answers to the test below:

Access to education. Elinor believes in higher education—it was the singular force that changed her life for the better—and she feels conviction in the idea that everyone deserves access to this type of education, even those who have to work full-time jobs. In fact, she thinks working and education shouldn’t be mutually exclusive… surely there must be a way to get an education while also supporting yourself and your family and not going into a huge amount of debt… but how? Elinor wants to democratize education , thereby ultimately helping to increase socio-economic mobility and help working class people achieve the same goals as the more privileged class through equal access to education.

2.)   Does problem relate to your professional history?

a.     If you answer is “YES,” you have the perfect set-up for your MBA goal. This is the problem you’re going to solve.

YES! Elinor not only has an extensive academic record, having pursued a Masters in Education, but also the financial wherewithal from years of managing the allocation of educational funds in an international setting to potentially figure out a finance-backed solution to the problem of equal access to higher education in the states.

In fact, in addition to her main job function, she’s recently fostered a collaborative partnership between the Gates Foundation and Deloitte consultants to work with Deloitte’s corporate clients in order to provide corporate grants to employees who would like to attend these universities while continuing to work at the corporation.

Elinor’s most recent work with the Deloitte partnership has inspired her to take this initiative and expand it to a national scale. Her ultimate goal is to create her own venture connecting large corporations with universities to provide alternatives to traditional four-year degrees , thereby allowing working class people to access higher education without taking on loads of debt, and continuing to provide for their families in the process.

This job role = your Long-term Goal

And, with that, Elinor has a problem that she is personally passionate about, has the experience to make her the one to solve it, and has a solution in terms of a future job function. Her long-term goal is therefore sound. She’s ready to move on to…

The short-term goal

Your long-term goal should be big. It’s your big dream. You shouldn’t be able to accomplish your long-term goal right away. Even after your MBA, it should take years and years of professional development to reach your long-term goal. If you can achieve your long-term goal immediately after graduating from an MBA program, it’s not your long-term goal.

For example, say your goal is to alleviate poverty in sub-Saharan Africa by helping farmers access useful agricultural technologies. That’s not something you can do in a day. That’s a life’s work, and there will be many steps you’ll need to take to prepare for such a venture after receiving your MBA.

The thing you’ll do directly following your MBA is your short-term goal . Working at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey are fine short-term goals; so is taking a job at any existing company within your desired field in order to build up your skill set, or even launching a start-up venture that begins to address one aspect of your long-term goal.

The most important thing to consider when isolating your short-term goal is whether it tracks with the long-term goal. The purpose of the short-term goal in a career goals essay is to show that you can make a plan that gets you from point A to point D, where point A is all you’ve accomplished to-date, point B is your MBA, and point D is your long-term goal. That leaves you with point C: your short-term goal.

You want to show through the short-term goal that you understand what it takes to pull off something big. MBA admissions committees aren’t looking for wayward dreamers; they’re looking for future leaders who have what it takes to accomplish something special, and what it takes, pretty much always, is a step-wise approach to professional growth.

The short-term goal showcases your follow-through, your ability to plan, and your ability to be precise about how you’ll position yourself to accomplish your long-term goal.  

A helpful formula for thinking about your short-term goal might be:

The skills you gain from an MBA + the experience you gain from your short-term goal = strong preparation for your long-term goal.

Let’s go back to the world hunger example. If you say your long-term goal is to solve world hunger, but your short-term goal is to work at Goldman Sachs, it’s going to sound a little fishy. This is one of the biggest mistakes applicants make. They set awe-inspiring, impactful long-term goals, but then their short-term goal is to get recruited at top finance or consulting firm.

Let’s be clear: After an MBA, going into finance or consulting is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. In fact, the majority of MBA graduates do it. You’ve just paid a lot of money for a degree, so it’s fair that you want to earn it back.

That said, you need to reconcile your short-term goal with your long term vision. So, you’ll need to specify the type of experience you intend to gain from Goldman that will help you alleviate hunger. Maybe you’ll work as an investment banker to learn the ins-and-outs of raising capital for new businesses, and one day apply this capital-raising expertise to your own developing business aimed at solving world hunger. That tracks. That’s a solid short-term goal.

However, you could strengthen it further by claiming that you aim to take up a position in Goldman’s nonprofit wing to specialize in raising capital for the types of businesses that you eventually want to start. Remember, it’s fine if your plans change. What’s important here is that you prove you have the follow-through required to complete any goal at all, and part of that means proving you’re the type of person who can form a step-wise, sensible plan.  

The best way to think about your short-term goal is to consider it as part of your 10,000 hours of practice leading up to your long-term goal . In your MBA program, you’ll learn a lot of theory and study a lot of real-world business cases. The MBA should prepare you with the skills necessary to accomplish your long-term goal.

However, these skills won’t be fine-tuned or tested in real-world business scenarios. You’ll need to put the iron to the fire, and the “fire,” in this idiom, is your short-term goal. A well-chosen short-term goal allows you to put into practice what you’ve learned through your MBA in order to prepare you for your long-term goal.

Let’s refer back to our example applicant. Elinor knows first-hand about education, and she also knows a lot about financial allocation in an educational setting. However, Elinor has never run a business on her own; so, before Elinor can make her own venture fund that connects universities with corporate support, she’ll need to gain management skills.

She has no idea how to start her own fund or manage workers, but that’s exactly what she can gain through her MBA. The MBA will connect her with resources and networks while also giving her management skills to start her own fund and assemble a team. 

However, immediately following her MBA, she likely won’t be ready to execute her vision. She’ll need to practice the skills she’s learned in order to prepare for her long-term goal.

How could a future education innovator best prepare to tackle her vision? There are a few possibilities. She could join an education startup with similar aims as her own–perhaps one like Glimpse K12, which works with education finance, where she could learn best practices.

However, it’s important to note that she could do this without an MBA. So, if her short-term goal is joining Glimpse , she should argue that she’ll leverage her MBA skill set to expand Glimpse beyond their K12 platform and into the higher education space, where her passion lies. That’s a strong short-term goal that makes use of her MBA.

Or, perhaps she prepares for her education finance venture by tackling the problem from the academic side–she could round out her financial background by joining a university’s administrative office in order to understand their needs and foresee potential problems associated with bringing corporations into the fold.

In this example, she could leverage the business skills she gained through her MBA to begin a trial run of her future vision with this one university, working to find corporate partnerships for that specific university in the hopes of later branching out into a national platform.

Yet another option would be to join a specific corporation and work the partnership from the corporate side. No matter the short-term goal, there’s one thing in common: she’s using her managerial skill-set to practice for her future long-term goal. Each option takes her one step closer to reaching her goal post-MBA.

Before you put pen to paper or open up that blank Word doc, make sure you’ve spent ample time brainstorming the above information. The hardest part of acing the career goals essay takes place before you ever start writing. Be certain that you have your long- and short-term goals solid and ready to go before you approach the actual writing of the essay. Take your time on the pre-writing preparation.

But once you’ve done all that, it’s time to write.

Below, we’ve devised an easy-to-digest strategy to help you convey your short- and long-term goals in a manner that will have the admissions committees begging you to join their programs. We’ve broken down the actual writing of the career goals essay into distinct components.

Though we encourage you to think of these components as key concepts to include in your essay, we don’t necessarily advise that you break these components out into distinct paragraphs like we’ve done below. We’re breaking them down into paragraphs to give you a solid template to work with, but again, the best essays will find their own forms that go beyond the high school five-paragraph essay.

In any case, every solid career goals essay should touch upon the below concepts in some manner, so following our structure below is a great way to churn out a first draft. The art, then, comes in revision.

Before moving on, be sure you can answer yes to both questions below:

1.)   Is your long-term goal a solution to a problem that you’re passionate about?

2.)   Is your short-term goal a stepping stone between your MBA and your long-term goal?

If both answers are “yes,” then let’s get to writing.

As with any essay, the career goals essay should have a beginning, middle, and end. You’ll need an introduction that presents an argument (your long-term goal is your argument, as you’ll see) a body that substantiates your position on the argument, and a conclusion that reminds us why it matters in the first place.

For the purpose of this breakdown, we’re going to assume we’re working with the HBS essay prompt, as their word-count of around 1,000 words is the most daunting. Even for a shorter essay, though, you’ll want to aim to cover most of these points, but you’ll do it in a more condensed fashion. If the school conducts interviews, you'll have an opportunity to elaborate in your MBA interview .

Remember the goal of the career goals essay. Demonstrate a passion for a problem, and convince the admissions committee that you are the type of person who can solve it. You can show off that passion in 1,000 words or 250 words. No matter the essay’s length, the heart of your approach is the same.

The introduction

Part 1: the problem. 

For the Class of 2021, HBS reportedly received about 10,000 applications. Though HBS is one of the largest MBA programs, with almost 1,000 people per class, the sheer number of applicants means that most everyone who applied was rejected.

Given that your essay is going to be read alongside nearly 9,999 others, how do you hook a reader at the start? What gets your attention when you’re reading a news article or a novel, watching a movie, or listening to someone else recount a real-life anecdote?

Oftentimes, what hooks us is a problem. If you can turn your reader’s attention to a problem with real-world effects, they’ll likely want to read more. Think back to your long-term goal. You’re planning to solve a major problem, right?

If that’s the case (and it should be) then your first couple of sentences needs to establish the problem. Do this in as compelling a way as possible. Set the scene. Dramatize. Paint the picture. Give us stakes to sink our teeth into. The reader has to feel that this problem needs to be solved. And problems need to be solved when they have a negative impact, so try to state clearly exactly what’s wrong.

An important caveat: you’re not just trying to prove that your chosen problem matters in general. You need to argue why it matters to you . In other words, why do you care? Do you have a connection to the problem? Has the problem affected you negatively either in your personal or professional life? Establish this connection as early as possible.

The problem’s connection to you can be as personal as you’d like to make it. Our banker applicant could have been inspired to go into the healthcare industry because he saw first-hand how the business operations of the healthcare industry failed someone he cared about, and he’s been inspired to use his business skills to help fix it. That would be an extremely personal, human response to a problem.

However, your connection to the problem doesn’t need to be touchy-feely, and you shouldn’t try to force a deeply personal connection if the problem doesn’t warrant it.

For example, our software engineering example probably doesn’t have a deeply personal reason to care about increasing semiconductor design efficiency, but it is her business to do so. If she’s an engineer who’s personally felt the adverse effects of manual semiconductor design and knows how much more she and other engineers like her could do if she optimized the process via machine learning, then there’s a problem that she cares about.

In this example, the software engineer would begin her essay with the problem–explaining what the current design process is like and how that’s affecting the company and industry. She’d use statistics and projections to substantiate her claims.

Then, she’d argue why it matters to her. She’s devoted the past five years of her life to semiconductor engineering, many more if you count her educational years–that means she’s spent countless hours doing something that could be facilitated by machine learning!

The problem affects her directly through her past work experiences, and it affects the industry at large, too. She’s felt this problem’s affects firsthand and cares about it because it’s what she does for a living. Placing herself at the center of the problem makes the problem personal. Making the problem personal is essential to arguing that she is the best person to solve it.

In the first half of your introduction, you should aim to accomplish two things: 

1.)   Establish the problem and convince your reader it needs to be solved. Set the stakes.

2.)   Argue that YOU are the one to solve it. Why do you care?

After you’ve established the problem and placed yourself at the forefront of the issue, you’re ready to move on to the second part of the introduction: the solution.  

Part 2: the solution.

Remember, your long-term goal is the solution to the problem above. Once you’ve established the problem and demonstrated why you’re passionate about solving it, it’s time to dive into how you plan to solve it. Here’s how to do that.

1.)   What is currently being done to address the problem?

Chances are, you’re not the first person who’s noticed this problem. In fact, if the problem is big enough, you shouldn’t be the only person who knows about it. Crop yields in sub-Saharan Africa? People know that’s a problem.

What’s currently underway to solve for it? What’s needed? How has the industry attempted, and failed, to solve the problem in the past? We need to get a sense that this problem is not easy to solve. If it’s easy, why would you need to devote your life’s work to solving it? Why would you need an MBA? Complex problems require complex solutions, and we need to feel the complexity at play in order to understand why it’s your long-term goal. 

2.)   What do YOU bring to the table that others don’t?

So, you’ve identified a problem that matters to you, and you’ve discussed its complexity. What makes you think that YOU can solve it? Others have tried, but they’re missing some important component that you’ll be able to bring to the issue based on your unique expertise. What is your unique expertise?

3.)   Your solution.

Now’s the time to propose your solution. If you’ve successfully argued points 1 and 2 above, then you’ll have the reader on the edge of her seat awaiting how you plan to fix it. Frame your solution in terms of your expertise. 

You want to bring your knowledge of machine learning into a field that doesn’t currently utilize it. You want to use your entrepreneurial prowess to start a tool-sharing organization for farmers. You want to leverage your financial background to streamline cancer research funding. How do you plan to attack the problem you laid out above to solve it?

4.)   To accomplish this solution, what business role will you take?

This is your long-term goal . In order to solve XX problem through YY means, you’ll do ZZ business role. The long-term goal is ZZ, the job. The job will allow you to solve the problem above. 

It’s not enough to state the problem and a solution. The career goals essay requires you to frame that solution within a job function. Maybe you want to start your own company. Maybe you want to be CFO of an existing company. Maybe you want to invent a new job in an existing field.

The possibilities are endless, but you need to end your introduction by assigning a job title to your future that will allow you to accomplish the above. An admissions committee doesn’t want a solution that’s floating around as an idea . Ground your solution in a job function.

An optional finish: as icing on the cake, to cap off your introduction, tie in the MBA. You’ll cover the “why MBA” portion of your argument more extensively in the essay’s body paragraphs, but for now, just hint at it. You want to solve this important problem by becoming this job function, but first, you need an MBA. This way, the adcom gets a strong sense of what’s coming in the next few paragraphs.

And, with that, you’ll have a solid introduction that hooks the reader and keeps them invested in both this essay and your application as a whole. To recap: 

1.)   The problem

2.)   Why it matters to you

3.)   What’s been done / what’s needed?

4.)   How your particular expertise can contribute

5.)   Your solution in terms of a job function

This might seem like a lot for an introduction, but you can cover many of these components in a sentence or two, if they’re strong. For a 1,000-word essay, plan on devoting around 250-300 words on your intro.

No matter the length of the essay, plan to devote a solid quarter of your available word-count to introducing your take on the problem at-hand. Your introduction is the most important part of the essay, so don’t skimp. 

At the end of this article, we’ve posted a full-length HBS essay example to show our advice in practice, but for now, take a look at that essay’s introduction to see how one applicant, Elinor, utilized our advice to demonstrate passion for a problem and hook the readers. Below, you’ll find Elinor’s introduction followed by a breakdown of how and why it works:

Due to financial constraints and familial obligations, neither of my older brothers were able to attend college. Instead, after graduating high school, they joined the corporate workforce, and to this day my brothers mark their biggest regret as not having been afforded the same opportunity for educational advancement as I was given. Unlike my brothers, a string of strong test scores allowed me to leave my rural hometown for the Ivory halls of Princeton University, where need-based financial aid provided the chance to study a field that always fascinated me: Human Evolutionary Biology. 

Throughout my studies, I became enthralled by the scientific turn of mind involved in asking and answering complex questions through straightforward, repeatable experimental methods. For example, my thesis research aimed to discover more about the genetic underpinnings of bipedalism in humans, and through a rigorous bioinformatics comparison between humans and other primates, we were able to isolate a potentially interesting gene region for future study. Though I loved biology, as most of my peers began the medical school application process, I realized my passion didn’t lie in practicing science, but rather in the framework through which science had allowed me to take complicated questions and distill them down to measurable, testable parts. In other words, what I loved most about my science education wasn’t the science, but the education itself. Access to higher education transformed the way I think about the world–a frame of mind that was not afforded to my brothers and so many like them due to the steep financial costs associated with most avenues of higher education. I believe that everyone–even those who must join the workforce to support themselves and their families–should have the option to better themselves through education.

It’s no secret that my generation is plagued with student loans, and the fear of compounding interest rates deters many from post-high-school education. Having pursued a Masters in Education from Yale University before joining the Gates Foundation where I focused on the financial allocation for educational development in rural Indian schools, I’ve become well-versed in both the system of higher education and the ways in which financial institutions can bolster humanitarian efforts. My goal is to leverage my passion for education and my experience with education finance to create a fund that will increase access to higher education in the US  through corporate partnerships with universities, ultimately providing powerful alternatives to education finance for employees who, like my brothers, were forced to choose work over college.

Through her introduction, Elinor provided the admissions committee with a personal problem that she is both passionate about and uniquely positioned to solve. Let’s break down her introduction into the outline we laid out above:

1.)   The problem.

a.     Elinor believes in higher education, but tuition and interest rates on student loans are prohibitive to many.

2.)   Why it matters to you.

a.     Elinor’s life has been forever changed by higher education–she approaches problems differently than she would have without going to college. Conversely, her brothers (making it personal to her own lived experience) didn’t get this life-changing opportunity because they had to go to work after high school, and she wants to change the education finance landscape in order to allow future students like her brothers to have access to higher ed.

a.     She mentions student loans as the only viable option, but also points out how compounding interest rates make this option less than ideal. There’s a void to be filled.

4.)   How your particular expertise can contribute.

a.     She demonstrates her passion for education via her lively discussion of her undergraduate studies and her commitment to the system of education through her masters degree. She also includes the financial expertise she’s gained through her work with the Gates Foundation (which the admissions committee will see on her resume.) These two attributes (education and finance) uniquely position her to make moves in the future of education finance.

5.)   Your solution in terms of a job function.

a.     Elinor states that she will start a fund that works to partner universities with corporations, thereby creating an alternative means of education finance that would solve the problem her brothers experienced. Her job function would be “fund manager,” and it could certainly solve her problem.

With that, Elinor has followed our outline and constructed a compelling introduction to her essay.

The Career Goals Essay body paragraphs: an overview.

With a strong enough introduction, you’ll have your reader locked into the rest of the essay. So, what now? Below, we’ve broken down the body paragraphs of your “goals essay” into distinct units. Take a look:

Career Goals Essay Body paragraph 1: what you’ve done so far 

In the first body paragraph of your essay, you have one task: establish yourself as the expert.  You’ve hinted at this in the “why you” component of your intro, but now’s the time to set it in stone.

Think of your first body paragraph as your audition for the role of your long-term goal. You obviously haven’t tried to tackle your long-term vision yet, and you won’t for many, many years to come; so, here, you want to use what you have already tackled in the past as proof that you’ll be perfectly able to keep hacking away at your long-term goal. Here’s the process: 

Step 1: review your resume. Know it inside and out. You’ll be pulling from this document a lot while fleshing out this first paragraph. 

(Suggested reading: The Perfect MBA Resume )

Step 2: Ask yourself: what have you done already to help prepare you for your long-term goal? If you made it through our stress-test above, then your long-term goal should be intrinsically tied to your field of interest and current profession. Therefore, all of your accomplishments to-date are fair game for this “audition.”

Step 3: Skills. Your resume is a list of accomplishments. The admissions committee will read your resume. They’ll know all about the great things you’ve done for your past places of business.

What we need to focus on here are the skills beneath those accomplishments. Professional accomplishments are one-offs, but the skills it took to accomplish those feats are transferable . These skills will prove to the admissions committee that you can successfully realize your long-term goal.

In this paragraph, you’re trying to prove to the admissions committee that you’re prepared to do what you’ve set out to do. You can begin this paragraph with a transition from your introduction—something like, “I’ve already begun working toward this goal.” 

From that launching pad, show your reader how . What did you study in undergrad? What really got your gears turning? How did you move from your studies to your first place of work? Why? What skills did you gain from that first position? Did you use those skills to accomplish something great in your next job?

Build this accumulation of skills until the reader understands that you’re the expert for the goal you want to accomplish. They should get the sense that you’re uniquely positioned to take on this long-term goal based on your passions, interests, skills and experiences.

The biggest pitfall applicants stumble into in this first paragraph is simply listing off their resume. Do not list accomplishments or jobs. Instead, map what skills you’ve gained while facing certain problems in the past, and showcase the types of groundbreaking, brag-worthy solutions those skills led you to.

Take a look at Elinor’s example essay’s first body paragraph below:

I’ve already begun working toward this goal by launching an initiative called Mission: Yield, a collaborative partnership I fostered between the Gates Foundation and Deloitte consultants. While I continued my day-to-day work with the Foundation to design and implement cost-effective approaches to increasing classroom learning in rural Indian schools, I also wanted to test the waters on my long-term goal of working with corporations to help employees access higher education in the US. 

The goal of this partnership was to apply the financial allocation wherewithal of my Gates Foundation team to one of Deloitte’s corporate clients and create a tuition-assistance model for attending a local public university while employees continued their professional growth. I began by recruiting three teammates from the Foundation and three from Deloitte to volunteer their time to drum up interest. From there, I utilized my Masters in Education training to strategize with our university partner while coordinating dialogue between my Deloitte teammates and their corporate client. Through my team’s diligent efforts on this initiative, we were able to institute a first-wave test case that allowed twenty corporate employees to enroll part-time at the university. As the partnership enters its third year, we project over one hundred employees to enroll at the university with the help of our financial allocation efforts.     

Let’s break down Elinor’s first body paragraph to explain how it’s working:

1.)   Establish yourself as the expert. 

a. Most of Elinor’s work at the Gates Foundation involves financial allocation to rural Indian schools, but that day-to-day function doesn’t necessarily align with her long-term goal in US higher education.

So, she notes her regular job role in one sentence (“While I continued my day-to-day work with the Foundation to design and implement cost-effective approaches to increasing classroom learning in rural Indian schools...”) and focused the paragraph on the one professional experience that best positions her as an expert in the field of alternative finance routes for higher education: her own initiative, Mission: Yield.

Through this specific example, she shows she’s passionate about her goal and has unique leadership experience in the field.  

2.)   Skills.

a. Elinor doesn’t list off accomplishments–instead, she focuses on the skills she used. She notes that she forged a collaborative partnership between two otherwise independent organizations, managed a team of six, and managed both halves of her team as they worked between the university and the corporation. All of these are MBA-applicable skills, and they showcase that she’s the type of person who has the potential to become a BUSINESS LEADER of the future. She also tells us about some of the quantitative impact of her work, which isn’t always possible to show, but is good to refer to if possible.  

Body paragraph 2: skill gaps

After you argue for the skills you have, it’s time to discuss the skills you need . Let’s say you absolutely nail the first body paragraph. Great. You’ve convinced your reader that you’re the person for the job.

That leaves one major question, though. If you already have all these skills, why don’t you just go ahead and tackle your long-term goal? Or why not stay on your current track? Tons of business leaders reached their long-term goals without MBAs. Why do you need one?

There are tons of reasons one might apply for an MBA: a higher paying job, a career transition, an ahead-of-time promotion, social cache, you name it. However, as far as the career goals essay is concerned, there’s only one good reason for your application: you currently lack skills that you need to reach your long-term goal. That’s it. For the purpose of this essay, you’re applying because of a specific skill gap that you can only fill through an MBA education.

To be one of the lucky few chosen to enter the esteemed halls of a top MBA program, you need to prove that an MBA is the essential and inevitable next step at this stage of your career. That means you’ll need to demonstrate that you’ve gone as far as you can go along your current trajectory, turned over every available stone, and now you need to gain other skills before continuing to strive toward achieving your goal.

How do you accomplish this in your essay? Simple: focus on broader skills .

In most cases, one can gain all the necessary technical skills on-the-job. That’s what jobs are for–to help you master one thing. If you work in distressed debt at an investment bank, you’re going to know everything there is to know about leveraged buyouts.

But if you’ve mastered the skills associated with your job role, and you need to, say, start your own company in order to accomplish your long-term goal, then you have an excellent reason to apply to an MBA—because there are skills involved with managing an organization that you simply can’t gain from the technical parameters of your current job.

In your first paragraph, you might list the skills that demonstrate that you’re an expert in a specific field. In this second paragraph, you’ll want to broaden those skills to the leadership, management, structural and organizational skills that make up the bread-and-butter of a top MBA program.

The MBA is designed to take experts with potential and help them to see that potential through to its fruition by turning them into business leaders . Therefore, you might need softer skills associated with the growing responsibility of leadership and management. Try to drill into those overarching skills in this paragraph of your “goals essay.”

Here’s how Elinor succinctly included her skill gaps: 

Though my work with Mission: Yield proved that it is in fact possible to find alternative routes to educational finance for corporate workers, this success has only inspired me to attempt to expand this work to a national scale. In order to tackle alternative educational finance on a broader scope, I’ll need to gain managerial and strategy skills through an MBA. Working between for-profit corporations and public universities will require managing teams of experts on both fronts, and creating my own fund will require organizational and strategic planning that I can’t attain from my current job function at the Gates Foundation. Therefore, I’m applying to HBS’s managerial program to best prepare me for my future as a leader in alternative education financing. 

In these few sentences, Elinor completed the necessary task of convincing the admissions committee that she can’t complete her long-term goal by staying the course in her current job.

Sure, she has experience partnering one university with a corporation, but if she’s going to go national with her venture, she’s going to need leadership and management training that she can only attain through an MBA.

Elinor has established a problem she’s passionate about solving, proven that she’s an expert in the field, and made the case that she needs an MBA to gain the overarching skills needed to expand her vision. All of the work she’s done thus far will remain consistent with every “goals essay” she writes. From this point on, the essay will be different for every program she applies to.

Body paragraph 3: Why an MBA? Why this MBA?

By this point, you’re about two-thirds through your essay. You’ve established an important problem, argued a solution, explained how you’ve mastered certain skills that will propel you toward providing that solution, and noted the skill-gaps you need to fill before you can continue down the road of your long-term goal.

Now, it’s time to look ahead at the MBA. You need to argue that an MBA–and, importantly, how a particular MBA program–will allow you mend the above-noted skill gap and launch you into your future success.

This is the “why MBA” portion of your essay. Brace yourself, because it requires research. 

Depending on the skills you say you need in order to accomplish your long-term goal, this paragraph may take on different forms. Here’s the key: focus on the particular offerings of the specific program. While the contents of your introduction and first couple of body paragraphs can easily be repurposed for all of your “goals essays,” if the “why MBA” paragraph looks the same for one program as it does for another, you’re doing something wrong.

The truth is that most MBA programs offer the same kinds of skill-based training as every other MBA program, but that’s not what the admissions committees want to hear from you.

Consider this paragraph like a first date with an MBA program. It doesn’t matter that you’re also going on first dates with a handful of other programs this week. If you want this first date to go well, you’ve got to make your date feel special. Getting to know the program you’re applying to and being specific about how its independent offerings are particularly appealing to mending your skill-gap will go a long way

Let’s get into the weeds a bit more on writing this paragraph.

1.)   Why get an MBA?

You can start this paragraph by transitioning from the discussion of your skills and skill gaps into why you need an MBA in general. If you’re short on words, you can skip straight to getting particular about a specific program, but if you have the space, a light touch on this will do. Simply stress that an MBA is the right next step, explain why taking a break from work to go back to school is the right choice right now, and then move on to discussing the program you’re applying to.

2.)   Why this MBA?

Take the skills you lack in the paragraph above and scour the internet for any information you can find on the specific program’s particular offerings that relate to those skills. You want to argue that an MBA from this program will allow you to mend your skill gaps. A few ways to approach this:

a.)   Courses.

a.     Investigate their course catalogue, focusing on higher level electives in the field of your long-term goal. Remember, every MBA will offer “Introduction to Management” in some capacity, so skip those generics. You want to isolate a few specific classes that pique your interest and align with the skills you need to develop.

b.)   Faculty

a.     Is there someone at the program who’s done research into the problem you want to solve? Could you get guidance from them? Have you read any pertinent books published by a faculty member? How will you utilize this program’s esteemed faculty to help you mend your skill gaps and learn more about your long-term goal?

c.)   Extracurricular activities

a.     Outside the classroom, what’s available to you? Every MBA program has a consulting club, but is there something specific about Stanford’s consulting club that is uniquely beneficial to you? Is there a student run organization that expressly focuses on honing the types of skills you need for your long-term goal?

d.)   Location

a.     Does the program’s proximity or connectedness to your particular area of interest help you in reaching your long-term goal? Do they have strong relationships with nearby companies in your desired field? For instance, Boston is a hub for pharmaceuticals. New York is the financial capital of the world. Duke has access to agriculture. Can you use a program’s location to your benefit?

e.)   Alumni network

a.     Every MBA program boasts about their extensive alumni network, but is there something particular about one program’s network that could help you? Is there a specific alum who is working toward your long-term goal who you would want to collaborate with or seek advice from in the future?

The above list contains just a handful of ideas to convince the admissions committee that you can get what you need from their program. The more you know about a given program, the more compelling examples you’ll find.

To reiterate, the biggest mistake applicants make in this section is being too general. If something you list exists at all MBA programs, it doesn’t belong here, or at least you need to argue that there’s something unique about this program’s variation on that offering that piques your interest, specifically.

Take a look at how Elinor approached this section for her HBS essay below:

To gain the skills needed to launch my education finance fund, I’ll utilize the HBS curriculum’s emphasis on experiential learning through interactive case studies. In courses such as “Startup Incubator,” I’ll learn the skills necessary to launch a venture from scratch, and I’ll workshop it alongside my peers’ initiatives in HBS’s “Social Initiative Venture Program” to better measure its potential impact. I also plan to work with the HBS Impact Fund to gain firsthand experience in fund management. 

Beyond coursework, I’ll learn from peers with similar interests by joining the HBS Education Club, where I’ll contribute my experience from my Masters to the club’s ongoing collaboration with the Harvard School of Education. I also look forward to utilizing HBS’s extensive alumni network to seek out mentorship and advice as I embark on my education finance venture in the future.

In these paragraphs, Elinor gets specific, and these specifics work to her advantage as they prove that she has done her homework on HBS and understands how their curricular and extracurricular offerings can help her reach her goal. She names specific courses and clubs, and even talks about branching out to other schools within Harvard’s educational ecosystem. She mentions how her past experiences at Yale could help her contribute to the HBS education club and ends with a nod to the alumni network–all good marks showing how she’ll make the most of her time at the program.

Body paragraph 4: short-term goal

You’re almost done with your body paragraphs, but first, do you remember that short-term goal we had you think up before starting work on the essay? Here’s where that comes into play. If your long-term goal is big enough—and it should be—then you won’t be ready to tackle it for some time after completing your MBA.

So, what will you do immediately following your graduation?

Remember what you’ve just argued above. You’ve just said you lack certain skills that you’ll gain from a particular MBA program, and you’ve discussed how you’ll go about gaining those skills over the course of the program. Following that logic, you’ll want to carry those skills you just gained into your professional life post-MBA.

Your proposed career move after your MBA should line up with the skills you will gain through courses, extracurricular activities, networking, etc.. Frame your short-term career goals as a test-case for these skills.

Let’s return to the example of someone who wants to alleviate poverty amongst sub-Saharan African farmers. She could argue that, at HBS, she’d learn the managerial skills necessary to start her own company that brings up-to-date agriculture technologies to this underserved community.

A strong short-term goal could therefore be to work in the agricultural practice of a foundation like Gates or Rockefeller, whose wide purview in development could help her better understand agricultural best practices in international development. In this example, the skills she gained from HBS were general skills that would help any entrepreneur succeed, and her short-term goal provided specific practice utilizing those skills within her long-term field.

Though the short-term goal needs to be a solid choice that exhibits follow-through and shows how you can form a plan, you don’t actually need to devote a great deal of your precious word-count to discussing it. It’s an essential puzzle piece of a successful career goals essay, but you can likely cover it in a couple of sentences, especially in a shorter iteration of the essay.

Take a look at Elinor’s approach below:

In order to put into practice the skills I’ll gain at HBS before taking on my long-term goal, directly following my MBA I’ll join an education start-up like Glimpse K12 and employ my managerial and strategic expertise to pioneer the expansion of their platform into the higher education space. Learning the best practices of an education venture in its earliest iteration will help prepare me for the trials I’ll face when working to increase access to education through university-to-corporate partnerships.

This is a short segment goes a long way in showing the admissions committee that Elinor has formed a plan–her long-term goal isn’t just a dream floating in the distance; she’s ready to tackle it step-by-step, and her first step is gaining the necessary skills from an MBA.

Notice that, in the full-length version below, this section runs directly into her conclusion. If your short-term goal requires more information, you might want to give it its own paragraph. Otherwise, feel free to allow this short-term goal to segue your essay into its final push.

The conclusion

Your conclusion can be short and sweet, but it needs to accomplish two things:

1.)   Circle back to the problem you laid out in the introduction.

We’ve learned a lot about you throughout the essay, and so there’s a good chance we forgot the problem you were so passionate about solving to begin with. This problem is what hooked the admissions committee in the first place, and it will be what they remember when they decide to admit you, provided you remind them about it in your concluding move.

Try to hit the following points regarding your problem:

a.)   Remind us why it matters.

b.)   Remind us that you’ve devoted your professional life to taking steps toward solving it.

c.)   Remind us that YOU are the one to solve it, and that you’ll do so through your long-term goal .

2.)   Make your final claim: only with an MBA from this particular program can you accomplish your long-term goal.

The conclusion is your final case to the admissions committee that they should admit you into their program. Remind them what you care about and how hard you’ve worked up to this point, and then hit them with the idea that, only with their help, can you accomplish this amazing, important life goal.

By the end of your essay, you want the admissions committee to feel as though, if they don’t accept you, they’ll be culpable for this problem never being solved. Of course, that’s a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea. Leave them rooting for you, and you’ll be well on your way to hanging that fancy MBA diploma on your office wall.

Here's Elinor’s conclusion, including the short-term goal above:

Ultimately, I feel passionate about education and the innumerable, lifelong benefits it can yield. Even today, years after studying bipedalism, I still use the scientific turn of mind I gained through my studies to dissect problems on a daily basis. Higher education isn’t only about what you study; it’s about how you learn to think. I believe everyone–no matter their financial situation–should have access to such transformative educational experiences, and I want to help make that happen.

I’ve devoted a large portion of my professional career to employing finances to enhance education, and I feel confident that, once I’m equipped with the leadership skills I’ll gain from HBS, I can make sure that even those people like my brothers, who were forced to join the workforce directly out of high school, can still pursue higher education without crushing financial stress. Through pioneering an educational fund and partnering with corporations and universities, I can provide an alternative route to higher education and ultimately help improve socio-economic mobility on a national scale.

We’ve covered a ton of ground in this article, and if your head is spinning, we don’t blame you. To help, we’ll end with a recap of all we’ve discussed. Below, find a bare-bones outline of the structure for a solid “career goals essay.”

1.)   Introduction

a.     Establish the problem.

b.     Why does it matter?

c.     Why is it complex?

d.     Why are you the one to solve it?

e.     Propose a solution.

f.      Long-term goal = business role that will allow you to solve this problem.

2.)   Body

a.     What skills have you gained working toward this goal?

                                               i. Focus on transferable skills.

b.     What skills do you need?

                                               i. These skills should be able to be gained from an MBA.

c.     How will you gain these skills at an MBA?

                                               i. Get specific: this MBA.

d.     Short-term goal = How you will use these MBA skills post-MBA.

3.)   Conclusion

a.     Remind us of your passion for the problem.

b.     Final plea for admission: only with an MBA from this institution can you solve this important problem.

Part 5: Career goals essay example

Throughout my studies, I became enthralled by the scientific turn of mind involved in asking and answering complex questions through straightforward, repeatable experimental methods. For example, my thesis research aimed to discover more about the genetic underpinnings of bipedalism in humans, and through a rigorous bioinformatics comparison between humans and other primates, we were able to isolate a potentially interesting gene region for future study. 

Though I loved biology, as most of my peers began the medical school application process, I realized my passion didn’t lie in practicing science, but rather in the framework through which science had allowed me to take complicated questions and distill them down to measurable, testable parts. In other words, what I loved most about my science education wasn’t the science, but the education itself. Access to higher education transformed the way I think about the world–a frame of mind that was not afforded to my brothers and so many like them due to the steep financial costs associated with most avenues of higher education. I believe that everyone–even those who must join the workforce to support themselves and their families–should have the option to better themselves through education.

How to Write an Awesome Essay About Your Career Goals

• Before you begin, ask yourself a few key questions like:
• What are my short-term and long-term career goals?
• Where do I see myself in ten years?
• What events in my life have led me to have these goals?
• What major will help me reach my goals?
• What skills do I need to reach my goals?
• What impact do I want to have on society?

Career Goals Essay Template

Need more inspiration.

After you brainstorm the responses to these questions, look for common themes, or pick out the most interesting stories. You can build your main essay “thesis” or idea around this.

Once you’ve got the main idea, create an outline to put your ideas into essay format. This will give you a general idea of structure.

You can use the career essays template below to give you some ideas. But remember that some rules are meant to be broken, so don’t be afraid to be innovative and think outside the box!

Also, when you’re done, head over to Going Merry to apply for the Career Goals scholarship essay bundle (one essay, one application, multiple scholarships!). You might as well make that essay count. Sign up for Going Merry to apply for scholarships more efficiently.

Here’s a paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown:

Paragraph 1 : Establish the main theme of what you’re going to talk about. It should also grab the reader’s attention. For example, instead of starting your essay with something generic (e.g. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to be a zoologist), get creative with it! Try something like My greatest memory as a young girl was going to the zoo for the first time or While most kids play house or school, I always wanted to play zookeeper.

Paragraph 2 : Elaborate on what inspired your career goals. Perhaps it was a relative, a TV show, or simply an experience that you had. Remember that old writing adage, “Show, don’t tell.” In other words, try to demonstrate your interest with story or description. 

Paragraph 3 : Discuss your short-term career goals and your intended major. How will your intended major help you reach these goals? What skills do you need to learn to reach them? At the end of the paragraph, try discussing how your short-term goals can help you achieve your long-term goals.

Paragraph 4 : Focus on your long-term goals and the impact that you hope to have on society. If you’re not sure what your long-term goals are, don’t sweat it; they’ll probably change anyways. You can instead focus on the difference you’d like to make overall. And don’t worry too much about the size of the impact…remember that just doing what you’re truly passionate about has a massive impact on those around you.

The last paragraph is your conclusion. You can use this paragraph to summarize what you discussed in the previous few paragraphs. If you want to be even more creative, try ending your essay with a question for your readers or a new insight. Good luck!

And now that you’re ready with that essay, put it to good use! You can recycle that same essay, when applying for the Career Goals Scholarship Bundle. We’ve joined together multiple scholarships (all requesting essays on career goals), into just ONE simple application! See more info here , or just sign up to get going.

Check out examples from other students just like you. Here are links to some great career goal essay examples:

• Example 1  
• Example 2  
• Example 3  

Or maybe you’re looking for help with an academic goals essay — we’ve got you covered there too.

Also, check out this helpful list of the 10 most common scholarship essay topics !

Sign up for Going Merry today, and upload your career goal essay right to your profile. It’s that easy!

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Accepted Admissions Blog

Everything you need to know to get Accepted

February 8, 2023

• Writing Your Career Goals Essay

Check out all of the blog posts in this series:

• Identifying the Ingredients of a Winning Essay
• Finding a Theme for Your Statement of Purpose
• How to Start Your First Draft of an Application Essay
• Revise and Polish Your Application Essays

The career goals essay demands a laser-like focus. Unlike personal statements that can cover one’s career goals but also allow for more flexibility in content, the career goals essay has a specific and packed agenda. In fact, a career goals essay prompt could actually involve multiple questions, and in such cases, you want to make sure to address each of them.

For example, in 2022, Kellogg asked applicants to its one-year program, “Please discuss your post-MBA career goal, the current experience you will leverage to support the transition, and the Kellogg 1Y opportunities that will help you reach this goal.” 

This prompt has three parts: (1)  What do you want to do post-MBA ? (2) Why is the 1Y program appropriate for you? In other words, what in the 1Y program will enable you to achieve your professional goal? And (3) what experience has so far prepared you to succeed in your target role? 

Drill down to ensure that you are answering all the questions within a school’s question. 

Three ingredients of a successful career goals essay

In addition to having a theme, your essay should do the following:

• Highlight specific career achievements. Choose among your most notable or defining experiences, either at work or through a community or extracurricular activity. These should  showcase your leadership skills , creative thinking, collaborative abilities, and self-reflections.
• Explain why your career goal makes sense in light of your experiences and influences so far.
• Demonstrate why you are suited to a particular field as a result of your education, experience, abilities, and enthusiasm. Ideally, the material you choose to include will also allow you to prove your level of knowledge about industry trends and point to how your particular abilities can help you contribute to that field.

That is a very tall order.

Putting these ingredients together to create your goals essay

Let’s see how this was achieved in a sample  MBA Goals Essay . 

You should be able to easily recognize why the writer’s opening is attention-getting for all the right reasons. The writer introduces herself as the supremely busy executive she visualizes she will become in the future. She trades large amounts of stock, dashes to a Zoom conference, rushes downstairs, hails a taxi, then catches a plane. As she describes this rush of activity, we can practically feel her heart pumping.

After establishing her theme in this opening, she offers context for her MBA goal. Notice that in writing about her work as an accountant for a major firm, she provides relevant details, including how many years she has been in the field, her bilingualism, and her specialty area as an auditor. This information is her springboard to explain why she is pursuing an MBA – she’s bursting out of her limited role as an accountant. Her eyes and ambition are set on a larger playing field as a money manager.

[Click Here to Read the Full Essay]

A career goals essay, not a list or CV

Outstanding career goals essays  go beyond listing an applicant’s roles and achievements. They convey the candidate’s real, palpable excitement about their career choice. This writer’s enthusiastic, dreamy first paragraph achieved this, and she returned to that image at the end, where she painted her idealized (if frantically busy) future. She also proved her seriousness by registering for the CFA exam.

Connecting your career goals to your “why this school” reasons in your essay

Many essay questions, especially those for  MBA programs , will ask why you have chosen the particular school you’re applying to. Be prepared to respond knowledgeably and enthusiastically. This will be easier if you have made in-person or virtual campus visits, attended student recruitment meetings, participated in forums, read student blogs, watched videos of students speaking about their experiences, communicated directly with students and/or recent alumni, and otherwise done your homework. And make sure you have familiarized yourself with the courses and specializations that are relevant to your goals.

Summary Tips:

• Focus on answering each and every question asked in a career goals essay prompt; usually, there is more than one.
• Write about your experiences vividly, so that your achievements and motivations are clear and compelling.
• Learn  why the school is a good fit for you  so you can write about it with genuine enthusiasm.

In the next post in this series , we’ll show you how to take all this advice and apply it to create an exemplary first draft.

Work one-on-one with an expert who will walk you through the process of creating a slam-dunk application. Check out our full catalog of application services . Our admissions consultants have read thousands of essays and know the exact ingredients of an outstanding essay.

By Judy Gruen, former Accepted admissions consultant. Judy holds a Master’s in Journalism from Northwestern University. She is the co-author of Accepted’s first full-length book,  MBA Admission for Smarties: The No-Nonsense Guide to Acceptance at Top Business Schools .  Want an admissions expert help you get accepted? Click here to get in touch!

Related resources:

• Why MBA , a free guide to help you determine your MBA goals
• How to Write a Goal Statement for Graduate School
• Focus on Fit , a podcast episode

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Career Goals Essay Writing: How to Create It Like a Pro

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Any essay writing is a quite challenging task that requires attention, motivation, and effort. More than that, it is a time-consuming process that demands to have excellent writing skills. On the other hand, crafting a career goals essay allows demonstrating your aspirations and targets to the scholarship committee or add valuable data to your college application.

Here are the basics of writing this type of paper and professional tips on how to use educational and career goals essay examples to create your own outstanding document. Use the following expert advice and let yourself stand out.

What Should You Start With?

The first thing you need to do before you start planning your essay on career goals and aspirations is to ask yourself a few questions. Ask yourself what your long-term and short-term career targets are, and where you see yourself in five or ten years. Also, think about the major and relevant skills that will help you achieve your goals and how you want to improve society.

Once you brainstorm the ideas and prospective answers, you will find the most interesting and common topics. All of this will help you choose the main idea and craft an outline for your career goals essay examples, scholarship essay, or another paper.

Choosing the right format and relevant information to support your ideas is essential to make a well-structured document. You can stick to the rules, use career goals essay examples as a template, or let yourself be creative and innovative.

Why Do You Need Career Goals Essay Sample

Writing skills are essential for anybody entering college or university. Demonstrating your abilities on paper is the first thing people will get to know about you before they even see you in person. Thus, scholarship essay examples about career goals are so widespread among both students and job hunters.

Firstly, you are asked to craft such a paper to enter the college or university and explain why you’ve chosen this particular major. Later, you will also need this piece of writing to market yourself to potential recruiters. So, it’s important to craft a persuasive and impressive document.

If asking the above-mentioned questions doesn’t seem enough, you can ask your parents or tutors as almost everybody has completed this task at a certain point in their lives. Knowing what your career goals are, essay writing will be done much faster and with no hassle.

More than that, preparing your answers in advance and writing them on paper will facilitate the interviewing process in the future when you apply for your first job .

What Is Academic and Career Goals Essay?

The title of this piece of writing speaks for itself. This paper is meant to showcase what an applicant wants to achieve in the future and what career goals he or she has. The person needs to write about their greatest accomplishments and achievements so far as well as career aspirations.

Also, you should include the reasons why you think this particular role or education can help you become successful and reach your aims.

An educational and career goals essay is a significant document that can define whether you will accept the prospective recruiter or the admissions board. These people will carefully look at whether your career ambitions correspond with their company goals or whether you have the necessary skills for the field you want to study.

In other words, you need to craft this essay to outshine the competition and persuade the admissions board to let you enter their college or persuade the employer to hire you.

Proven Tips to Craft Your Essay

There are certain professional tips and advice from career experts that will help you turn your good future career goals essay examples into a great one. Here is what you should keep in mind and follow:

Think about the introduction as this part is the first one that other people will read. Explain your future targets and goals and how you’ve chosen them. Also, make a point about the possible ways to reach these career goals.

Remember that this is your own piece of writing so that you can be creative. There are a lot of education and career goals essay examples available on the Internet these days. You can look at them and think about what you can take or omit to make your own document shine. Don’t even think about copying someone’s work, as your paper will be checked for plagiarism. Instead, showcase your personality and create your own unique style.

It’s worth creating a few drafts of the paper if necessary. Make sure you include only the most relevant and interesting information and omit any details that don’t correspond with your career goals or things you want to achieve.

Structuring your document will help the reader to understand the main points better and find the necessary details. Although this piece of writing can be creative, there still should be a certain structure so that your thoughts are well-organized and easy to understand.

The Structure of Career Goals Essay

Any essay of your career aspirations as well as a nursing career goals essay should consist of the following 5 paragraphs:

• The thesis statement. This is the first paragraph where you should tell your main point of writing and what you will tell the reader . Try to grab the attention of the prospective employer or admissions board from the very beginning. Don’t use generic phrases. Try to be creative and have a personal touch.
• In the second paragraph, explain who or what has influenced you or inspired you to have such career goals . Let’s suggest you want to write a nurse practitioner career goals essay sample. Were you the oldest of several kids and had to learn responsibility from an early age? Are you now willing to take care of and help others? Don’t hesitate to tell your own story.
• In the third paragraph, you can talk about your short-term career goals . If you are writing an essay for the college or university, explain how the chosen major will help you achieve your targets and what skills you should acquire to reach them.
• In the fourth paragraph, explain your long-term career goals . Don’t worry if these goals change in the future. Focus on what you can achieve or how you can help society. What difference can you make if you are given a chance?
• The last paragraph is used to make a short summary of the main points. Make an impressive conclusion so that the readers believe you.

Nurse Career Goals Essay Sample #1

This is a great example of an impressive career goals essay for a future nurse. It has a persuasive introduction, and thesis statement demonstrating why the writer is willing to continue her college education and find a part-time job.

More than that, the author explains her achievements and work experience. She understands that she needs to improve her skills and pursue a college degree in nursing to outshine the competition in the future and land a decent job.

She is sure that she is a relevant candidate to enter the college and receive a part-time position as she has 10 years of work experience and has already worked as a Certified Nurse Assistant and Home Health Aide.

If you need more inspiration to craft your own paper, here is another example of a well-written essay.

Career Goals Essay Sample #2

This nursing career goals essay sample is well-structured and contains all the necessary and relevant information to grab the reader’s attention. A strong thesis statement is eye-catching and tells about the writer’s aim to find a position in healthcare. She tells about her vast work experience starting from being a unit clerk and becoming a Preventive Nurse at the moment.

The writer has already had numerous jobs accepting new challenges and acquiring new skills to move up the career ladder. She clearly states the short-term goal of getting a Bachelor of Science in nursing, as well as a long-term goal of opening a care facility specializing in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

The writer is sure she is a relevant candidate as she is a determined and skilled person who wants to grow and develop her abilities and help society.

Hopefully, these tips and samples will help you write your own unique career goals essay and pursue your dream!

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How to Write a Personal Statement for a Scholarship + Examples

What’s covered:, what is the purpose of the scholarship personal statement, what to include in your personal statement, personal statement example: breakdown + analysis, how to make sure your writing is effective.

Either before or after you’ve gotten into your dream school, you’ll have to figure out how to pay for it. For most students, this involves a combination of financial aid, parent contributions, self-contributions, student loans, and scholarships/grants. Because scholarships are money out of someone else’s pocket that you never have to pay back, they are a great place to start!

Scholarships come in two forms: merit-based and need-based. Need-based scholarships are also often called grants. These designations tell you whether an organization looks at your financial situation when deciding about your scholarship.

Additionally, different scholarships fall under different categories based on the mission of the organization or person providing the scholarship’s financing. These missions typically emphasize different things like academic achievement, specific career goals, community service, leadership, family background, skill in the arts, or having overcome hardship. As you select scholarships to apply for and complete your applications, you should keep these missions in mind.

No matter what type of scholarship you are applying for, you will be asked to provide the review committee with standard materials. This includes your transcript, GPA, and resume/extracurriculars, but also, importantly, your personal statement. A scholarship personal statement is a bit different from your normal college essay, so we’ve put together this guide and some examples to help you get started!

The purpose of your personal statement is to help a review committee learn more about your personality, values, goals, and what makes you special. Ultimately, like with your college essays, you are trying to humanize your profile beyond your transcript, GPA, and test scores.

College essays all have one goal in mind (which is why you can apply to multiple schools at once through applications like the Common App or Coalition App): convince admissions officers that you would be a valuable addition to the university environment. The goal of your scholarship personal statement is different and differs more from one scholarship to the next. Rather than convincing various review committees that you are a generally good candidate for extra funding for college, you need to convince each review committee that your values have historically aligned with their organization’s mission and will continue to align with their organization’s mission.

Common missions amongst those who give scholarships include:

• Providing opportunities for students with career ambitions in a particular field
• Helping students who have experienced unexpected hardship
• Supporting students who show outstanding academic achievement
• Funding the arts through investing in young artists with strong technical skill
• Supporting the development of civic-minded community service leaders of the future
• Providing opportunities for historically underrepresented ethnic communities 

If a specific mission like this is outlined on an organization’s website or in the promotional material for its scholarship, the purpose of your personal statement is to show how you exemplify that mission.

Some scholarships ask for your personal statement to be guided by a prompt, while others leave things open for interpretation. When you are provided a prompt, it is obvious what you must do: answer the prompt. When you are not provided a prompt, you want to write a personal statement that is essentially a small-scale autobiography where you position yourself as a good investment. In either case, you should identify a focus or theme for what you are trying to say about yourself so that your application does not get lost in the shuffle.

Prompts include questions like:

• Why do you deserve this scholarship?
• How have you shown your commitment to (leadership/community service/diversity) in your community?
• When did you overcome adversity?
• Why is attending college important to you?

If you are provided a prompt, develop a theme for your response that showcases both your values and your achievements. This will help your essay feel focused and will subsequently help the review committee to remember which candidate you were as they deliberate.

Themes include things like:

• I deserve this community service scholarship because my compassion for intergenerational trauma has inspired me to volunteer with a local after-school program. I didn’t just sympathize. I did something about my sympathy because that’s the type of person I am. Within the program, I have identified avenues for improvement and worked alongside full-time staff to develop new strategies for increasing attendance.
• I overcame adversity when my mother had to have a major surgery two months after giving birth to my younger brother. I was just a kid but was thrown into a situation where I had to raise another kid. It was hard, but I’m the kind of person who tries to grow from hard times and, through my experience taking care of a baby, I learned the importance of listening to body language and nonverbal cues to understand the needs of others (baby and nonbaby, alike).

Without a prompt, clarity can be harder to achieve. That said, it is of the utmost importance that you find a focus. First, think about both your goals and your values.

Types of goals include:

• Career goals
• Goals for personal growth
• The type of friend you want to be
• The change you want to make in the world

Values could include:

• Authenticity
• And many more!

After you write out your goals/values, write out your achievements to see what goals/values you have “proof” of your commitment to. Your essay will ultimately be an exploration of your goal/value, what you have done about your goal/value in the past, and what you aspire to in the future.

You might be tempted to reflect on areas for improvement, but scholarships care about you living out your values. It is not enough to aspire to be exemplary in leadership, community service, or your academic field. For scholarships, you have to already be exemplary.

Finally, keep in mind that the review committee likely already has a copy of your extracurricular activities and involvement. Pick one or two accomplishments, then strive for depth, not breadth as you explore them.

My interest in the field of neuroscience began at a young age.  When I was twelve years old, my sister developed a condition called Pseudotumor Cerebri following multiple concussions during a basketball game.  It took the doctors over six months to make a proper diagnosis, followed by three years of treatment before she recovered.  During this time, my love for neuroscience was sparked as I began to research her condition and, then, other neurocognitive conditions.  Later, my love of neuroscience was amplified when my mother began to suffer from brain-related health issues.  My mother had been a practicing attorney in Dallas for over twenty years.  She was a determined litigator who relentlessly tried difficult cases that changed people’s lives.  Now, she suffers from a cognitive impairment and is no longer able to practice law.  Oftentimes, she has headaches, she gets “cloudy,” her executive functioning slows down, she feels overwhelmed, and she forgets things.  My mother has gone from being the strong, confident, emotional and financial caretaker of our family to needing significant help on a daily basis. Once again, with this illness came a lot of research on my part — research that encouraged me to pursue my dreams of exploring neuroscience.

Due to my experiences with my mother and sister when I was in middle school, I knew that I wanted to make a difference in the field of neuroscience.  I also knew that, to obtain this goal, I needed to maintain superior grades in school while also pursuing opportunities outside of school to further my education.  In school, I was able to maintain superior grades to the point where I am currently valedictorian in a class of 567 students.  In addition, in school, I challenged myself by taking 16 Advanced Placement classes and 19 Honors classes.  Two of the most beneficial classes were AP Capstone Seminar and AP Capstone Research.  AP Capstone Seminar and AP Capstone Research are research-oriented classes where students are given the opportunity to pursue whatever track their research takes them down.  As a junior in AP Capstone Seminar, I researched the effects of harmful pesticide use on the prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in children.  This year, as a senior in AP Capstone Research, I am learning about the effects of medical marijuana on the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis (MS).  

Outside of school, I furthered my education through taking advantage of the Duke TiP summer program. Duke TiP is a summer program run by Duke University where students who score extremely well on the SAT as middle schoolers are able to take college classes at different universities throughout the summers of their middle school and high school years.  I took advantage of this opportunity twice.  First, I went to Trinity University in San Antonio to expand my horizons and learn more about debate.  However, once I was done exploring, I decided I wanted to go into neuroscience.  This led me to take an Abnormal Psychology class at Duke University’s West Campus.  This class opened my eyes to the interaction between neuroscience and mental health, mental illness, and personality.  Years later, I am currently continuing my education outside of school as an intern at the University of Texas Dallas Center for Brain Health.  Through this internship, I have been able to see different aspects of neuroscience including brain pattern testing, virtual reality therapy, and longitudinal research studies.  With this background, I have positioned myself to be accepted by top neuroscience programs throughout the nation.  So far, I have been accepted to the neuroscience department of University of Southern California, the University of Virginia, the University of Texas, and Southern Methodist University, as well as the chemistry department at University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill.  

It is with this passion for neuroscience driven by my family and passion for education driven by internal motivation that I will set out to conquer my career objectives.  My educational aspirations consist of acquiring a bachelor’s degree in a biological or health science that would assist me in pursuing a medical career as a neuroscience researcher.  I decided to attain a career as a researcher since my passion has always been assisting others and trying to improve their quality of life.  After obtaining my Masters and my PhD, I plan to become a professor at a prestigious university and continue performing lab research on cognitive disorders.  I am particularly interested in disorders such as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).  In the lab, I hope to find different therapies and medications to help treat the 3.5 million people around the world suffering from ASD.  Furthermore, I want to contribute back to underserved populations that struggle because they do not have as much access to medical assistance as other privileged groups.  As such, I hope to do a part of my research in less developed or developing Spanish-speaking countries. This will also allow me to pursue my love of Spanish while pursuing my love of neuroscience.  I think that following such a career path will provide me the opportunity to learn about the medical needs of the autistic community and improve their quality of health.  Furthermore, I hope to train a new generation of students to strive to research and make comparable discoveries.  Whether it be through virtual reality labs or new drug discoveries, I believe that research leads to innovation which leads to a brighter future. 

This student does a great job of making themself appear competent and dedicated to the field of neuroscience. This is primarily because they provided tangible evidence of how they have pursued their dedication in the past—through their AP Capstone courses, their Abnormal Psychology class at Duke TiP, and their internship at UTD. There is no doubt in the mind of a reader that this student is high-achieving. 

This student also engages successfully with a past-future trajectory, where they end with a vision of how they will continue to use neuroscience in the future. This helps the review committee see what they are investing in and the ways that their money will go to good use.

This student has two major areas for improvement. As we have said, the purpose of a personal statement is for a student to humanize themself to a review committee. This student struggles to depict themself separately from their academic achievements. A solution to this would be for the student to establish a theme towards the beginning of their essay that relates to both their values as a human and their achievements.

At the beginning of the essay, the student explores how their interest in neuroscience began. They explain their interest through the following sentences: “During this time, my love for neuroscience was sparked as I began to research her condition and, then, other neurocognitive conditions” and “Once again, with this illness came a lot of research on my part — research that encouraged me to pursue my dreams of exploring neuroscience.” The student made the great decision to tell the backstory of their interest, but they described their research in very mundane and redundant terms. Instead, they could have focused on their value of intellectual curiosity as a magnetic force that encouraged them to research their mother and sister’s ailments. Curiosity, then, could serve as a value-related thematic throughline to taking AP Capstone classes, taking college courses during the summer that weren’t required, and interning before even graduating high school.

A second area for improvement would be avoiding statistics. As the student identifies their valedictorian status and the number of AP classes they have taken, they might turn away certain personalities on a review committee by appearing braggy. Even further, these statistics are a waste of space. The review committee already has access to this information. These words distract from the major theme of the essay and would have been better used to humanize the student.

Throughout my academic career, I have been an avid scholar, constantly pushing myself towards ambitious goals. I held and continue to hold myself to a high standard, enrolling myself in rigorous curriculum, including Honors and Advanced Placement courses to stretch my mental potential. During my junior year of high school, I took four AP tests, two on the same day, and earned the AP Scholar with Honor Award. Additionally, I received the Letter of Commendation for the PSAT/NMSQT, and qualified for Rotary Top 100 Students both my freshman and senior year, a sign of my commitment to my studies. However, school has not been all about having the best GPA for me; beyond the numbers, I have a deep drive to learn which motivates me to do well academically. I truly enjoy learning new things, whether it be a new essay style or a math theorem. I always give each class my best effort and try my hardest on every assignment. My teachers have noticed this as well, and I have received school Lancer Awards and Student of the Month recognitions as a result. It is a major goal of mine to continue to aspire towards a high level of achievement regarding future educational and occupational endeavors; I plan on continuing this level of dedication throughout my educational career and implementing the skills I have learned and will learn into my college experience and beyond.

This fall, I will begin attending the University of California Los Angeles as an English major. I chose this major because I am fascinated by written language, especially its ability to convey powerful messages and emotions. I also enjoy delving into the works of other authors to analyze specific components of their writing to discover the meaning behind their words. In particular, I cannot wait to begin in-depth literary criticism and learn new stylistic techniques to add more depth to my writing. Furthermore, I recently went to UCLA’s Bruin Day, an event for incoming freshmen, where I was exposed to many different extracurriculars, some of which really piqued my interest. I plan on joining the Writing Success Program, where I can help students receive free writing help, and Mock Trial, where I can debate issues with peers in front of a real judge. The latter, combined with a strong writing background from my undergraduate English studies will be extremely beneficial because I plan to apply to law school after my undergraduate degree. As of now, my career goal is to become a civil rights lawyer, to stand up for those who are discriminated against and protect minority groups to proliferate equality.

As a lawyer, I wish to utilize legislation to ameliorate the plight of the millions of Americans who feel prejudice and help them receive equity in the workplace, society, and so on. Though this seems a daunting task, I feel that my work ethic and past experience will give me the jumpstart I need to establish myself as a successful lawyer and give a voice to those who are often unheard in today’s legal system. I have been a Girl Scout for over a decade and continually participate in community service for the homeless, elderly, veterans, and more. My most recent project was the Gold Award, which I conducted in the Fullerton School District. I facilitated over ten workshops where junior high students taught elementary pupils STEM principles such as density and aerodynamics via creative activities like building aluminum boats and paper airplanes. I also work at Kumon, a tutoring center, where I teach students to advance their academic success. I love my job, and helping students from local schools reach their potential fills me with much pride.

Both being a Girl Scout and working at Kumon have inspired me to help those in need, contributing significantly to my desire to become a lawyer and aid others. My extracurriculars have allowed me to gain a new perspective on both learning and teaching, and have solidified my will to help the less fortunate. In college, I hope to continue to gain knowledge and further develop my leadership skills, amassing qualities that will help me assist others. I plan to join multiple community service clubs, such as UCLA’s local outreach programs that directly aid residents of Los Angeles. I want to help my fellow pupils as well, and plan on volunteering at peer tutoring and peer editing programs on campus. After college, during my career, I want to use legal tactics to assist the underdog and take a chance on those who are often overlooked for opportunities. I wish to represent those that are scared to seek out help or cannot afford it. Rather than battling conflict with additional conflict, I want to implement peaceful but strong, efficient tactics that will help make my state, country, and eventually the world more welcoming to people of all ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. These goals are close to my heart and therefore I will be as diligent as I am passionate about them. My perseverance and love for learning and community service drive my ambition in both education and life as a whole, and the drive to make the world a better place is one that I will carry with me for my entire life.

This student emphasizes two values in this essay: hard work and community service. These are values that go together nicely, and definitely make sense with this student’s end goal of becoming a civil rights lawyer! That said, some changes could be made to the way the student presents their values that would make their personal statement more convincing and engaging.

Structurally, instead of using a past-future trajectory, this student starts by explaining their academic achievements, then explains their career goals, then explains their history of community service, then explains their future desires for community service. This structure loses the reader. Instead, the student should have started with either the past or the future. 

This could look like 1) identifying their career goals, 2) explaining that hard work and a commitment to community service are necessary to get there, and 3) explaining that they aren’t worried because of their past commitment to hard work and community service. Or it could look like 1) providing examples of their hard work and community service in the past, then 2) explaining how those values will help them achieve their career goals.

Additionally, like with our other example, this student shows a heavy investment in statistics and spouting off accomplishments. This can be unappealing. Unfortunately, even when the student recognizes that they are doing this, writing “beyond the numbers, I have a deep drive to learn which motivates me to do well academically. I truly enjoy learning new things, whether it be a new essay style or a math theorem,” they continue on to cite their achievements, writing “My teachers have noticed this as well, and I have received school Lancer Awards and Student of the Month recognitions as a result.” They say they are going beyond the numbers, but they don’t go beyond the awards. They don’t look inward. One way to fix this would be to make community service the theme around which the essay operates, supplementing with statistics in ways that advance the image of the student as dedicated to community service.

Finally, this student would be more successful if they varied their sentence structure. While a small-scale autobiography can be good, if organized, every sentence should not begin with ‘I.’ The essay still needs to be engaging or the review committee might stop reading.

Feedback is ultimately any writer’s best source of improvement! To get your personal statement edited for free, use our Peer Review Essay Tool . With this tool, other students can tell you if your scholarship essay is effective and help you improve your essay so that you can have the best chances of gaining those extra funds!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

How to Write an Essay on My Aspirations

Soheila battaglia, 25 jun 2018.

Whether it's for a scholarship, a college application or an English assignment, you may be asked to write an essay on your goals and aspirations. You can choose to write about a long-term, short-term, academic or professional goal. Whatever aspiration you select for the essay, you must explain your motivations and your game plan to realize it.

Explore this article

• Discuss the Background
• Highlight Your Plan

1 Brainstorm

Brainstorming helps you to narrow the topic to a single aspiration, which helps focus your essay. In the brainstorming stage, you can think about your childhood, your role models, your strengths, your weaknesses and your future plans in order to decide on the main idea of the essay. The University of Arizona suggests that you select "a topic that describes something of personal importance in your life, with which you can use vivid personal experiences as supporting details." Once you have selected the topic, compose a single thesis statement that clearly expresses the aspiration you will be discussing.

2 Discuss the Background

A crucial aspect of this type of essay is to show the reader specifically why you want to reach this goal. Ask yourself what led to this becoming your aspiration. Consider whether your aspiration was influenced by a role model, a previous success, a personal hardship or external expectations. Show the reader why this is your aspiration, and how your strengths and weaknesses play into your goal. Remember that discussing weaknesses can help you show growth and progress, but you should ultimately showcase your strengths, especially when completing essays for work or higher education.

3 Highlight Your Plan

An important aspect of an essay on your aspirations should include a plan for how to get there. Show the reader what you have done so far to attain this goal, and what steps you still need to take. Break the larger goal into smaller, more easily attainable steps to show that you have formulated an organized map toward its completion. For example, if you aspire to play with the L.A. Philharmonic, you can break down this larger goal into smaller parts that include practicing a certain number of hours every day on your instrument, studying with more advanced musicians and attending concerts. It is also important to show what steps you have already taken to achieve the goal. For example, you can say that you have already attended a music camp for classical players.

4 Conclusion

Take the analysis of your aspirations further by examining what this goal says about you as a person: your values, your strengths, your weaknesses, your work ethic and your priorities. Also, it can be helpful to conclude by explaining how the attainment of this goal will impact others and what other aspirations will follow when this one has been realized. This part of the analysis pushes you to reflect more broadly on the topic, thereby developing your essay more and giving it a sense of cohesion and completeness.

• 1 Borough of Manhattan Community College: Writing the Scholarship Essay/Personal Statement
• 2 Estrella Mountain Community College: Scholarship Application Essay Examples

About the Author

Soheila Battaglia is a published and award-winning author and filmmaker. She holds an MA in literary cultures from New York University and a BA in ethnic studies from UC Berkeley. She is a college professor of literature and composition.

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• Applying For Scholarships

About Yourself Scholarship Essay Examples (2023)

Jennifer Finetti Sep 28, 2022

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A popular scholarship essay prompt is “Tell us about yourself.” This question is relatively open-ended, which may make it difficult to answer at first glance. What should I tell them about myself? My struggles, my goals, my passions…? These may all be fitting topics, depending on the scholarship. We’ll show you some scholarship essay examples about yourself, along with writing tips to guide you along the way.

What they want to know about you

As you prepare to write, think of the topics the scholarship committee would be interested in. These may include:

• Your current degree, as it applies to your overall career goals. You can explain why you chose your current educational path and what you want to do with that.
• Your short-term and long-term professional goals . Frame your answer as if to say “Where will you be in 5 years? Where will you be in 10 years?” Scholarship committees like to reward people with defined aspirations.
• Past experiences that sparked your passions. You could talk about an influential person in your life, but make sure most of the essay focuses on you. After all, you are talking about yourself.
• Something about you that relates to their organization. With any scholarship essay, you should try to connect yourself with the organization providing the funding. Don’t force a connection. Find one that naturally fits. Mention hobbies, experiences and goals that match what the review committee is looking for.
• Something unique that sets you apart from other applicants. This may be volunteer experience, career specialties, situational differences (growing up in an area that didn’t encourage education), etc.

Note that you do not have to throw all this information into one essay. Choose the elements that best fit the scholarship. If you were on the review board, what would you want to learn about each applicant? What would make you choose one applicant over another? Keep this in mind as you develop your thoughts.

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What they don’t want to know about you

There is plenty of information you could include in an about yourself scholarship essay. There is just as much information to avoid though. Some topics to keep out of your essay include:

• False information. Do not make up stories or fabricate goals to fit the prompt. The scholarship committee can instantly tell when someone is lying, and they will disqualify you immediately.
• Past struggles that do not pertain to the essay topic. You can briefly mention struggles from your past, as long as you mention how you’ve learned from them. Do not make your essay a long story about the hard life you’ve led. Focus on your triumphs, not your obstacles.
• Vague goals and aspirations. Scholarships are usually given to students who have a plan. If you say, “I’m not sure what I’m doing yet,” the committee will select a more motivated candidate. If you have a plan and a backup plan, that’s fine. Just make sure you mention both options and show which one you favor.
• Cliché stories that most people tell. There is something that makes you stand out as a person. Use that to your advantage. Don’t rely on generic information they’ll find with other applicants.
• Unrelated elements of your personal life. In most cases, you should not mention your significant other in the essay. You might mention a spouse if you need to reference your children or a turning point in your life, but these personal details do not fit most essays. Any information that seems frivolous or ill-placed should be removed from the essay.

Read through your essay carefully. If you stop at one point to say, “Why did I mention that?” get rid of the corresponding information. Showcase the best elements about yourself in a fluid and cohesive manner.

Short scholarship essay example: Tell us about yourself (100 Words)

With 100 words, you can only focus on one or two elements of your life. Think about your biggest selling points – the things that show you are the ideal candidate. Start by introducing yourself and your educational status. Then jump into the main topic of the essay. You may not have room to mention how the scholarship will help your education. Instead, mention how your education can help your career. The other information will be implied.

My name is Christian Wood. I am a high school senior who will be attending the University of Nevada, Reno in the fall. I want to become an online journalist. My goal is to work for the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Huffington Post, or another news outlet that has a strong online presence. Most people already get their news on the internet, and the industry will be even bigger by the time I graduate. Getting a degree in journalism with a focus on digital media will set me up for a fulfilling, fast-paced career fit for the future.

Word Count: 96

Medium scholarship essay example: Tell us about yourself (250 Words)

With a mid-length scholarship essay, you have more space to explain how your past has influenced your present and future goals. You should have rom for an intro paragraph, a few body paragraphs, and a conclusion (maybe incorporated into the last body paragraph). Think of a few main points you want to touch on, and write those down first. If you still have room, you can add more details about yourself.

My name is Sarah, and I spent most of my childhood on the wrong medication. I experienced a problem common in clinical psychology – misdiagnosis. Professionals provide inaccurate diagnoses for many reasons – f rom antiquated testing methods to limited education. I want to open my own psychological testing facility and help change that. Therefore, I am pursuing a Ph.D. in Clinical Neuropsychology.  I was diagnosed with ADHD as a child because I had trouble focusing in school. The medication m y doctor prescribed to me only made me numb to the world around me. I couldn’t think or process emotions, or had no emotions at all. After several years my parents finally decided to get a second opinion. I saw a specialist and she concluded that I didn’t have ADHD , but a combination of dyslexia and dysgraphia (difficulties with reading and writing). She sent us to a therapist who helped me learn how to work around my conditions, and my life improved tremendously. I went from being a lifeless student with barely passing grades to an honor roll student full of joy and excitement. Unfortunately, my story is not one of a kind. There are countless children in America who are put on mind-altering medications that do not adequately address their needs. I cannot help all of those children, but I can provide a better alternative for the ones in my area. Through proper education, funded by financial aid, I can learn about psychological evaluations and provide the most accurate diagnoses possible.

Word Count: 249

Long scholarship essay example: Tell us about yourself (500 Words)

Scholarship essays that are 500 words or longer let you tell the whole story. You can discuss your past, present and future in a comprehensive manner. Avoid rambling and make sure each topic contributes to the overall essay. If one piece feels out of place, remove it and elaborate more on the existing elements. By the end of the essay, the reader should have a full understanding of who you are and what you want to accomplish.

My name is Sierra Breault, and I am a junior at Murray State University. I am double-majoring in Criminal Justice and Forensics Science, and I will graduate in 2024 with two bachelor degrees. My career goal is in social justice, so I can contribute to criminal justice reform. I want to ensure that those who commit crimes are treated fairly.  I come from a small town where excessive force and even death by cop incidents are often committed, especially against minorities. A few years ago, one of my relatives was charged for a crime although the crime scene evidence wasn’t properly obtained, catalogued and analyzed.  This experience played a big part in my wish to study criminal justice. I started exploring the career more when I decided that a desk job just wasn’t for me. Throughout high school I struggled because of the routine nature of it all. I saw the same people and attended the same classes every single day. I knew I didn’t want a job that would be that stagnant. That’s when I got the idea to work in law enforcement, because there would always be a new challenge for me to tackle. After researching the field even more, I set my sights on crime scene investigation. I have performed much better academically in college than I ever did in high school. That’s because there is no routine to the experience. Every week, I have new projects to complete, tests to study for, and activities to try. I have been involved with the campus Crime Stoppers organization all three years of college, and I was elected president for the upcoming term. This lets me work closely with law enforcement to supplement my college education and further my career.   After graduating, I will apply for work as a dispatcher in a state organization, such as the Department of Criminal Investigation. While my ultimate goal is to work as a forensic analyst or crime scene investigator, those positions usually only go to people within the organization. Dispatch is the most direct option for career entry, giving me the best chance to pursue my dream career. I am applying for this scholarship to help me finish the last two years of my degrees. As a college junior and soon-to-be senior, my scholarship opportunities are limited. Most awards are reserved for freshmen. I took advantage of those early on, and I have one recurring scholarship that covers half of my tuition. However, I need additional financial aid to cover the remainder of my academic costs. I appreciate your consideration, and I hope that you can help me pursue a profession in criminal justice. This is my passion, and I have a clear plan to turn that passion into a lifelong career.

Word Count: 463

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As a parent who recently helped her own kids embark on their college journeys, Jennifer approaches the transition from high school to college from a unique perspective. She truly enjoys engaging with students – helping them to build the confidence, knowledge, and insight needed to pursue their educational and career goals, while also empowering them with the strategies and skills needed to access scholarships and financial aid that can help limit college costs. She understands the importance of ensuring access to the edtech tools and resources that can make this process easier and more equitable - this drive to support underserved populations is what drew her to ScholarshipOwl. Jennifer has coached students from around the world, as well as in-person with local students in her own community. Her areas of focus include career exploration, major selection, college search and selection, college application assistance, financial aid and scholarship consultation, essay review and feedback, and more. She works with students who are at the top of their class, as well as those who are struggling. She firmly believes that all students, regardless of their circumstances, can succeed if they stay focused and work hard in school. Jennifer earned her MA in Counseling Psychology from National University, and her BA in Psychology from University of California, Santa Cruz.

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How Do I Write An Essay About Achieving My Goals?

Introduction.

Writing an essay about achieving your goals can be a powerful exercise in self-reflection and motivation. Whether you are writing for a class assignment, a college application, or simply for personal development, this article will guide you through the process of creating a well-structured and compelling essay on this topic. By breaking down the steps involved and providing helpful tips, you’ll be equipped to express your aspirations, outline an action plan, and highlight the significance of achieving your goals.

Step 1: Set Clear Goals

Achieving your goals starts with clearly defining what you want to accomplish. Take some time to reflect on your aspirations and think about what truly matters to you. Your goals may include academic achievements, career aspirations, personal growth, or any other area of your life that you wish to improve. Ensure that your goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART goals). By setting clear goals, you will be able to better articulate your vision in your essay.

Step 2: Plan Your Essay Structure

Before diving into the writing process, it’s essential to plan the structure of your essay. This will ensure that your ideas flow smoothly and logically, engaging the reader from start to finish. Generally, an essay consists of three main parts: an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

The Introduction: Begin your essay with a captivating introduction. Grab the reader’s attention with an anecdote, a relevant quote, or a thought-provoking question. Clearly state your goals and the significance they hold for you. Conclude the introduction with a concise thesis statement that presents the main focus of your essay.

Body Paragraphs: The body of your essay offers an opportunity to elaborate on your goals and the steps you are taking or planning to take to achieve them. Divide your body paragraphs based on the subtopics or themes you want to discuss. For each paragraph, present a specific goal, provide relevant details, and explain why it is important to you. Consider incorporating examples, personal experiences, or research to support your statements and make your essay more persuasive.

The Conclusion: Wrap up your essay with a strong conclusion that reinforces the main points you have discussed. Avoid introducing new information here. Instead, highlight the potential impact of achieving your goals and leave the reader with a final thought or call to action.

Step 3: Conduct Research

If your essay requires factual information or expert opinions, conducting research will provide you with valuable insights to enhance your writing. Utilize reputable sources such as scholarly articles, books, or credible websites to gather information that supports your aspirations. When referencing sources, make sure to cite them properly using the appropriate citation style (e.g., MLA, APA).

Step 4: Draft and Revise

Now that you have a plan and have conducted research, begin writing the initial draft of your essay. Start with the body paragraphs, as they contain the core content of your essay. Ensure each paragraph follows a logical flow and connects back to the main focus of your essay.

Once you have completed your draft, take time to review and revise. Pay attention to grammar, spelling, and sentence structure. Ensure that your ideas are presented clearly and cohesively. Consider seeking feedback from others, such as teachers, family members, or friends, to gain different perspectives and improve your essay even further.

Step 5: Add Personal Reflection

In addition to presenting your goals and action plans, be sure to include personal reflections throughout your essay. Explain why achieving these goals is meaningful to you and how they align with your values and aspirations. By sharing your personal insights and emotions, you will create a more engaging and authentic essay.

Step 6: Edit and Proofread

Before submitting your essay, it is crucial to edit and proofread your work. Review your essay for any errors, both grammatical and typographical. Ensure that your ideas are coherent and logical, and that your writing flows smoothly. Consider using online grammar checkers or seeking assistance from a professional editor if needed.

Writing an essay about achieving your goals allows you to reflect on your aspirations, establish a concrete plan, and demonstrate your determination to succeed. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can create a compelling essay that effectively communicates your goals and motivates both yourself and your readers.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Professions & Career — Career Goals

Career Goals Essay Examples

Career goals essay topic examples, argumentative essays.

Argumentative career goals essays require you to present and defend a viewpoint or strategy related to your professional aspirations. Consider these topic examples:

• 1. Argue why pursuing higher education, such as a master's degree, is essential for achieving your long-term career goals.
• 2. Defend your perspective on whether adaptability or specialization is more important in today's ever-changing job market.

Example Introduction Paragraph for an Argumentative Career Goals Essay: The journey toward achieving our career goals often involves important decisions. In this essay, I will argue that pursuing a master's degree is not only personally fulfilling but also a strategic step toward realizing my long-term career aspirations in [your chosen field].

Example Conclusion Paragraph for an Argumentative Career Goals Essay: In conclusion, the argument for pursuing a master's degree underscores the significance of advanced education in shaping our professional futures. As we contemplate our career paths, we are challenged to make choices that align with our ultimate goals.

Compare and Contrast Essays

Compare and contrast career goals essays involve analyzing the differences and similarities between various career paths, industries, or strategies for achieving your goals. Consider these topics:

• 1. Compare and contrast the career trajectories of professionals in two different fields, highlighting the unique challenges and opportunities each path offers.
• 2. Analyze the differences and similarities between pursuing entrepreneurship and working in a corporate environment to achieve your career goals.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Compare and Contrast Career Goals Essay: The pursuit of career goals often involves making informed choices about our professional paths. In this essay, we will compare and contrast the career trajectories of professionals in [Field A] and [Field B], shedding light on the challenges and opportunities each path presents.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Compare and Contrast Career Goals Essay: In conclusion, the comparison and contrast of career trajectories in [Field A] and [Field B] reveal the diverse avenues available for achieving our goals. As we navigate our career choices, we are encouraged to explore the unique advantages each path offers.

Descriptive Essays

Descriptive career goals essays enable you to vividly depict your envisioned career, highlighting the responsibilities, impact, and personal fulfillment it offers. Here are some topic ideas:

• 1. Describe your ideal job in detail, emphasizing the specific role, responsibilities, and the positive contributions you aim to make.
• 2. Paint a detailed portrait of the work culture and environment you aspire to be a part of in your future career.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Descriptive Career Goals Essay: Our career goals are often shaped by our dreams and aspirations. In this essay, I will immerse you in the vivid details of my ideal job, showcasing the role, responsibilities, and the sense of purpose it offers on my journey toward professional fulfillment.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Descriptive Career Goals Essay: In conclusion, the descriptive exploration of my ideal job underscores the importance of aligning our career goals with our aspirations. As we envision our professional futures, we are inspired to pursue opportunities that resonate with our passions and values.

Persuasive Essays

Persuasive career goals essays involve convincing your audience of the importance of a specific career path or the value of setting ambitious goals. Consider these persuasive topics:

• 1. Persuade your readers that pursuing a career in [your chosen field] will contribute significantly to societal progress and innovation.
• 2. Argue for the inclusion of career development programs in educational institutions to empower students in defining and pursuing their career goals.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Persuasive Career Goals Essay: Our career choices have the potential to impact not only our lives but also society as a whole. In this persuasive essay, I will present a compelling case for the societal importance of pursuing a career in [your chosen field] and the need for educational institutions to support students in their career aspirations.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Persuasive Career Goals Essay: In conclusion, the persuasive argument for the societal value of careers in [your chosen field] emphasizes the transformative impact individuals can have on society. As we contemplate our career journeys, we are urged to consider the broader implications of our choices.

Narrative Essays

Narrative career goals essays allow you to share personal stories or experiences related to your career aspirations and the journey toward achieving them. Explore these narrative essay topics:

• 1. Narrate a personal experience that shaped your career goals and ignited your passion for [your chosen field].
• 2. Share a story of overcoming obstacles and setbacks on your path to realizing your long-term career aspirations.

Example Introduction Paragraph for a Narrative Career Goals Essay: Our career goals are often inspired by personal experiences and pivotal moments. In this narrative essay, I will take you on a journey through a defining experience that ignited my passion for [your chosen field], shaping my career aspirations and determination to succeed.

Example Conclusion Paragraph for a Narrative Career Goals Essay: In conclusion, the narrative of my journey toward realizing my career goals underscores the resilience and determination required to overcome obstacles. As we reflect on our own experiences, we are reminded that our career aspirations are within reach with dedication and perseverance.

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Essay on Goals And Aspirations

Students are often asked to write an essay on Goals And Aspirations in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Goals And Aspirations

What are goals.

Goals are like targets we aim to hit in the future. They give us a clear idea of where we want to go. Think of them as destinations on a map. For example, a goal might be to get good grades or to learn how to play soccer.

Why Aspirations Matter

Aspirations are our big dreams, the things we really hope to achieve one day. They keep us excited and working hard. If you dream of becoming a scientist, that’s an aspiration. It’s like a star we reach for.

Setting Goals

To set a goal, think about what you want to do, then make a plan. Goals should be clear and possible to achieve. If you want to read more books, you could set a goal to read for 20 minutes every day.

Achieving Our Dreams

To achieve goals and aspirations, we need to work steadily and not give up. Every small step we take gets us closer to our dreams. Remember, even the longest journey starts with a single step.

Goals Shape the Future

Our goals and dreams shape what our future looks like. They help us grow and learn new things. By chasing our goals, we can become the best versions of ourselves and make a difference in the world.

250 Words Essay on Goals And Aspirations

Goals are like targets we aim to hit in our lives. They can be big or small, like wanting to read 10 books in a year or aiming to become a doctor. Goals give us a clear idea of where we want to go and what we want to achieve. They are important because they guide us and keep us focused.

Aspirations are our dreams and wishes for the future. They are like seeds of our goals. When we aspire to be something, it means we hope and work to make it happen. For example, if you aspire to be a great soccer player, you practice every day to make that dream real. Aspirations inspire us to reach higher and try harder.

To set a goal, start by thinking about what you love and enjoy. Then, make a plan on how to get there. Let’s say you want to be good at math. Your goal could be to practice math problems for 30 minutes every day. Setting clear steps makes it easier to reach your goal.

Working Towards Your Dreams

To achieve your goals and fulfill your aspirations, you need to work hard and stay committed. This means not giving up, even when things get tough. It also means learning from mistakes and trying again. Remember, every small step you take gets you closer to your dream.

Keep Dreaming Big

Never stop dreaming and setting new goals. As you grow and learn, your goals and aspirations might change, and that’s okay. Always believe in yourself and keep pushing forward. With hard work and determination, you can achieve anything you set your mind to.

500 Words Essay on Goals And Aspirations

Understanding goals and aspirations.

Goals and aspirations are like the guiding stars in the sky of life. They show us the way forward and motivate us to keep moving. A goal is a target we aim for, something we want to achieve, like getting good grades or winning a race. Aspirations are our big dreams, the things we hope for in our future, like becoming a doctor, an artist, or an astronaut.

The Importance of Setting Goals

Setting goals is important because it gives us a clear path to follow. It’s like having a map when you’re on a journey. If we know where we want to go, we can figure out how to get there. Goals help us focus and not get distracted by things that are not important. They also make us feel excited and give us a reason to work hard. When we reach our goals, we feel proud and happy.

Dream Big with Aspirations

Aspirations are our heart’s deepest desires. They are bigger than goals and might take a long time to come true. But they are very powerful because they inspire us to aim high and not settle for less. For example, a student might aspire to make the world a better place. This big dream can lead to many smaller goals, like studying hard, helping others, and learning new things.

How to Achieve Your Goals

To achieve your goals, you need to plan and work hard. First, write down your goals and make them as clear as possible. Then, break them down into smaller steps that you can take one at a time. It’s like climbing a ladder; you reach the top by climbing one rung at a time. Stay focused and don’t give up, even if it gets tough. Remember, every small step you take brings you closer to your goal.

Overcoming Challenges

Sometimes, reaching our goals and aspirations can be tough. We might face problems or get tired. But these challenges are just tests to see how much we want to achieve our dreams. When you face a problem, try to find a solution instead of giving up. Ask for help if you need it, and learn from your mistakes. Every challenge you overcome makes you stronger and brings you closer to your goal.

The Joy of Achieving Goals

There is a special joy that comes from achieving our goals. It’s the feeling of success after working hard and not giving up. When we reach our goals, we also learn a lot about ourselves. We discover that we are capable of doing great things and that our dreams are possible. This joy gives us more energy to set new goals and chase after new dreams.

Goals and aspirations are important because they give us direction and purpose in life. They encourage us to do our best and to keep going even when it’s hard. Remember to set clear goals, work towards them step by step, and never stop dreaming. With determination and effort, you can achieve anything you set your mind to. So, dream big, set goals, and start your journey towards making those dreams a reality.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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3 ways to answer “What are your career aspirations?”

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What are your career aspirations?

Why do interviewers want to know about your career aspirations, what are some good career aspirations.

How to identify your career aspirations in 3 easy steps

How to answer "what are your career aspirations?"

3 career aspiration examples for answering the interview question

“What are your career aspirations?” is a question that comes up in almost every interview.

At first glance, it might seem easy to answer. You just have to tell them about your future dreams and professional goals , right?

Well, yes and no. Interviewers use this question to get specific information about your potential at their company and whether your skillset will be a valuable addition to the team.

Your answer will help them determine whether you’re a good fit and have a future in their organization.

To help you prepare an answer to this question, let’s take a look at what career aspirations are, how they are different than your personal goals , why interviewers want to know about them, and how to identify your own.

Your career aspirations are  your vision for your future . They are what you hope to achieve in your professional life in the years to come.

Put simply, a career aspiration is a long-term dream that you are pursuing. A career aspiration can even be accompanied by a 5-year plan . 

You may not have a concrete plan for achieving your occupational aspirations. Even so, you keep them in mind when making decisions that affect your future. 

Career aspirations are not the same as career goals. A goal is usually a more specific, short-term objective with a detailed plan for achieving it.

The difference between the two is subtle but important. 

A goal usually has a set time frame in which to achieve it. The time required to achieve an aspiration is variable.

While a goal focuses on achieving a specific, tangible outcome, an aspiration is more general. Aspirations also leave room for different outcomes and results.

For example, a career aspiration for an executive could be to leave your mark on a company. A career goal for the same person could be to receive a promotion in the next three months.

Jon Stewart, a comedian, filmmaker, political commentator, actor, and television host, shares one of his career aspirations: 

I want to look back on my career and be proud of the work, and be proud that I tried everything.

When an interviewer asks you about your career aspirations, they want to know if those aspirations are compatible with the company’s vision for the future and the company's core values .

They want to know whether you can achieve your aspirations within the role and organization. 

If so, you’re more likely to stay with them for a long time. If not, they run the risk of you leaving and experiencing employee turnover . 

They also want to know what your ambitions are and whether it will be possible for you to achieve them within their company.

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Career aspirations are neither good nor bad. However, some are more relevant to your career development than others.

Which aspirations are relevant depends on:

• Your career path
• The type of job you’re applying for
• The company
• What the interviewers are looking for

A 2020 report on teenagers’ career aspirations in the UK showed a disconnect between their goals and the real opportunities available .

For this reason, a good career aspiration aligns your career ambition with the company's vision of the future.

The image below shows the gap between young people’s aspirations and the opportunities available.

( Image Source )

How to identify your career aspirations

Career aspirations are fueled by a variety of factors. There is a myriad of reasons an individual would want to grow in their career or change roles entirely. Honing in on what it important to you and what you’re good at can help you better understand your own career aspirations and develop a plan to make them happen.

Consider your values

Knowing what you care about can help you understand what motivates you. By aligning your career aspirations and goals with your values , you will have a better time sticking with them and keeping going when times get tough.

If you aren’t sure where your values lie, it could be time for some introspection and self-reflection. Try making a list of what is important to you in general and then what you value most out of a job . Perhaps loyalty and flexibility are important to you. You could appreciate a loyal friend just as much as a loyal boss. If there is any overlap, be sure to note those values.

Know where your strengths lie

What are you good at? Now, what are you good at that you also enjoy doing? If you can find the role or activity that blends these two, you might be on track to develop your career aspirations. 

These do not have to be too literal. Perhaps you are good at photography and really enjoy it, but do not want to work as a professional photographer. Dig a little deeper and figure out why you enjoy photography. Is it working with other people or getting to travel solo? Do you enjoy the visual aspect of creating compositions or the problem-solving needed to set up each shot? Answering these questions can help you uncover your career aspirations.

Talk to a coach or mentor

Sometimes, looking inward is less productive than garnering feedback from the outside. Meeting with a career coach or mentor will give you an additional perspective and can help you see options that weren’t initially clear to you.

You may already know what your career aspirations are. 

However, when you’re preparing for an interview , it’s important to think about which aspirations are most relevant to the job you’re applying for.

Your objective in the interview is to convince the hiring manager that you’re the best candidate for the position. For this reason, you should think about the best way to present your professional aspirations during the interview. Find a way that they align with the goals of the company.

Follow the three steps outlined below to identify the career aspirations that are most relevant to the organization and role you’re applying for. We'll then take a look at a few sample answers to what are your career aspirations are.

1. Gather information on the company and role

The first step in preparing for any interview is to gather as much information as possible about the position’s requirements.

It’s also essential to learn as much as you can about the company culture and the organization’s future plans. 

Read the job description and become familiar with the company by reading policy documents, plans, and reports. 

2. Select and adjust your professional goals

Identify which of your professional aspirations and goals align with what the interviewers are looking for.

This step is crucial for successfully answering questions about them during your interview.

It’s not always easy to decide which of your aspirations may be relevant to the interviewers. You should adapt your aspirations to emphasize the aspects you think are most pertinent.

3. Keep your career goals and aspirations relevant during the interview

It’s impossible to know exactly what the company’s plans are for the future, no matter how much research you do.

Use your common sense to analyze the information available and make an educated guess about their goals. 

At the interview, keep your answers relevant and provide only the necessary information related to the role or company.

Avoid mentioning aspirations that are unrelated to the job, such as your family or hobbies. 

Don’t lie in your interview. However, it may be wise to omit details about personal goals that might not fit with the organization’s long-term objectives.

Instead, use this question as an opportunity to highlight your:

• Positive qualities
• Competency for the job position

You have two main objectives when answering the question, “What are your career aspirations?”:

• Demonstrate that your aspirations align with the company’s vision and long-term goals
• Show the interviewer how the role will help you gain the skills and experience necessary to achieve your career aspirations

Below are three example answers to inspire you.

Career aspiration example 1

“As a sound engineering student, I began gaining experience by recording university bands, live. 

Now that I have graduated, I would like to transfer my skills and experience to work in a professional recording studio such as yours. 

I would like to continue to develop my skills and experience by working with professional recording equipment. 

I also want to develop my leadership and organizational skills. This will help me achieve my goal of leading production teams in the future.”

Why it works : This is a good answer because it highlights the candidate’s relevant skills and experience. It also shows their motivation to develop their career within the organization. 

They demonstrate their ambition and self-confidence. This signals to the hiring manager they could be a good investment. 

The candidate omits specific details about their career progression, objectives, and personal aspirations.

Career aspiration example 2

“For the last five years, I have been developing my skills and abilities as a project manager within a national construction company. 

Now, I’m ready for a new challenge. I want to gain experience in a multinational organization. I would like to manage international projects and globally dispersed teams. 

I have strong leadership skills and communication skills that I would like to continue developing. 

My long-term career goal is to become a program manager and manage several projects at the same time.”

Why it works :

This answer demonstrates that the candidate’s ambitions are in line with those of a multinational organization. 

It shows they are not afraid to take on new challenges or responsibilities. 

The answer is concise but includes relevant information without unnecessary details.

Career aspiration example 3

“For the last three years, I have been working as a criminal lawyer. 

In my spare time, I do pro bono work giving legal assistance to low-income families. 

I have always been interested in humanitarian work. This is why I applied for the position of criminal lawyer. 

I want to continue to grow in my specialty while helping those in need. In the future, I would like to work abroad, defending the rights of vulnerable people in conflict zones.”

This answer aligns with the values, policy, and culture of the recruiting organization. 

It shows the candidate has the qualifications, experience, and aspirations required for the role.

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Prepare to achieve your career aspirations

Preparation can make all the difference in giving a successful answer to the question “what are your career aspirations?”

Don’t let the simplicity of the question fool you — your answer could mark the difference between you and the other candidates. Don't forget: how you follow up after an interview makes a difference. 

And if you need help preparing for your next job interview, discover how BetterUp’s career coaching service can help you make that next big career move. 

Elizabeth Perry

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Why do you want to work here? Here’s how to answer (or not)

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Exploring the Importance of Aspirations and Strategies for Achieving Academic Success

Education is a lifelong process that begins at birth and continues until death. It is the foundation upon which one builds their future, and it is crucial to have a clear understanding of one’s educational goals to achieve success in life. This essay, written by a custom essay writing company , can show you different goals of education, and then, maybe, you can find your own. Also, there you can find what your educational goals essay examples are.

An Essay on Educational Goals and the Strategies for Achieving them

Education plays a critical role in shaping one’s future, providing the foundation for personal and professional growth. Having a clear understanding of one’s educational goals for college is essential for achieving success in life. Educational goals are the aspirations that individuals seek to achieve during their academic journey, guiding them towards personal and professional fulfillment.

Short-term Educational Goals

As an individual, I have set specific educational goals that will enable me to achieve success and contribute positively to society. These goals are divided into short-term and long-term goals, which will help me navigate through the various stages of my academic journey.

Long-term Educational Goals

My short-term educational goals include attending all my classes, actively participating in class discussions, and completing all my assignments on time. Additionally, I aim to build strong relationships with my professors and peers, as they play a crucial role in my academic success. By achieving these goals, I will develop a strong academic foundation and the skills and knowledge necessary to excel in my chosen field.

Resources for Achieving Educational Goals

My long-term educational goals are to obtain a graduate degree in my area of interest, gain practical experience through internships and research opportunities, and develop strong leadership skills. These goals will enable me to build a solid foundation for my career and make significant contributions to society.

To achieve these goals, I have developed specific strategies and plans. Firstly, I will take advantage of all available resources, including academic advisors, career services, and professional organizations. Additionally, I will attend workshops, conferences, and seminars to enhance my skills and knowledge and network with professionals in my field.

Time Management and Prioritization

Secondly, I will prioritize my studies and manage my time effectively, ensuring that I meet all my academic obligations. This involves setting realistic goals and developing a study plan to achieve them.

Practical Experience

Thirdly, I will seek out practical experience through internships and research opportunities, which will provide me with hands-on experience and exposure to real-world problems.

Leadership Development

Lastly, I will develop my leadership skills through participation in extracurricular activities such as clubs and organizations. This will enable me to develop strong communication skills, build relationships, and develop a strong work ethic.

Educational goals are essential for personal and professional growth, providing individuals with a clear path towards academic success and personal fulfillment. Strategies such as time management, prioritization, practical experience, and leadership development can help individuals reach their goals.

By following these strategies and utilizing available resources, individuals can achieve their educational goals and make meaningful contributions to society. The process of setting and achieving educational goals is a lifelong journey that requires patience, perseverance, and a commitment to personal growth.

Tips for Writing a What are Your Educational Goals Essay

There are a lot of What are Your Educational Goals Essay Examples, because it is a popular type of essay that requires the writer to reflect on their academic aspirations and articulate their goals for pursuing higher education. In the same time writing this essay can be a daunting task, especially if you are unsure about your future plans. If you need a boost, look at examples of personal statements before you start writing your own essay. However, with the right approach, you can write a compelling essay that effectively communicates your educational goals. Here are some tips for writing a successful what are your educational goals essay:

Start with a Clear Introduction

Begin your essay about educational goals with a clear introduction that defines the purpose of the essay and provides an overview of what you will be discussing. Clearly state your educational goals and explain why they are important to you.

Be Specific

When discussing your educational goals, be as specific as possible. Avoid vague statements and generalizations. Provide concrete examples of the goals you hope to achieve, such as pursuing a particular degree, gaining specific skills or knowledge, or obtaining a specific job.

Highlight your Strengths

When discussing your educational goals, highlight your strengths and achievements. Discuss any relevant experiences, such as academic awards, extracurricular activities, or volunteer work. This will help demonstrate to the reader that you are committed to your goals and have the necessary skills to achieve them.

Explain your Plan

In order to achieve your educational goals, you need a plan. Explain your plan for achieving your goals, including any steps you have already taken towards achieving them. Discuss any resources you plan to use, such as academic advisors, career services, or professional organizations.

Be Realistic

While it is important to be ambitious, it is also important to be realistic. Don’t set goals that are unattainable or unrealistic. Make sure your goals are achievable and that you have a plan in place to achieve them.

Edit and Revise

Once you have written your educational goal essay, take the time to edit and revise it. Make sure your essay is well-organized, easy to read, and free from grammatical errors. Ask someone else to read it and provide feedback. By following these tips, you can write a compelling essay that effectively communicates your educational goals and demonstrates your commitment to academic success. Remember to be specific, highlight your strengths, explain your plan, be realistic, and edit and revise your essay to ensure it is the best it can be.

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How to Answer “What Are Your Career Aspirations?”

A guide to answering “What are your career aspirations?” in a job interview.

Do you have a job interview coming up? If so, you might be anticipating what questions the hiring manager will ask. It is always a good idea to prepare answers to standard interview questions. 

One of those questions is, “What are your career aspirations?” This comes up pretty frequently in various forms. Assuming you have vague ideas about your true career aspirations, remember that your goal is to land the job.

You should answer in a way that demonstrates your dreams are aligned with the role and the company’s bottom line. Present yourself as the ideal candidate for the job at hand, not someone who will leave in a year to attend grad school or change careers.

Let's take a look at why job recruiters ask this question and explore five examples to get you ready to ace your interview. 

What is a career aspiration?

Career aspirations are long-term hopes and ambitions. People develop them based on their personal experiences, including talents, values, lifestyle, and more. Examples of career aspirations might include:

Working in an industry that you’re passionate about

Managing or leading successfully

Using your talents or skills in a role

Starting or owning a business

Earning accolades for expertise

In response to this question, you might say that you aspire to become a marketing executive for a wildlife conservation organization in 10 years. Explain why the marketing assistant role you’re interviewing for aligns with that aspiration. It signals a strategic approach to career decisions.

Exercise: What are my career aspirations?

Some soul searching can be helpful in delivering an honest yet astute answer in your interview. Here’s an exercise to try:

1. Reflect on past work and school experiences. What skills or talents did you acquire or refine? Make a list of three to five main job skills.

2. Consider your interests and passions. Could you get a job in this industry? List out three to five interests or passions.

3. Decide whether you will answer with an aspiration of skill, leadership, or industry.

4. Think about how this job role and company supports your aspiration. Write out one or two reasons it is aligned.

5. Practice. Using one of the five examples below, tailor your response to this question.

Why do interviewers ask about your career aspirations?

Hiring managers ask certain questions to get to know a candidate’s ability to succeed in the job. They want to know how you will perform on the job, which includes evaluating your personality and working style, technical skills , interpersonal skills , and more. 

For the career aspirations question, interviewers especially want to know that you have put thought into your future career and mapped out specific goals to manifest your aspirations. They want to feel confident that you know exactly why you want to work for this company in this specific job role and can explain why you are a good fit for each other. 

Hiring the right candidate can require spending immense amounts of time and resources, so companies want to gauge whether or not you’ll stick around for a while to grow with the company.

You can say that this job you’re applying for aligns with the career you envision 10 years from now and emphasize the transferable skills gained by taking on this job. However, it’s not a good idea to go into too much detail about transferring to a different company or industry in the future.

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How to answer: “What are your career aspirations?”

The best way to answer this question is to be clear that you want this job and that it perfectly aligns with your desired career roadmap. 

This question might appear in different forms:

Where do you see yourself five years from now?

What are you hoping to get out of this role? 

Do you think this position aligns with your professional goals? How?

These variations are more specific, so you may want to craft potential responses for each question.

Example 1: Skills application

I have been a server for 10 years, often supplemented by tutoring on the weekends. While I loved the hustle and atmosphere of working in restaurants, I am ready to pivot in my career toward a marketing role. It is my dream to become a marketing manager. I believe that my sales experience in upselling appetizers and cocktails to customers and understanding of the food and beverage industry enables me to succeed in this marketing assistant role at a major chocolate company. 

Example 2: Role and work style alignment

As a trained political scientist, I am very interested in this role working in human rights. It has always been my intention to pursue work that relates to my postgraduate thesis research on undocumented Mexican immigrants working on Pacific Northwest farms. Conducting research on migrants’ rights for this think tank would be fulfilling. Because the researcher role is both collaborative and independent, it also aligns with my preferred working style.

Example 3: Pursuit of passion

For seven years, I have kept a hydroponic garden in my apartment. Although I studied psychology, contributing to the environment by growing my own vegetables and giving the surplus away to friends and food banks has been incredibly rewarding. I love helping others and I am passionate about sustainability, so I would love for this ethos to be a running theme in my career. This role as community manager for a solar panel company feels like a good fit!

For additional resources, check out Coursera’s job search guide for articles to help you navigate your career.

Example 4: Opportunities that the job offers

I studied abroad in Ecuador during college, which led me to teach English in Costa Rica for a year after graduation. When I saw that this role requires at least 25% travel, I felt excited that I could integrate my cultural experiences into my career going forward. It’s one of the many reasons I applied for this job. I am near fluent in Spanish, too. Conducting business in Latin America requires a keen understanding of the cultural nuances in each country. I believe I am qualified for this role, and I could see myself doing this for a long time.

Example 5: Leadership potential

One of my career aspirations is definitely to be in a leadership position. In my most recent role as people operations lead at a start-up, I was thrilled to manage three interns. Supporting them as a mentor in their career growth was especially fulfilling. At this company, or elsewhere, I hope to work toward becoming the head of human resources so that I can improve employee well-being. Studies show happiness with internal structures and culture is the key to profitability. I want to lead with empathy while achieving business results.

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career development

7 Meaningful Answers to "What are Your Career Aspirations?" in an Interview

Learn the best approaches to answer interview questions about your career aspirations. We provide example answers and explain what makes them meaningful.

Together Team

Published on 

August 9, 2023

Updated on 

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“What are your career aspirations?”

This has to be one of the most commonly asked questions in interviews besides the standard questions about the candidate’s professional background, skills, and experience.

"Career aspirations" refer to an individual's long-term professional goals and ambitions, encompassing the desired achievements and personal growth they seek throughout their journey.

Interviewers inquire about your professional aspirations to gain insights into your long-term motivations, passion, and alignment with the company's vision, helping them assess if your goals and the organization's objectives are in sync. 

The key to providing meaningful answers is to be genuine and demonstrate a clear connection between your career aspirations and the value you can bring to the organization. Tailor your responses to the specific job and company, and let your passion for personal and professional growth shine through.

7 examples of answers about career aspirations

When asked about your career aspirations, a meaningful answer that goes beyond personal growth will help you differentiate yourself from other interviewees. Here are seven meaningful answers that can make a lasting impression on interviewers:

1. Pursuing continuous learning and skill development 

Example: "My career aspirations are centered around constant growth and skill enhancement. I am committed to staying updated with the latest trends and technologies in the industry. In the coming year, I plan to pursue specialized certifications and attend industry conferences to learn from experts . By continuously improving my skills, I aim to bring innovative strategies to the table and contribute to the company's success in reaching new audiences."

While the above example is a generalized statement on continuous learning , you can improve it by naming specific skills and certifications that you mean to acquire.

2. Making a positive impact on society and the environment

Example: "Beyond personal career goals, I am passionate about creating a positive impact on society and the environment through my work. I aspire to work for a company with a strong commitment to sustainability. I envision aligning my career with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and actively participating in corporate social responsibility initiatives. I find immense fulfillment in contributing to a greener and more sustainable future, and I believe that my dedication to these causes will resonate with the organization's values and mission."

The above answer will help you showcase your interest in contributing to a larger purpose by making a difference in the world. Make it your own by discussing any volunteer work you are involved in to emphasize your commitment to meaningful impact.

3. Becoming a thought leader and influencer in the industry

Example: "My ultimate career aspiration is to become a thought leader and influencer in my field. I plan to publish research papers, contribute to open-source projects, and participate in conferences to share my knowledge. Additionally, I aspire to become an active member of industry forums and engage in public speaking opportunities to promote advancements in the industry. By becoming a recognized authority, I can position the company as a leader in our space."

Turn the above example into a highly specific answer by mentioning your area of expertise and your topic of research. Give examples of other thought leaders in your industry and how they helped establish their organizations as leaders in their space.

4. Embracing leadership opportunities

Example: "As a seasoned manager, my career aspiration is to take on more significant leadership roles and contribute to the growth of the organization's talent. I envision leading cross-functional teams, fostering a collaborative work culture, and mentoring emerging managers . A company can grow and succeed faster when the more experienced members of the team empower and guide others."

Communicate your interest in taking on leadership roles and guiding others to success. Make the above example your own by discussing your leadership style and how you plan to inspire and motivate team members.

5. Driving innovation and advancement within the company 

Example: "Innovation drives me, and I am passionate about leveraging technology to push the boundaries of what's possible. My career aspiration is to lead the research and development team, where I can spearhead new product ideas and create groundbreaking solutions. I envision fostering an innovation-focused culture within the organization, where employees are encouraged to experiment and think outside the box. By introducing disruptive products to the market, we can elevate the company's position and stay ahead of the competition."

To be more specific with the answer, talk about your ideas for improving processes or developing new products or services for the company.

6. Cultivating a diverse and inclusive work environment 

Example: "My biggest career aspiration revolves around creating an inclusive and diverse work environment. I envision implementing diversity training programs, establishing mentorship opportunities for underrepresented groups, and ensuring that all employees feel valued and respected. By fostering a workplace that celebrates differences, we can boost employee morale, creativity, and ultimately contribute to the company's overall success."

In your answer, discuss strategies for promoting inclusivity and building a diverse team. Emphasize the positive impact of diversity on organizational performance and innovation.

7. Becoming a mentor and guiding others to success

Example: "One of my most significant career aspirations is to take on a mentorship role within the organization. Throughout my career journey, I have benefited greatly from the guidance and support of mentors who have helped me develop both professionally and personally. I aspire to pay it forward by becoming a mentor to junior colleagues and assisting them in their career growth. By sharing my knowledge, experiences, and lessons learned, I hope to inspire and empower others to reach their full potential and contribute to a more dynamic and skilled workforce within the company."

Mentorship can have a profound impact on individual development and team cohesion. By showcasing your willingness to mentor and uplift others, you demonstrate not only a commitment to your own growth but also a dedication to fostering a supportive and collaborative work culture within the organization.

How to answer questions on career aspirations during an interview

When answering the question about career aspirations, demonstrate your alignment with the company's values and showcase your enthusiasm for personal and organizational growth. To ace this critical aspect of the interview, consider the following tips:

Read about the company’s vision and mission, and the job role

When asked about your career aspirations, connect your goals with the company's mission. Search the company's website and annual reports to understand their core values and long-term objectives. Read the job description carefully, because it will also have details about how the role you are interviewing for contributes to the overall picture. 

You will be able to give better answers if you know what the company stands for and how you will potentially fit in and add value. For instance, instead of saying, "I want to improve my leadership skills," say, "I aspire to become a leader who can drive the organization towards achieving its mission of sustainable environmental practices."

Speak with a “We” mindset

Avoid phrases that focus solely on personal gain. Most employers look for a team-oriented and collaborative mindset in their employees. By focusing on how you can contribute to the collective success of the organization and its goals, you will show the interviewers that you are a team player.

Instead of saying, "I want to be making $150,000 in two years," say that "I aim to contribute to the success of the team by utilizing my skills to achieve higher growth."

Be specific and realistic about your goals

Instead of providing vague statements like, "I want to be successful," be specific about your aspirations, such as "I aspire to take on a managerial role within the next three years, leading cross-functional teams and driving innovative projects."

Being specific and realistic about your goals during an interview shows that you have a clear understanding of your career path and have thoughtfully considered your aspirations. It also indicates that you are pragmatic and grounded, making you a more credible candidate who can set achievable targets and work diligently towards them, increasing your chances of being seen as a reliable and valuable asset to the organization.

Show enthusiasm and passion for your career path

Demonstrate your excitement for your chosen career path by saying, "I am genuinely passionate about (let’s say) marketing, and I look forward to creating impactful campaigns that can connect with customers on a deeper level and drive brand loyalty."

Employers value candidates who are enthusiastic about their work as they are more likely to be motivated, proactive, and willing to go the extra mile to excel in their role.

Common pitfalls to avoid when answering questions about career aspirations

By effectively communicating your career aspirations during an interview, you can leave a lasting impression on potential employers. However, candidates should steer clear of the following two common pitfalls:

1. Using cliches and vague responses

Using cliches and providing vague responses can make your answer sound insincere and lacking in authenticity. Vague statements like "I want to make a difference" or "I want to be successful" don't provide meaningful insights into your actual goals and may come across as generic.

Instead of saying, "I want to be a leader who inspires others," be more specific by saying, "My career aspiration is to become a compassionate and influential team leader, empowering my team members to achieve their goals and foster a collaborative work environment."

2. Being too modest or self-deprecating

While it's essential to strike a balance between confidence and humility, being overly modest or self-deprecating may undermine your credibility and hinder your chances of making a strong impression. It's crucial to showcase your strengths and aspirations with conviction without sounding arrogant.

Instead of downplaying your accomplishments with statements like, "I was just lucky to receive that award," own your achievements and say, "I am proud of the hard work and dedication that led to receiving the award, and it motivates me to continue striving for excellence in my career."

Strike the right balance between authentic and impressive 

When answering questions about your career aspirations, honesty in your responses is essential, as it reflects your genuine motivations and long-term goals.

Strike a balance between authenticity and alignment, and let your enthusiasm for your career path shine through. By articulating your aspirations with clarity and conviction, you present yourself as a proactive and dedicated candidate, poised to make a significant impact within the organization. Your ability to combine honesty and alignment is the key to leaving a strong impression and increasing your chances of securing the opportunity that aligns perfectly with your career aspirations.

Want to grow in your career and achieve your career aspirations? Learn from those who have walked the path before you. Find mentors that will teach you how to navigate the ups and downs of your career and make the right moves to achieve your goals.

Dive deeper into the topic in our mentees guide

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How to Answer “What Are Your Career Aspirations?” (Sample Answers Included)

“What are your career aspirations?” is a very popular HR interview question that can come up in various forms like “What are your long-term and short-term goals?” , “How do you plan to achieve your career goals? etc.

So, if you are gearing up for your upcoming HR interview round, then do not miss out on this one!

In this blog, we will help you answer this HR interview question and also provide what is your career aspirations sample answer to help you frame your own responses accordingly.

Why do interviewers ask "What are your career aspirations?"

How to answer "what are your career aspirations", what is your career aspirations sample answer.

Through "What are your career aspirations?" recruiters want to gauge if your aspirations are compatible with the company's values.

The reason being, they want to ensure if your aspirations can be achieved within this role and company as it will lead to lower employee turnover rate.

Remember, the ultimate motive of the recruiter is to hire the right talent who will be with them for the long run.

Here are a few points to remember when answering the HR interview question “What are your career aspirations?”

Research the company's mission and vision statements

As we stated above, recruiters want to hire candidates who can grow with the company.

This makes it critical for every jobseeker to read up about the company, its culture, values, etc. through their company websites or AmbitionBox .

This will give you clarity about many things especially if you can see yourself grow in that company and in that culture.

Also, if the job role can help you progress in your career and even have talking points when recruiters ask “Do you have any questions for me?”.

Ensure your goals and aspirations are aligned to the job role

When talking about your career aspirations, you need to recognize the goals that can intrigue the recruiter and hit the right notes.

To do so, you need to read the job description thoroughly along with reading up about the company.

Keep your answer as relevant to the job as possible. You can make the best of this question by highlighting your positive qualities, competency for the role and your career goals.

Use more of 'We' than 'Me'

Replace 'I' with 'us' and 'we' if you want to earn a brownie point from the recruiter. This showcases that you are a team player and are interested in helping the business grow and succeed.

Apart from this, speaking in 'we' and 'together', etc. also highlights your collaborative nature. These are important character traits every recruiter looks for in their ideal candidate.

So, try to draw a clear picture of your aspirations that you want to achieve in the company with the team.

Remain flexible

When preparing your answer for “What are your career aspirations?” it is best to have a few alternatives to present in case the recruiter asks multiple questions like “What are your career goals?” and so on.

You don’t want to provide the same answer to all the alternative HR interview questions and risk the chance of sounding repetitive and redundant.

Avoid trying to wing it

Stuttering and fumbling to answer are the biggest pet peeves for a recruiter.

Most often than not, when you come unprepared to an interview, you tend to miss out on some crucial facts that can make or break your chance at bagging the job.

So, even if you are the smartest and most confident personality, practice answering HR interview questions like “What are your career aspirations?” to leave a lasting impression on the recruiter.

Sample answer #1:

"I want to work with you to learn the tips and tricks of the trade that can help me not only to progress in my career but also help your business to grow. I wish to reach the managerial level in the next 5-6 years but prior to that I wish to demonstrate and challenge my capabilities to the optimum and prove my worth by achieving our objectives and goals together."

Sample answer #2:

“If provided with this opportunity, I would like to develop myself worthy as a team lead where we can inspire each other and work together efficiently. I would require your help to know the team and familiarize with the company so I can inspire the company's values and vision into new recruits. I would also like to hone my skills and capabilities as a leader to work towards the company's betterment."

It is crucial to consider each and every HR interview question with equal importance.

Therefore, while practicing the basic HR interview questions and answers, practice answering “What are your career aspirations?” thoroughly.

Hopefully, these tips and what is your career aspirations sample answer was helpful to you. Do check out our other interview tips and career insights on Naukri blog.

All the Best!

The Projectionist

Danielle Brooks Has an Oscar Nomination. So Why Is She in Mourning?

As she tries to find her place in Hollywood, the “Color Purple” stage and screen star bids an emotional goodbye to a character she has lived with for nearly a decade.

Danielle Brooks is up for best supporting actress. “There are five African Americans nominated in actor categories this year and only two Black women,” she said, “and to be one of them means a lot to me.” Credit... Frances Carter for The New York Times

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By Kyle Buchanan

• Feb. 21, 2024

Was it an interview or an unburdening? As she wiped away tears, Danielle Brooks confessed she couldn’t tell the difference.

“New York Times therapy session, you got me going!” she said, chuckling as she cried.

It was Valentine’s Day, and we had met on a video call to discuss the 34-year-old actress’s first Oscar nomination, for playing the indomitable Sofia in Blitz Bazawule’s big-screen musical, “The Color Purple.” Though she had been too busy filming the “Minecraft” movie in New Zealand to fly to that week’s Oscar nominees luncheon in Beverly Hills, Brooks said she had spent the last few days wrapping her head around the kind of company she now kept.

“It’s been really emotional,” the supporting actress contender said. “There are five African Americans nominated in actor categories this year and only two Black women, and to be one of them means a lot to me.”

This is also the culmination of a long arc that Brooks has experienced alongside “The Color Purple”: As a teenager, she was so blown away by the Broadway musical that it inspired her to pursue acting; later, after shooting to fame as Taystee on the Netflix series “ Orange Is the New Black ,” she won the role of Sofia in the 2015 stage revival of “The Color Purple.”

Tony-nominated for that turn, Brooks nevertheless auditioned for six months to play the same part in Bazawule’s film. She’s proud of everything she was able to bring to her robust performance, which finds Sofia singing the anthemic “Hell No!” before going through the emotional wringer, imprisoned for refusing to be a white woman’s maid.

“It really did deplete me — physically, mentally, spiritually,” Brooks said. “I was drained at the end of doing this part.”

Though she is “beyond grateful" for her Oscar nomination and nods from the Screen Actors Guild and BAFTA, Brooks was candid about how much work goes into forging a screen career like hers. It’s hard not to take some setbacks personally, she said, noting that though she participated in the 2022 Broadway revival of August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” the forthcoming movie version recast her role with Danielle Deadwyler.

How do you balance those losses with the wins afforded by an awards-season run? Brooks said she was still trying to figure out the healthiest path forward.

“It can really get to you if you’re not in a good head space,” she admitted. “Without all the accolades, do you know your value and worth? That’s always the question that keeps rolling in your head, and that’s what is hard about this industry: What is the legacy that I’m leaving without a dollar attached, without an award attached, without a number of eyeballs on a project? What will I be remembered for?”

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

You were missed at the Oscar nominees luncheon.

I really wish I could have had that moment with my mom, but I guess there’s two parts of it. One is the belief that this will not be my last time having a seat at the table. This unforgettable celebratory moment will happen again. The other is, I don’t know why when I entered into this race that I thought everything would fall into place, because that’s not how life works. It’s not always going to go your way, and how are you going to navigate that with all the grace you can?

A lot of wonderful things are happening right now, but that doesn’t make it easy.

I think it actually makes it more complicated because we all want the thing. If any actors tell you that they don’t want to win, they’re lying to you. We all want it, we’re all competitive, that’s the industry. But we also love the craft, we love storytelling. So it gets really cloudy in these awards seasons because you don’t want to lose sight of why you got into it.

At the same time, you do have this sense of, if I could just make it across the finish line, maybe there’s more I can do. Maybe there’s more access, more opportunity for people to hear what changes need to happen in Hollywood and what stories deserve to be told. But then you take a step back and realize, well, that’s what I’m doing now. It might not be as expansive as some of the people that have had the opportunity of accepting an Oscar, but I’m still doing all of the things I wanted to do and I still have my voice.

Awards season can be complicated in the same way having a high-profile screen career is complicated. It isn’t just about the character you play, it’s about who you are, too.

It’s tough, bro. Especially because the industry can look at you like a business: You are Danielle Brooks, the moneymaker. How much value do you hold? What gets lost is we’re people, too — we have goals and aspirations and families. There’s a lot of sacrifice that goes into being Danielle Brooks, and I wish that this industry could remember that it’s not always about the money.

What has playing Sofia given to you over the years?

So much. When I played her on Broadway, she taught me about my power, and when I played her in the movie, she taught me how to own my power. During this season, she’s teaching me how to fight for myself and not settle. I’ve had so many lessons from other characters, but I think Sofia’s always going to keep teaching me stuff.

Take me into your pre-Sofia journey of trying to figure out your power. What were things like in your career then?

I was hitting the audition pavement hard and desperate before “Orange Is the New Black.” I remember going to a 1 p.m. audition for a Broadway show, and in my head, I was like, “I don’t want the director to be hungry during my audition and thinking, OK, when’s lunch?” So I brought in a veggie plate. Totally didn’t get a callback.

But at least he got a veggie plate!

I was just throwing everything at the wall. When I was at Juilliard, you weren’t being taught how to audition, so I had to learn as I went and made a lot of mistakes. But the universe works how it’s supposed to, and I needed all of the no’s so that I could figure it out.

Before my “Color Purple” audition on Broadway, I was auditioning for “Pippin” and kept getting callback after callback. Finally, they let me go and I called my agents and was like, “Please, please just give me one more. Just fight for me to get in the room again.” They won that battle and told me it was going to be a director session, so I’m thinking it’s just going to be me and the director working on this material together. It was not. It was a room full of suits, about 20 people, and they were like: “Perform.”

Everything went out the window. I couldn’t remember the notes to the song. I was so terrified and nervous that I actually walked out. I said, “I’m sorry, but this is not the best of me. I would hate for you all to think this is how I am as an artist.” As soon as that happened, I cried my little eyeballs out, I was just devastated, but I went straight into singing and dance lessons so that when I came into my next audition, I would be ready. And then my next Broadway audition was with that same casting director and it was for “Color Purple.”

A good lesson for a working actor.

Even now, being more seasoned, sometimes you think things are going to go in your favor and they don’t. I did not get the “Piano Lesson” movie and I was disheartened because I put in the time onstage and nobody came to me. I didn’t understand why. Hearing a no from people that I truly respect, it made me second-guess myself. But that’s when I had to do some really deep work and understand, “You have to know your worth, Danielle.”

The reason I share that is because sometimes your rejection has to do with other people finding their path, and I think that’s what that moment truly was. God was saying, “I need to move you out of the way so I can position Danielle Deadwyler for whatever I have for her.” And I can receive that because now here I am, a few months later, Oscar-nominated. So there’s still wins, you know what I mean?

Do you remember the last day you played Sofia on Broadway? Did you ever think you’d get another crack at the character?

I thought that was the end, so that was definitely an emotional day. I had played her for a year of my life, eight shows a week, and learned so much about myself and had these magical experiences with the audience that I didn’t want to let go of. Then I kept hearing that they were going to make a movie, so I just kept one eye open, hoping I could maybe scoot in there.

But you know what was tough? When I sang “Hell No!” for the last time on set in this version. When Blitz Bazawule called cut and said that’s a wrap on “Hell No!” that’s when I got emotional. When else will I get a chance to sing this song? I’ve done it on Broadway, I’ve done it in the movie. I think this truly is the end of this moment.

Onstage, Sofia goes through some tough times, but her arc starts and ends in a good place. On film, you might have to stay in her heavy moments for days while shooting, which I’d imagine is a whole different experience.

When we did the white mob scene, when Sofia tells Miss Millie she’s not going to work for her, I did four or five hours of this fight where I’m being attacked, and your body does not know that you’re acting. My back went out, I had to go through physical therapy, I had to get a chiropractor to adjust me several times to continue to shoot. You come in the next day, having an injury, and have to wear this 15-pound pregnancy belly that’s hurting your back. Then you go into the prison scene and you’re having to live in this emotional place for hours.

The dinner scene with the rest of your cast, including Corey Hawkins and Fantasia Barrino-Taylor , gets a huge reaction from the audience. But I heard filming that wasn’t easy, either.

Nobody was at the table but me and Corey because we had a Covid outbreak. So I’m pretty much acting by myself, giving everything I have, and then [the next day] they’re like, “We need you to come back and shoot again now that we have half the sick cast.” OK, now I’ve got to go find that again, give it everything I have, think that I’ve done my job after calling on the ancestors and draining everything for two days. Then they ask you to come back in three days and do it again , because now we have all of the cast.

At that point, I told the director, “I’m not doing it because I know you have it on camera and can cut me into it.” And they’re like, “Well, we just need to feel Fantasia’s shoulder in the shot.” And I’m like, This is when you have to tap into things that are bigger than yourself, because this is a part of what you want to leave behind as your legacy, right? It’s going to be hard to find it again, but you can do it. So I did what needed to be done.

Whose responses to “The Color Purple” have been the most meaningful to you?

I remember being in the car with my mom and I had played her the “Hell No!” remix with Megan Thee Stallion . We were holding hands and I was like, “This is a bop, ain’t it, Ma?” And she took my hand and she started to cry and said, “Danielle, I’m so proud of you.” And I said, “Ma, I’m proud of you ,” because of the sacrifices she made for me to be able to live my dream.

So getting to share that, having my daughter see my face onscreen when I took her to see “The Little Mermaid” and they had the “Color Purple" trailer and she’s like, “That’s my mommy!” Having my husband call me at 3:30 in the morning to say, “Danielle, you’re Oscar-nominated.” That’s what I’m most proud of.

With the Oscars in a few weeks, at least you have a little bit more of your journey left before you have to fully say goodbye to this “Color Purple” experience.

I think that’s why I’m emotional , because a part of me feels like I’m mourning. It’s truly coming to an end of this chapter with Sofia, but it’s just given me so much. It’s the first show I ever saw. If you get to star in the show that gave you so much hope that you could one day do it, that’s incredible, yo! So it’s so much deeper to me than just, “Oh, I just played Sofia.” This character and this story is why I’m actually doing the thing.

I know there’s a lot of uncertainty in an acting career, but if you have a full-circle journey like the one you’ve had with this material, you’ve got to think you’re on the right path.

It’s wild! That’s why I encourage people to trust where the universe is taking you and trust that when things don’t go your way, you’re getting set up for wherever you’re supposed to go. That’s what I try to take from those moments that seem like rejection: If you don’t go through them and do the work you have to do internally, you won’t get to the next step. If I didn’t mess up that “Pippin” audition and go straight into singing and dancing classes, I probably wouldn’t have got “The Color Purple” because I wouldn’t have been ready. That’s the lesson I’m learning along the way.

Kyle Buchanan is a pop culture reporter and serves as The Projectionist , the awards season columnist for The Times. He is the author of “Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road.” More about Kyle Buchanan

The Run-Up to the 2024 Oscars

The 96th academy awards will be presented on march 10 in los angeles..

Danielle Brooks has inhabited the character of Sofia  in the “Color Purple” for nearly a decade, both on stage and onscreen. As she tries to find her place in Hollywood, it’s time for an emotional goodbye.

A best actress Oscar nomination changes everything, and Sandra Hüller — the star of “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest” — knows that. She just isn’t sure that’s a good thing .

What are the best performers of the year doing when they’re not on film? Here’s how Emma Stone, Bradley Cooper, and other great actors spend their free time .

Christopher Nolan and Robert Downey Jr. have worked on some of the most beloved superhero films of our time, so how is it that the two had never worked together  on a movie before “Oppenheimer”?

The “Holdovers” star Da’Vine Joy Randolph has had a charmed run  through awards season so far. But does that mean it has been easy to navigate?

At the Oscar nominees luncheon in Beverly Hills, the Border collie from “Anatomy of a Fall”  had the stars lining up to meet him.

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Dive Into Malaysia

21 Top Things To Do In Kuala Lumpur With Kids [2024]

Going on a Kuala Lumpur trip with the family and want to know all the best things to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids? We have you covered! Below, you will find our Kuala Lumpur travel guide to all the best places to visit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to plan your ultimate trip.

Wondering what to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids? Well, you’ve come to the right place! With a myriad of kids activities in KL and family activities in KL, we help you narrow down the best-of-the-best!

Aside from extensive sightseeing, there’s an amazing array of kids entertainment in Kuala Lumpur with so many shopping malls hosting spectacular mini-theme parks or amusement arcades.  

We’ve also listed some of the best wildlife and nature-themed things to do in Kuala Lumpur with family, and fun places for kids in KL when the weather turns sour.

Our top 21 things to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids guide kicks off in central KL with the fun Playground at KLCC. For kids a little older, we review the nearby Aquaria, and for all age groups, the mega fun KidZania.

We have visited Kuala Lumpur so many times with our kids ranging from babies to 13 years old and have always had a great time.

For sure, you won’t be stuck thinking where to bring kids in KL. More likely, you’ll be stressing over how to cram everything in!

Below, you will find our Kuala Lumpur travel blog guide with everything you need to know about the Kuala Lumpur top attractions, where to go in KL surrounds as well as the best places to stay for your ultimate holiday in Kuala Lumpur. There is also a handy Kuala Lumpur tourist map.

Travelling to Malaysia? Click here to download your free Malaysia Trip Planning checklist . We’ll help you get ready for your trip!  

Have any questions? Join our Malaysia Travel Planning Facebook group here now! It’s the perfect place to ask any questions and to be inspired.

Top 21 Things To Do In Kuala Lumpur With Kids [2024]

Here are the best things to do in KL with kids. Read through and select the ones that fit your interests and time frame. We have written about these attractions based on our own experiences travelling here with babies, toddlers, preschoolers, school kids and, now, teenagers!

Travelling to Malaysia with kids? Listen to our best tips for families here and find out what my kids themselves think about travelling in Malaysia.

Explore The KLCC Playground

Best playground in the world? Possibly! Our kids rave about the KLCC Playground. So much, in fact, that we had to return a few times during our first visit to KL and many times since. So this received our highest rating: best place for kids in KL!

The KLCC Playground is a massive 2-acres playground within the KLCC Park by the Petronas Towers. Even during busier times, you’ll find there is still plenty of space for everyone. The two photos above this are both of this area.

We recommend visiting in the late afternoon as it’s cooler. Also, as the top Kuala Lumpur attractions for families, both locals and visitors hang out here in the late afternoon, so there are lots of youngsters to enjoy playing with and it has a great vibe.

If energy levels are still high, head to the free adjacent water playground and shallow pools. Definitely the biggest problem we had with this place was getting our kids to leave.

Address: Persiaran KLCC, Jalan Ipoh, 50450 Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan

Visit The Petrosains Discovery Centre

An awesome centre, which is basically a science museum, children adore spending time here, making this a highlight of places to visit in KL for kids.  There are so many hands-on educational exhibits that you could easily spend 3-4 hours as your children conduct science experiments – some with controlled explosions!

Science and technology are presented in a fun and entertaining way, in an easy to navigate “museum-style” concept.  You’ll find space age exhibits through to fossils, with everything divided into 11 main interactive showcases.

Budding geologists or seismologists will be in heaven in the Exploration section and F1 fans will adore the Speed area.  And ensure to catch the Dark Ride, shaped like an oil drop, your “ride” takes you through serene rainforests, up mountains and diving into seas, all with a view to showing you Malaysia’s dramatic landscapes.

Games are dotted around the exhibitions with staff on hand to explain the science behind everything. 

It works for toddlers too as the first time we visited here, our oldest was only 2, and we had a great time.

However long you’re staying in the city, we recommend you include this great kids attraction in Kuala Lumpur into your itinerary.

Address: Petronas Twin Tower, Level 4, Kuala Lumpur City Centre

Click here to buy discounted tickets now.

Have An Under-The-Sea Experience At Aquaria KLCC

Conveniently located next to the Petronas Towers and close to Petrosains listed above, this aquarium is a must-see on any list of things for kids to do in KL.  Home to over 150 species of marine life, possibly the star attractions are the tiger sharks and the lethal sea snakes!

A great place to discover on a rainy day, you can spend a few hours exploring the different watery landscapes, from the highlands and flooded jungles of Malaysia to the Amazon basin, coral reefs and open ocean.

Our highlight was the 90-metres walk-through tunnel, where massive stingrays and manta rays soar above your heads.  And, if you have the time, dare you to try the up-close-and-personal Diving with Sharks program or perhaps the Cage Rage experience where you’ll be submerged into a tank but within the safety of a cage. 

All in all, we found this one of the best places for kids in KL.

Address: Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre, Jalan Pinang, Kuala Lumpur City Centre

Visit The Berjaya Times Square Theme Park

Surprisingly, some shopping centres in this city are some of the best places to visit in Kuala Lumpur for kids.  And Berjaya Times Square is probably the top of these. 

Reputedly one of the world’s largest shopping centres, we seemed to spend a lot of time here!  With great food options – at good prices – the kids were kept entertained by some rather cool random stuff.  The “Piano Stairs”, that played piano notes as we walked up and down was definitely a highlight!

However, the standout attraction was the amusement park – probably best suited for preschoolers, making this our winner for toddler activities in Kuala Lumpur.  The children’s area has around eight different rides, although there are rides here for all ages.

Overall, this is the largest indoor playground in Malaysia and can be found on the fifth floor of the Berjaya Times Square mall.  Split into two zones: Galaxy Station for adults (+13’s) and Fantasy Garden for children, whatever your child’s age group this is some of the best kids entertainment in KL.

This is fantastic for bad weather days or if you’re suddenly in the mood for a hair-raising roller coaster ride on the Supersonic Odyssey!

Address: Level 8, Berjaya Time Square, No. 1, Jalan Imbi

Check Out The KL Bird Park

The main attraction in the famous 60 hectare Lake Gardens, the KL Bird Park is advertised as the world’s largest covered bird park and a top venue in KL for kids.  With over 30,000 birds from 200 species from all corners of the globe, it’s quite an adventure!

It prides itself on being one of the major places to visit in Kuala Lumpur with family, and with most of the birds free to fly around the venue, this was another highlight of our trip.  Accustomed to visitors, the birds often perch on shoulders and heads, which might frighten toddlers. 

But for most children this is delightful and you can then purchase small packets of seed to hand-feed them.  We took endless photos whilst hand feeding colourful parrots, which our children rated as one of the best kids activities in Kuala Lumpur.

You’ll see stunning peacocks, parakeets and macaws. Our favourite was the Flamingo Pond and the hornbill area.  Try to time it right for the ostrich and eagles feeding sessions or to catch one of the regular bird shows.  

It’s not just the birds that are great either. The gardens here are superb, and it’s a very enjoyable place to wander.

Children are very well catered for here with a small playground, the gardens and even some small rowing boats.  If you are wondering what to do in Kuala Lumpur with family and have a half morning spare in your itinerary, make a beeline for here.

Address: 920, Jalan Cenderawasih, Perdana Botanical Gardens

Visit The Kuala Lumpur Butterfly Park

Looking for a nature-intensive kids attraction in KL?  Then you’ve come to the right place.  Just on the edge of KL Lake Gardens, you’ll find hundreds of butterflies fluttering freely under a high netting canopy at the sweet Kuala Lumpur Butterfly Park.

Feeding on colourful hibiscus flowers, the butterflies are a pretty sight.  Hot and humid under the canopy, the park has a tropical feel. There is a maze of footpaths winding through lush vegetation.  Our children enjoyed playing along the paths, the little koi-filled ponds, small waterfalls and – our top favourite – the turtle pond.  

Our kids also found the massive beetles a highlight.  These can be viewed along with some other creepy crawlies, such as large stick insects making this one of the fun places for kids in Kuala Lumpur.  There’s also a fairly good educational slant to the visit too with the breeding cycles of butterflies and moths explained.

Not the best butterfly park we’ve been to, yet you can still mark this as one of the places to visit in Kuala Lumpur for family to enjoy.

Address: Jalan Cenderawasih, Tasik Perdana

Explore The Lake Gardens (Kuala Lumpur Perdana Botanical Gardens)

Often promoted as having some of the best Kuala Lumpur activities for families within its gates, Lake Gardens is truly massive at over 200 acres!  

Full of Kuala Lumpur children’s attractions, such as museums, the KL Bird Park (above), the Perdana Botanical Garden (with a Hibiscus and Orchid Garden), a Sculpture Garden, the Butterfly Park (above) and, unsurprisingly, a Lake!

In the middle of KL, it makes for an easy location to reach from wherever you’re staying.  Open every day from 7am to 8pm, it’s free to enter – though you are required to pay an entrance fee for certain landmarks within the grounds, like KL Bird Park.

There are some impressive landscaping and thanks to its grand size; it doesn’t get too crowded except for weekends.  You can easily spend a whole day here, discovering all the different venues and activities. This makes this one of our top places for kids in Kuala Lumpur.

Do note though that this area is big and walking around it can be sweaty work.

Address: Jalan Kebun Bunga, Tasik Perdana

Go On A Food Tour

If your kids enjoy food then a food tour can be a surprisingly awesome activity with kids. I have been surprised how well food tours can work for families.

You walk around a section of the city learning about the history and the culture while trying food and drinks. I find the constant feeding keeps my kids happy and open to learning more!

Simply Enak food tours  have a tour they especially recommend for families, Kuala Lumpur Street Food. On this tour, you learn about the history and cultural influences that make Kuala Lumpur and its food what it is today. It includes visits to local shops, tradespeople and, of course, street food vendors. You learn about traditional Chinese medicine and how herbs can be used to heal as well.

We did this with our kids aged 6, 11 and 12 at the time. They loved watching handmade steam buns being made and tasting a crazy amount of food and drinks such as Indian rotis, laksa, char kway teow, teh tarik (the local tea), baked goods and more. If you haven’t tried the infamous durian before, you’ll also get the chance with some durian puffs.

These tours do their best to cater to dietary requirements and fussy eaters.

Click here to see more information about this tour and use the discount code, DIVE30 for RM30 off your tour price. Kids tickets are also heavily discounted.

You can see our full review of doing this tour with our kids here or watch the following video to see what it’s like. This was filmed when we did this exact tour with our kids.

Visit Little India

A surprising favourite location for our children, enamoured by the Indian cuisine and vibrant energy of the area, Kuala Lumpur’s Little India (called Brickfields) has curries to fit every level of spice!  We returned quite a few times for some delicious lunches.

And the shops were a highlight too, with lots of sparkly bangles, colourful saris and delicious Indian sweets. 

Try to visit here during festival time, when the streets are decorated in splendid colours and music plays from almost every shop!  It’s definitely one of the more interesting places in Kuala Lumpur for kids.

Address: Jalan Tun Sambanthan, Brickfields

Explore Chinatown

Looking for some free things to do in KL with family?  Head over to Chinatown for a few hours, and wander the quaint alleys and lanes.  You’ll find stalls selling almost anything you need (and lots more that you don’t!).  

With the stalls opening daily around 11am, it’s best to drop by around lunchtime – taking in some delicious food – before hitting the market area.  You’ll also find some old temples and pretty Chinese shophouses, making this a lovely way to spend a few hours in Kuala Lumpur with children.

The food tour, mentioned above, explores around here.

Address: Petaling Street, KL City Centre

Make A Splash At Sunway Lagoon

Just a short drive from the centre of Kuala Lumpur, Sunway Lagoon is a fun theme park.  One of the top KL attractions for family, many different themed lands are waiting to be explored.  

With water slides that whirl, a river ride, surf beach, wave pool and even a revolving pirate ship, this will probably be your kid’s favourite vacation day, and our pick of fun things to do in Kuala Lumpur for kids!  We had an absolute blast here.

Part of a much larger complex, which incorporates the Water Park, Scream Park, Amusement Park, X Park, Night Park, Sunway Lost Lagoon and Wildlife Park, it is best to make this a full day out!

Address: 3, Jalan PJS 11/11, Bandar Sunway, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor

Click here to buy discounted tickets now. You can also read our full review here.

Check Out The Sunway Pyramid

Located adjacent to the Sunway Lagoon, the Sunway Pyramid Shopping Centre has a plethora of fun activities.  Spend a half or full day here. Enjoy ice skating and visiting The Parenthood indoor play area.

For the older children, there’s a bowling alley, cinema, amusement rides, and arcade games; a plethora of Kuala Lumpur children’s activities.  

Near KL Airport, if you only have a short stopover combine this with a visit to the Sunway Lagoon, and stay at any one of the Sunway hotels above the shopping centre, like the Sunway Resort here.

Address: No. 3, Jalan PJS 11/15, Sunway City, 47500 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

Have The Best Day Ever At KidZania Kuala Lumpur

Our children were already big fans of KidZania before visiting the Kuala Lumpur version. It did not disappoint. We have enjoyed a few full days discovering KidZania Kuala Lumpur over the years, and it’s our absolute top pick of kid friendly activities in Kuala Lumpur

If you’ve never been to one then KidZania is a miniature city made for kids where they can undertake various activities representing different careers. Kids can be firefighters, medics, police, store clerks, cooks, pilots, journalists, doctors, nurses, photographers, couriers and even tax collectors.

Each “career” lasts for various amounts of time – usually 15 or 20 minutes – and for each activity, there’s usually an educational aspect to it. For example, kids learn the value of hygiene before making food or fire safety before going to fight a fire.

Kids can earn money (in the local currency, Kidzos) from the jobs they do and get paid in Kidzoswhich can then be spent on activities with a cost where they usually get something to take away (like a hamburger from working in the hamburger restaurant or milk from working in the milk bottling factory).

There’s a department store where kids can spend their earnings too, but it isn’t so easy to do as you need a lot of cash to buy much.

The awesome thing about KidZania, though, is the staggering level of detail. Kids can be involved in organisations they see in the real world.

Many activities have a uniform of some sort that looks close to the real thing. Firefighters wear hats and coats that look like real Malaysian firefighting gear, for example.  There’s even a small ambulance and fire truck that the medics and firefighters ride to their call-outs complete with lights and sirens.

Activities have age guides with many recommended for ages 4+. Younger kids may strugg to get much out of a visit here.  On our most recent visit, my daughter was just a month off 13 and still absolutely loved it.

However, for the majority of visitors to the city, a day here is a highlight of family things to do in Kuala Lumpur.

Address: Curve NX, 18, Jalan PJU 7/5, Mutiara Damansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya, Selangor

Click here to buy discounted tickets now or read our full guide to visiting KidZania KL here.

Experience District 21 Kuala Lumpur

Guess what? Yes, that’s right… It’s another indoor theme park for children! This time billed as an “adventure theme park”, District 21 is set within 101 City Mall Putrajaya. 

However, it’s quite different here as children face a set of challenging obstacle courses making it one of the more unique activities for kids in Kuala Lumpur.

Sprawling across 6,500 square metres, this indoor theme park features a post-apocalyptic setting with metal beams, steel walls and colourful graffiti.  You can imagine the Terminator being very at home here!  

Guests pass through a two-step decontamination chamber – where they’ll be asked to put on protective gloves and non-slip socks.  Briefed on a few safety rules, they are released into the park to discover LED-lit climbing walls, high-speed slides, trampolines and aerial obstacle courses and a zipline.

Our favourite section was the Maze, where you’re suspended metres above the ground and have to maneuver through a labyrinth of steel tunnels, cages and complete some rather confusing mind-challenging puzzles!  

For younger children, there are a few kid-friendly rides such as a carousel, pedal go-karts and an easy rope obstacle course.  

Safety is well addressed, with padded flooring, helmets, knee and elbow pads.  Terrific fun and a favourite for most youngsters, this is our select venue for kid-friendly things to do in Kuala Lumpur! Although note it’s about a half hour drive from KL Sentral.

Address: AT 6, IOI City Mall, IOI Resort City, 62502 Putrajaya, Wilayah Persekutuan Putrajaya

Enjoy At Waterworld i-City Theme Park

Attached to the ever-popular i-City, fast becoming one of Shah Alam’s and Selangor’s top tourist attractions, Waterworld i-City is a great fun water theme park.

Only 40 minutes outside the city centre, your kids will have a blast riding some great water rides.  The highlight is the vortex ride, known as the Ultimate Tornado.  Image you’re caught in flowing water, dropping from a faucet and spiralling down a plug hole, and that’s the Tornado!  

There are also 4 slides within the waterpark, where you can race your friends and family lying face down on rubber mats.  There’s also a family raft slide, where 4 people ride a rubber tube.  And, for younger children, there are kiddies-twin-slides – slightly tamer but still excellent fun.

After the slides, the whole family can enjoy the artificial wave pool, bobbing up and down, with or without a tube.  And there’s a lazy river to glide along and a colourful Aladdin-themed kids play-pool.

With vigilant lifeguards, lockers and clean surroundings, it’s great fun for a morning or afternoon.

Address: i-Gallery, Jalan Multimedia 7/Ah, I-City, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor

Have Fun At SkyTrex Adventure

Seeking some serious fun and adrenaline-inducing activities?  Wondering what to do in Kuala Lumpur for kids that is extraordinary? Spend a day at SkyTrex Adventure, with outdoor zip line obstacle courses, rope-climbing and flying fox, all set in the lush Shah Alam Agricultural Park.

45 minutes outside of KL, you and kids will spend your day swinging, climbing and flying!

Divided into three obstacle courses – according to difficulties and each with minimum height restrictions – the venue is only open at weekends and it’s advisable to book ahead. Children under 12 years are required to have a parent/guardian in attendance throughout.

The easiest course – Little Adventure – is ideal for children around 8 years. The second is Big Thrill, more geared towards adults but children below 13 who reach the minimum height requirement can still join in.

Take a picnic (don’t forget your charcoal if you want to BBQ), and dine at the elevated wooden platform, the Skydeck.  Our older kids rated this as the best place for kids in Kuala Lumpur!

Address: Batu 20, 1/2, Jalan Sungai Congkak, Kampung Padang, 43100 Hulu Langat, Selangor

Explore The Farm In The City

Located in Seri Kembangan, Farm In The City is ideal for lovers of the outdoors.  

Divided into several sections, our favourites were the reptile corner and the bird aviary.  You’ll also find turtle and tortoise sections, a snake sanctuary, along with deer, bunnies, iguanas, marmosets and peacocks.

This is a top venue for interacting with animals – from photos to hand-feeding. With animals that seem extremely well cared for, this makes for an enjoyable trip!

Address: Lot 40187-40188, Jalan Prima Tropika Barat 1, Pusat Bandar Putra Permai, 43300 Seri Kembangan, Selangor

Check Out The Kuala Lumpur National Zoo And Aquarium – Zoo Negara

As zoos go, this isn’t the best, but if you have a free morning and are wondering where to go in Kuala Lumpur for kids, the Zoo is always an option.  And, if your kids are up for seeing some animals, there are lots to be found here.  Wild animals from most parts of the world are on display including leopard cats, pumas, leopards, striped hyenas and many more. 

You’ll also find a Reptile Park with a fair selection of snakes, a Malaysian Elephants exhibit and Sumatran orang-utans in the open-concept Ape Centre.  

Inside the zoo is also one of Malaysia’s oldest public aquariums, along with a kid-friendly exhibit called Children’s World.  Here, your youngsters will enjoy getting up close with rabbits, ducks, chickens, parrots and guinea pigs.  

Be sure to glimpse the newest additions, two pandas from Sichuan, China, and catch an exciting animal show.

Address: Jalan Taman Zooview, Taman Zooview, 68000 Ampang, Selangor

Introduce Your Kids To Malaysian Food At Jalan Alor Food Street

When the sun starts going down, there is one hands-down winner to what our family likes to do and that’s head to Jalan Alor Food Street.

Jalan Alor Food Street is a lively night market with open air tables, stalls, restaurants and more. It’s got a great vibe and it’s tons of fun. It’s also located in a great central spot within Bukit Bintang which makes it easy for most families to visit.

For about 500 metres, there are countless food stalls and restaurants lining the street. You won’t have any problems finding something to eat. Try to order as many different things as you can so your kids can learn what they like.

A great reward for the kids trying new foods is to finish up with some delicious coconut ice cream. It’s sold by many stalls in fresh coconut shells, and it’s oh-so-good.

Address: Jalan Alor, Bukit Bintang

Click here to read our full guide to Jalan Alor Food Street.

Go Theme Park Crazy In The Genting Highlands

For somewhere close to Kuala Lumpur that you can visit on a day trip, the Genting Highlands sure feels like a long way away.

Located over 1,800 metres up, Resorts World Genting is much cooler than in Kuala Lumpur and is full of crazy fun things to do including both indoor and outdoor theme parks. Just getting here is fun with a gondola to get you to the top.

At the top, there are many kid friendly attractions, with the recently opened SkyWorlds theme park likely to be the winner. With over 26 rides spread over nine differently themed worlds, there are rides here from thrilling roller coasters for your teenager to awesome 4D experiences for the whole family.

The park themes are based on animations and include Ice Age, Rio and Robotos among others, making this a great place for kids. Kids can also meet their favorite characters and take photos with them

You can read how to get to Genting Highlands here or click here for the full range of activities to do when you get here. This is a great place to go if you have a full day and are happy to head out of the city.

Click here for discounted tickets to SkyWorlds now.

Visit The Islamic Arts Museum

Last on our list of things for kids to do but high on the places of interest for kids in Kuala Lumpur, this is somewhere to teach your children a little about the customs, history and culture of Malaysia.  Welcome to the Islamic Arts Museum.  

A wonderfully quiet and cool respite from the manic city, this museum is one of the best we’ve ever visited.  With around 7000 artefacts there’s lots to view!  There are Islamic tapestries, hand-written Korans, carpets, jewellery and scale models of Islamic buildings.  

The museum also caters to younger children, with a children’s library, daily craft and weekend workshops.  

Address: Jalan Lembah, Tasik Perdana, Wilayah Persekutuan

What To Do In KL With Kids Map

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Best Place To Stay In Kuala Lumpur

Generally, a cheaper city to visit, even the high-end hotels can offer exceptional value compared to what you would pay in other capitals, and there is a great range of hotels suitable for families.

A sprawling city, the best areas to stay are Bukit Bintang and KLCC with Chinatown being a good option if you are on a tighter budget.

Below, I’ve listed a few different places to consider including a budget, mid-range and more expensive option.

BEST – PARKROYAL Serviced Suites Kuala Lumpur Hotel Review

If you love shopping, then the Parkroyal Kuala Lumpur Hotel is set in the best district for you.  Only 500 metres from the famed shopping area of Bintang Walk and Sungei Weng Plaza, and with Chinatown less than 3 kilometres away, you have a myriad of shopping options! Jalan Alor Food Street is super close too.

Rooms come with a flatscreen tv, tea & coffee facilities, minibar and – for peace of mind – a safety deposit box.  Splurge and upgrade to the Orchid Club Rooms to enjoy luxurious club benefits in the private lounge.

You’ll find a restaurant for fine-dining and a cafe for more casual meals.  There’s also a comfortable lounge for drinks and evening entertainment.  

After your busy days of tours and activities, enjoy cooling off in the outdoor pool or refresh at the 24-hour fitness centre.  Whatever your plans, this is a great hotel close to all the action.

Click here for the latest prices.

MID-RANGE –  Berjaya Times Square Hotel Kuala Lumpur Review

Our personal family favourite hotel, you really can’t beat a stay here.  With direct access to the Berjaya Times Square shopping mall – one of the largest shopping centres in Malaysia, full of family activities and dining outlets – the hotel is set in a prime position.

You’ll find rooms are comfortable, with ensuite bathrooms, minibar and entertainment system with cable television.  There are many different rooms to choose from, depending on the size of your group or family, and bedding such as bunks, twin, queen and king. 

There are family rooms with bunk beds or two-bedroom suites which are fantastic for families. You can also upgrade to Club Rooms for exemplary service and extras like lounge access.

With two restaurants, a lounge bar and a huge outdoor pool, fitness centre and wellness centre… you might find it hard to leave the hotel and you definitely won’t want to leave the shopping centre!

Click here for the latest prices or here to read our full review.

BUDGET – Travelodge City Centre Review

Location is everything here, with the Travelodge City Centre being set just 200 metres from Petaling Street and the Central Market.  It’s also only 600 metres from the famous Merdeka Square and three kilometres to the vibrant Bukit Bintang area. All up, this make for a fantastic base from which to explore the city.

Air-conditioned rooms with ensuite bathrooms are offered, most with flatscreen television and free toiletries.  

Rooms come in three different types – Superior Twin, Superior Double and Family Room. Additional hotel features include luggage storage facilities, 24-hour front desk and currency exchange.  

This is an ideal choice for those on a budget but wishing to be near all the sights that KL has to offer. Note that many reviews complain that rooms aren’t cleaned sufficiently though.

Click here to see all our recommendations for exactly where to stay in Kuala Lumpur.

How To Get To Kuala Lumpur

It’s easy to get to Kuala Lumpur by flight, bus, train, taxi or car. 

To see all the latest flights and prices, click here .

If you need to take a bus, click here for the latest timetables and bus prices .

If you’d prefer a train, click here to see the latest train timetables .

You can also hire a car to get you there by clicking here .

Final Words

It’s no secret that we love Kuala Lumpur.  Packed full with attractions, delicious food and very easy to get around, it’s fantastic for families. 

You’ll never be stuck wondering where to go in KL with kids. In fact, we’ve returned a handful of times and will go again!  We find most attractions and services very reasonably priced and everyone extremely welcoming, especially to children and babies.  

If you want more tips for travelling with kids in Malaysia, don’t miss our podcast episode here . My kids even give their own tips for other kids.

Looking for something more organised? Find our list of best tours in KL here . Travelling to KL without kids? Then check out our guide on things to do in KL here – or read out KL itinerary here . Otherwise, you can find our full Kuala Lumpur guide here .

Planning a trip to Malaysia? Have any questions? Join our Malaysia Travel Planning Facebook group here now! It’s the perfect place to ask any questions and to be inspired!

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By Sharon Gourlay

Sharon is a certified Malaysia travel expert and can't get enough of travelling and talking about Malaysia since she first visited 21 years ago. She travels around Malaysia multiple times a year both alone and with her kids. She used to call Penang home and especially loves this food paradise. Sharon also has a Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies, a Certificate III in International Travel Sales and has been certified by Tourism Malaysia as a Malaysia Travel Expert. Through this site, she'll help you have the perfect trip to this amazing destination.

10 Reasons Why You Should Visit Kuala Lumpur

The capital city of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur is a must-visit destination. It is an eclectic and gorgeous hub of culture and class, a true gem of Southeast Asia. KL is also one of Malaysia’s major business centers, bringing people together – so here’s why it’s worth a trip.

The world’s melting pot.

Kuala Lumpur has undergone so much development since its heyday as one of the major areas for tin mining during the Industrial Revolution and as a Commonwealth nation. With its colorful inhabitants of every race and religion adding their flair to the city, KL has now become a center for Malaysia to invite and accommodate the rest of Asia; creating a metropolis like no other . On every corner is a testament to the assimilation into urban life regardless of origin and class, adding to the vibrancy of Kuala Lumpur in every way possible, from the glittering skyscrapers to the quaint coffee shops. Marvel at the tenacity and beauty of every walk of life coming together as you tour the sights and flavors it has to offer.

International buffet

Preservation of the Old

To preserve the rich and diverse history of Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur, many museums dedicated to the arts and lives of Malaysia’s people have been established all over the heart of the city. Whether it be carefully curated collections in polished galleries or the still living, breathing streets filled with old timers and curious explorers, Kuala Lumpur is undoubtedly proud of the rich chaotic mix of history grown and blended by its people. Spend an entire day doing a history crawl, from the beautiful halls of the National Islamic Museum to the alleys of Jalan Pudu and Brickfields and witness the city grow through its architecture and inhabitants.

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Capital transportation

Despite the apparent chaotic nature of the city’s development, Kuala Lumpur is quite tightly connected through an extensive series of train lines and bus routes. You will surely not miss a stop at KL Sentral, the central station beating life into the veins of Kuala Lumpur, on your journey to explore the many attractions of the city. The many new developments to the transit line have opened up even more access points all over the Klang Valley, providing ease of commute to the entire state. It is advisable to be mindful of the rush hours, as you might be stuck waiting for up to three trains.

Monumental monoliths

The beacons of this shining city, Kuala Lumpur Tower and the Petronas Twin Towers proudly claim their record as being among the tallest towers of the world, showcasing world-class architecture and deep-rooted artistry. These fantastic pieces of skyline are instantly recognizable all over the world, showcasing the achievements of Malaysia as a global force. And if the man-made ones aren’t enough, the area of Kuala Lumpur also stretches out to the natural giants; the most popular of which are the Batu Caves and the Klang Quartz Ridge to the North. Most of Malaysia’s mountains are composed of limestone, which cultivates an entirely unique eco-system both in and on the exterior of the crags.

Sensational shopping

Like its shopping-centric neighbor Singapore, Kuala Lumpur takes equal standing in providing visitors with some of the most illustrious shopping malls this side of Southeast Asia. Many popular luxury brands have established flagship stores in premier malls such as Bukit Bintang, Starhill Gallery, Pavillion and even the lower cost Sungei Wang. In addition to those are boutiques of brands that are home-grown, bringing Malaysian designers to the ranks of global fashion. And if a normal shopping experience wasn’t enough, visit Berjaya Times Square for an amazing indoor theme park, the largest of its kind this side of Asia.

Affordable for all budgets

Whether you’re habitually thrifty or on a treat splurge, most of the things in Kuala Lumpur are reasonably affordable. From the fancy restaurants and flagship luxury stores in Bukit Bintang to the food courts and small stalls on the roadsides of Petaling Street, anyone at any budget can enjoy a nice day out shopping and eating to their hearts’ content.

Nightlife like no other

Malaysians are generally not known for hitting the hay early, so an evening in Kuala Lumpur is sure to bring the term nightlife a whole new meaning. Changkat is a popular spot catering to tourists from all over the world for a night of booze and exotic foods; while the cheaper alternatives in the rest of the city are popular among locals who don’t want to retire for the night just yet. Stop by the Indian Mamaks, popular for being open 24 hours a day for a simple yet refreshing meal of roti chanai and a glass of teh tarik after partying or catching up on a live football match. Fun fact, most of the mamaks pull out a giant projector screen for all their customers during the season, so don’t feel bad occupying a table for more than four hours.

Wondrous wildlife

As Malaysia is home to some of the most fascinating wildlife on planet Earth (think of the many BBC nature programs featuring Borneo), Kuala Lumpur is the next best place to go looking for exotic creatures. While it may not be as impressive as the East Malaysian reserves the animals originate from, the National Zoo and Aquaria KLCC host the largest collection of native and international fauna available for public visiting. For the more specific wildlife lovers, visit the KL Bird Park for a dizzying collection of birds and the KL Butterfly Park for creepy crawlies of every kind.

Everywhere you look, everything your eyes fall upon is a unique pattern made by the many inhabitants of Kuala Lumpur. From the temples to the food to the skyscrapers, marvel at the knowledge that each is pieced together through the blending of more than one culture; from the Indian Hindu motifs of the Sri Mahamariamman Temple to the Spanish tiles that adorn its gates. An even more obscure challenge to have fun with is the taste-testing. Keep an eye out for some hawker stalls bearing the names of more northern states and compare their foods with similar variants from the southern regions. Minds and taste buds will be blown when discovering how different a bowl of laksa is constructed down the country.

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Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

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Where to Stay in Kuala Lumpur with Family

If you’re planning a trip to Malaysia with the kids, chances are you’ll be spending some time in KL, and so you’re probably on the hunt for the best place to stay in Kuala Lumpur for families. While KL is not a massive city like somewhere like Bangkok or Tokyo , working out where to stay in Kuala Lumpur with family can nevertheless still be tricky.

But you probably knew all this right? Which is why you’ve just googled “ where to stay in Kuala Lumpur with kids ” and landed on this page. That was me too when I was trying to find the best area to stay in Kuala Lumpur for our trip to KL. Before I chose a family hotel Kuala Lumpur offered, I spent hours on the internet researching, and I’ve compiled everything I found into this article to save you from all that heartache.

So, no need to spend any more time searching the internet trying to find Kuala Lumpur family hotels , which are not only in the perfect location but also provide plenty of space for the entire family. In this where to stay in Kuala Lumpur guide, I’ve done all the research for you and located the perfect hotels in Kuala Lumpur for family .

So let’s find you the best hotel in Kuala Lumpur for family .

This post may contain compensated links.  Please refer to my disclaimer here for more information.

Page Contents

• 1 The Best Hotels in Kuala Lumpur for Family – A Quick Overview
• 2.1 Bukit Bintang
• 2.2 Kuala Lumpur City Centre
• 2.3 KL Tower – Bukit Nanas
• 2.4 KL Sentral and Lake Gardens
• 2.5 Chinatown
• 2.6 Chow Kit, Kampung Baru and Masjid India
• 2.7 Bangsar South
• 3.1 Fairlane Premier Suite
• 3.2 Bintang Service Suite at Time Square
• 3.3 Swiss Garden Residences
• 3.4 Casa Residency by Nn
• 3.5 Parkview Serviced Apartments
• 3.6 Soho Suites
• 3.7 Vortex Suites
• 3.8 VIPOD Suites
• 3.9 Tang City Hotel
• 3.10 Hotel Petaling
• 3.11 Travelodge City Centre
• 3.12 Euro Life Hotel
• 4 Where to Book your Family Hotel in KL?

The Best Hotels in Kuala Lumpur for Family – A Quick Overview

Below is a super quick overview of all the top hotels in Kuala Lumpur for families that are reviewed in this guide. You can use the below table to quickly determine if the accommodation is the best family hotel in Kuala Lumpur for you. For a more comprehensive review of each of the best family accommodation Kuala Lumpur options, keep reading below.

You can find some cool places to visit in Kuala Lumpur on a budget here.

There are a few different options when it comes to the best Kuala Lumpur area to stay . Although in my view the best family attractions in KL are more or less clumped together in the KLCC area or even as far down as the area around the KL Tower and Chinatown.  I’d recommend you work out where most of the attractions are that you want to visit and then choose an area that is closest to the most places on your itinerary.

Below I’ve provided a brief overview of the areas within KL so you can choose the best place to stay in Kuala Lumpur with kids .

Bukit Bintang

My number one recommendation for where to stay in KL is Bukit Bintang – this is where we decided to stay on our trip to KL. Bukit Bintang is the centre of all the action and within easy reach to a range of great family attractions as well as shopping malls and places to eat.

Bukit Bintang is also well connected with a monorail station and an MRT station, so it’s easy to get to other parts of the city, although you’ll also find plenty of taxis and Grabs (like Uber) around too.

This area is also great for people looking for budget family accommodation in Kuala Lumpur, including hotels as well as apartments. In this area of KL, you can get a lot for your money!

Kuala Lumpur City Centre

Right next to Bukit Bintang, this area has a stack of family-friendly attractions, so is another one of the best places to stay in Kuala Lumpur for families. This area is where you will find the Petronas Towers, and so you might even be able to get a hotel room with a view of them.  

KLCC has plenty of shops and places to eat, and you’ll easily be able to walk to a range of attractions. Plus, there is also plenty of public transport around to get you further afield.

Kuala Lumpur family Accommodation in KLCC is probably at the higher end then Bukit Bintang, so this is the area to stay if you want 5-star Kuala Lumpur family resorts .

KL Tower – Bukit Nanas

Bordering the area of KLCC and Bukit Bintang is the area around the KL Tower – which of course is where the KL Tower is located. Another popular attraction in this area is the KL Eco Park.

While there aren’t too many attractions in this area, it is well situated for reaching the attractions in KLCC and Bukit Bintang. From this area you can pretty much walk to most attractions, making it a super convenient location.

You will find around KL Tower, mostly a business neighbourhood, so it’s probably more limited in places to eat and shop at night unlike KLCC or Bukit Bintang.

KL Sentral and Lake Gardens

If you’re just passing through KL and wanting to be close to the main transport hub of KL Sentral, then this is the best place to stay in KL – otherwise, I’d recommend choosing one of the above areas.

Don’t get me wrong, with the main train station being right here; you’ll easily be able to get around the city. However, you most likely will need to get transport every time you go out, as opposed to being able to walk although there are some great nearby attractions such as the Bird Park and Little India.

Nevertheless, the area has some great accommodation options, plenty of places to eat as well as shops.

Just under the area surrounding the KL Tower is Chinatown, one of the great places to stay in KL if you want to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of Chinatown. As well as the food and shopping area of Chinatown, other attractions in the area include a range of gorgeous temples, Merdeka Square, and the River of Life. It’s also just a great area to go wandering down little laneways and admiring the stunning old buildings.

Chinatown is where you will find good budget Kuala Lumpur places to stay – it’s in fact a haven for backpackers.

Chow Kit, Kampung Baru and Masjid India

These areas don’t really have a lot of tourist attractions, yet are great places to stay in Kuala Lumpur if you prefer to escape the typical tourist areas after a day of sightseeing. For convenience, I’d recommend you stay in one of the above areas already mentioned.

Bangsar South

Even further out of town is Bangsar South, a quiet residential area which is somewhat upmarket with modern highrise buildings. There is quite a lot of shopping malls and hotels here and plenty of places to eat, so another good choice for those that want to get away from the tourist areas at night, however certainly not the best place to stay in Kuala Lumpur for tourist families.

The Best Kuala Lumpur Family Hotels

In this Kuala Lumpur accommodation for families guide, I’ve located what I think is KL’s best value accommodation. I think the first thing you will notice about KL is just how much value you get for your money.

You can pay next to nothing for a budget family hotel in KL , or have a splurge on a 5 star Kuala Lumpur hotel family room and still pay less than what you would for a budget hotel in another SEA city.

Below I have reviewed 12 options to help you choose the best hotel in KL for family .  The blue pins in the map below show the location of all the accommodation.  Zoom the map in and out for a better view.

Fairlane Premier Suite

If you’re looking for the best place to stay in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur in the heart of the action but prefer to have fully self contained accommodation, the apartments at Fairlane Premier Suites is certainly one to consider.

Families have a few accommodation choices at Fairlane. For those on a budget, one bedroom apartments sleep up to 4 guests in one double bed and one double sofa bed. For a little extra cost, two bedroom apartments sleep up to 5 guests in one double bed, one single bed and one double sofa bed.

Every apartment is air conditioned, and fully self contained with laundry facilities, a bathroom with bathtub, lounge with flat screen television and a fully equipped kitchen that has a full size fridge, hob and oven. Guests also have access to free wifi throughout their stay.

Within the hotel there is also a rooftop outdoor swimming pool, sauna and fitness centre, as well as a bar downstairs and guests, do have access to free parking if required.

These apartments are in a great location in the Bukit Bintang area, just 300m to the Bukit Bintang Station and 500m to Berjaya Time Square. There are plenty of family attractions nearby with Petronas Twin Towers & KLCC Park just a 15 minute walk away and the Jalan Alor night Market is even closer at just 10 minutes.

Why we love it?

So many excellent facilities here, plus its self contained and in an excellent central location – certainly a good option for the best place to stay in Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.

What’s not to love?

Having one of the beds in the lounge (sofa bed) might not suit all families.

The Fairlane Premier Suites offer affordable and comfortable self-contained accommodation that’s perfect for families.  The property is in the heart of KL’s Bukit Bintang area, so you’re surrounded by plenty of food options, plus within walking distance to a range of great attractions.  This property is well worth considering for parents after the best family accommodation Kuala Lumpur has to offer.

Click here for more information, the latest price and availability

Bintang Service Suite at Time Square

If your most important factor is budget, the Bintang Service Suites are well worth a look. These are the cheapest apartments on our list and also come with a range of great facilities and awesome central location.

Budget accommodation at this hotel comes in the form of a one bedroom apartment that can sleep up to 3 adults or older children in one double bed and one single bed plus one younger child or infant in a cot or floor bed. All apartments are air conditioned and have a washing machine, well-stocked kitchenette, lounge room and bathroom with a bathtub.

If you do feel like spending a little more, two bedroom apartments can sleep up to 5 guests in one double bed, two single beds and one sofa bed.

Guests at the hotel get access to free wifi, and there is a great outdoor swimming pool, shallow children’s pool, sauna, fitness centre, restaurant & even a playground for little ones to enjoy.

The hotel is situated in a great spot directly over Berjaya Times Square and 400m to Stesen Monorail or just 600m to the Bukit Bintang Station. It’s a 20 minute walk to Petronas Twin Towers & KLCC Park or just a 10 minute walk to the Jalan Alor Night Market

The price! These apartments are incredibly affordable.

One bed is in the living area, and these apartments are a little small, but they are great for the price.

The Bintang Service Suites are incredibly budget friendly and provide self contained accommodation that is in a great location. This is certainly one of the best Kuala Lumpur hotels for kids.  

Swiss Garden Residences

The large windows and clean, modern decor give a quality hotel room feel to the Swiss Garden Residences , yet they come with all the facilities you get in a self contained apartment.

Family accommodation at Swiss Garden Residences comes in the form of a one bedroom suite that can sleep four guests in one large double bed and one floor bed and one sofa bed. Every suite is air conditioned and has a washing machine, lounge area with television and a small kitchenette with a hob and full size fridge/freezer.

This family friendly hotel, Kuala Lumpur offers has a range of excellent facilities.  Facilities here include a rooftop infinity pool and sun lounger area, a playground for the younger kids and a fitness centre and guests can also make use of the free wifi.

Swiss Garden Residences is just 500m to Hang Tuah Monorail so getting around is a breeze. There is plenty within walking distance though with Berjaya Times Square a 10 minute walk away from Berjaya Times Square, 10 minute walk to the Jalan Alor Night Market and just a little longer to Petronas Twin Towers & KLCC Park (30 minutes).

The infinity pool at this family friendly hotel in KL is amazing  It has great views over the city.

There is no oven in the kitchen as there is with many of the other options in our guide.

If you want to feel like you are staying in an upmarket hotel but want the ease of self contained accommodation, Swiss Garden Residences would be a great choice for a family trip to KL.  For families after the best hotel in Kuala Lumpur with kids – add this one to your list to consider.

Casa Residency by Nn

Casa Residency by Nn is light and comfortable accommodation which makes great use of a small space and has everything a family needs for a break in KL; you even get two bathrooms.

Family accommodation at Casa Residency by Nn are two bedroom apartments that can sleep up to 4 guests in two large double beds. Every apartment comes with a small but well equipped kitchenette that even has a stove and full size fridge/freezer. Accommodation is air conditioned with large windows that let in a lot of light and has a washing machine, open plan lounge/dining area and two bathrooms.

The hotel itself has an outdoor swimming pool with great views over KL as well as a gym, and there is also free wifi available for guests.

This family room hotel Kuala Lumpur offers has huge windows, with great city views.  The windows let in so much light that the apartments feel much bigger than they are.

No bathtub in either of the bathrooms might not be ideal for those with little ones who love a bath at the end of a tiring day.

The Casa Residency provides bright and open accommodation that is well equipped so families can prepare their meals to save a little extra cash for spending on all the nearby attractions.  

Parkview Serviced Apartments

For those who don’t mind studio style accommodation or plan on spending most of their time out exploring anyway, Parkview Serviced Apartments offer an affordable place to stay in a great location.

Air conditioned studio apartments at Parkview can sleep a family of four in two double beds. Every apartment has a small yet reasonably well equipped kitchenette, a washing machine and even a dryer. There is also a small lounge area with a television and a breakfast bar. It really is impressive how well the space has been utilised and the amenities on offer.

Within the hotel itself, guests will find an indoor swimming pool with views over the city as well as a fitness centre and sauna. There is also free wifi available in all apartments and public spaces. 

Parkview is about 800m from Bukit Nanas Monorail, but it’s only a 10 minute walk to Petronas Twin Towers & KLCC Park anyway. The KL Tower and Eco Park are also just a 15 minute walk away so you may even find you don’t need the monorail at all on some days.

Such an excellent location for those planning on spending a lot of time around the Petronas Tower attractions.

Having everyone sleeping in the same room may not suit those with younger children.

Parkview Serviced Apartments offer affordable studio accommodation that is surprisingly well equipped with some great amenities.  This best hotel in Kuala Lumpur for kids in a great location and has heaps of storage space, so you don’t have to trip over all your luggage.

Soho Suites

If you want to be somewhere close to shops, restaurants and malls and fancy a view of the Petronas Towers from your apartment, the Soho Suites is the perfect accommodation for you.

These two bedroom, fully self contained apartments can sleep up to 5 guests in one double bed, one single bed and one sofa bed. All apartments are air conditioned and come with an open plan lounge/dining area, fully stocked kitchen, bathroom with bathtub and a washing machine. 

The hotel has a lovely outdoor pool area, as well as a gym and sauna, and guests have access to free wifi in all areas, including the apartments.

The views of Petronas Towers at night are a great bonus.

There is a small fee to use the pool and gym, and it’s a shame these aren’t included.

Soho Suites are one of the hotels in Kuala Lumpur with family rooms which are self-contained, as well as being in a great location and having amazing views of the Petronas Towers to top it off.

Vortex Suites

If you’re after family hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia that can accommodate a particularly large family or are a couple of families travelling together, then consider the Vortex Suites.   These self contained apartments are so large that they could even accommodate two families travelling together.

The Vortex Suites offer three bedroom apartments that can sleep a maximum of 9 guests in 3 large double beds and two sofa beds. All apartments are air conditioned and have a fully equipped kitchen with a full size fridge/freezer, oven and hob. There are also two bathrooms and an open plan lounge/dining area. Apartments also have a washing machine, flat screen television with access to Netflix and free wifi for all guests.

The location is excellent – monorail, attractions restaurants and more all within easy walking distance.  Plus the price is great for large families.

These apartments don’t have access to a pool like some of the other choices on our list.

For super big families, the Vortex Suites are easily among the top 10 hotels in Kuala Lumpur.  The large self contained apartments are spacious and in an excellent location for exploring all the great KL family attractions.

VIPOD Suites

Family accommodation at VIPOD Suites is well equipped and in a great location, really close to everything you will need during your trip.

These air-conditioned, two-bedroom apartments open up to views of the city and have a light, spacious feel to them. Each apartment can sleep a family of four in one double bed, one single bed and one sofa bed. The open plan living/dining area has a TV, sofa, desk and dining table. The kitchen is fully equipped with a stovetop, oven, fridge/freezer and a microwave. Every apartment also has a washing machine, and guests can make use of the free wifi and free onsite parking.

The location of these apartments is really hard to beat, and everything is in easy walking distance.  And have you seen that pool!!

These apartments are a little pricer than the offers, so if budget is your priority, choose one of the other places.

If your family enjoys being right in the heart of the action and prefers to have attractions within walking distance rather than using public transport, the VIPOD suites are well worth a look.

Tang City Hotel

If you’re looking for budget accommodation in Chinatown but aren’t too keen on everyone sleeping in one big room, Tang City Hotel offers a slightly different layout that allows parents a little space from the kids.

Family rooms at Tang City are actually two bedrooms, connected by a short corridor. You can’t close a door to the bedrooms but this layout at least it lets parents and younger kids, with early bedtimes, sleep separately. These family rooms can sleep up to 4 guests in either two double beds or one double bed and two singles.

All rooms at the hotel are air conditioned and feature a television, and because family rooms are more like two interconnecting rooms, you even get two bathrooms. Guests also have access to free wifi for the duration of their stay.

Having two separate sleeping areas is a real bonus you wouldn’t usually get with a budget family room.

No microwave or kitchenette but there are so many cheap and great options to eat close by it’s hardly a worry.

Tang City Hotel provides budget “family room” style accommodation that still allows parents and children to sleep in separate areas without having to pay a higher price and in an excellent location as well.

Hotel Petaling

Rock bottom prices will make Hotel Petaling perfect for anyone who just wants a basic cheap room so they can spend their hard earned money on exploring all the excellent family attractions and eating out.

Family rooms at Hotel Petaling can sleep either four guests in two sets of single bunk beds or five guests in one double bed and a one bunk bed, with a double below and single on top. The rooms here are very basic but are air conditioned, and you do still get an ensuite bathroom with a shower and a television. Guests can also make use of the free wifi in every room.

The price is the cheapest we’ve found, especially as you still get an ensuite bathroom.

Some families may not like the idea of bunk beds.

Hotel Petaling provides super budget friendly accommodation in the heart of Chinatown for anyone who loves the idea of being right in the hustle of this vibrant area.

Travelodge City Centre

If you like the idea of being in Chinatown but want accommodation that is a little more modern and a little more comfortable, Travelodge offers a great alternative for a reasonable price.

Family accommodation at Travelodge comes in the form of a family room which can sleep up to four guests in two double beds. All rooms are air conditioned and come with a small desk, flat screen television, mini fridge and tea/coffee making facilities. All rooms at Travelodge also have an ensuite bathroom with a shower.

You’ll be right in the heart of the action at Travelodge with Petaling Street Market just mere steps away as well as heaps of shops and restaurants right on your doorstep. The Pasar Seni Station is just 220m away, making it easy to get around the city.

The modern decor and the fact rooms have been recently refurbished.

Again, there is no microwave or cooking facilities – but you’re in Chinatown with plenty of cheap eats available.

The Travelodge provides accommodation in Chinatown with a bit more of a modern feel, but that still won’t break the bank for families who are on a budget.

Euro Life Hotel

If you’re just transiting through KL or want budget accommodation outside of the Chinatown area, Euro Life Hotel offers cheap accommodation in a really convenient location.

Family rooms at Euro Life are clean and comfortable and can sleep up to four guests in two queen size beds. All rooms are air-conditioned and come with a kettle, small fridge, flat screen television and an ensuite bathroom with a shower. Guests at the hotel also have access to free unlimited wifi for their whole stay.

The hotel is really close to KL Sentral Station.

Most attractions will need some travel on public transport.

Euro Life Hotel provides great accommodation for anyone travelling through KL with clean and comfortable rooms and easy walking distance to KL Sentral Station.

Where to Book your Family Hotel in KL ?

Mostly I prefer to use Booking.com as I find they not only offer a great range of family friendly hotels in KL but in most cases, you don’t need to pay anything upfront, AND you can cancel if you change your mind or find a better deal elsewhere. 

Plus, if you open an account and use them regularly, many of the hotels and resorts on booking.com offer a “genius” discount where you really can make some great savings.

I have provided links to Booking.com for the above family hotels in Kuala Lumpur, or you can click here. 

1 thought on “Where to Stay in Kuala Lumpur with Family”

Thank you for sharing this information. It is always difficult for me to choose the right hotel for traveling with my family. We are planning a trip to Kuala Lumpur in the summer with our family and are now choosing the right hotel. I really liked the option in the Fairlane Premier Suite, it is very good that there is a kitchen and you can cook at home and save significantly on food during the trip. This is probably one of the best options, thanks! Good luck!

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Top 19 things to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids

A vibrant and exciting city, Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, is filled with fun for families. These are the best things to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids. 

From slumber parties with sharks to trying your hand at firefighting, here are the best things to do with kids in Kuala Lumpur.

Kuala Lumpur is a bustling city and, as the capital of Malaysia, its sights and attractions are plentiful. There’s much for kids to see and do and with a surplus of mega shopping malls around town, mums and dads can literally shop till they drop.

1. Kuala Lumpur City Center (KLCC)

The heart of Kuala Lumpur, full of family-friendly attractions. There is a huge free playground that is definitely worth a visit, restaurants, arts & culture, sightseeing, hotels and multiple shopping malls. The Aquaria KLCC, Petronas Twin Towers and Discovery Centre are also located here.

2. Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

Kuala Lumpur Bird Park is the world’s largest free-flight, walk-in aviary, and home to 3,000 birds from more than 200 species.

Located in the serene and scenic Lake Gardens area, KL Bird Park is known as the “World’s Largest Free-flight Walk-in Aviary”. The wheelchair-friendly park offers 20.9 acres of lush gardens to be explored – home to more than 3,000 local and foreign birds. Be sure not to miss the bird feeding sessions throughout the day for that Instagram-worthy snap. This is the best animal experience in Kuala Lumpur.

3. Sunway Lagoon

Sunway Lagoon guarantees fun for the whole family with more than 80 attractions spread across six wet, wild, and wonderful parks.

The six parks are named for Water, Amusement, Wildlife, Extreme, Scream and the Nickelodeon Lost Lagoon. Sunway Lagoon sure packs an exhilarating punch and there is a level of thrill to suit every family member. The theme park is 20 minutes from Kuala Lumpur.

Highlights include the giant waterslides, twin speed slides, double twisters, toboggan rides, slow rivers, waterfall gardens and a wave pool.

4. Aquaria KLCC

Aquaria KLCC is one of the largest aquariums in Southeast Asia and features over 5,000 exhibits of aquatic and land-based creatures.

Walk through the 90-meter-long underwater tunnel under sharks, rays, and fish. Little ones can dip their fingers into the touch pool, learn about coral, marine conservation and the shipwreck exhibit will teach them about history of marine exploration in Malaysia.

Open daily from 10am to 8pm.

5. Have a shark sleepover at Aquaria KLCC

Slumber parties just got a whole lot spookier. Enjoy a sleepover with a shark at Aquaria KLCC where kids aged six to 13 can bed down next to an aquarium full of sharks.

6. Petronas Twin Towers

Soaring to a height of 450 metres, the 88-storey Petronas Twin Towers is the crown jewel of the things to do in Kuala Lumpur. The towers are made up of over 33,000 stainless steel walls and 55,000 glass panels.

Take the elevator to the 42nd-floor Skydeck to gawk at the city’s skyline from above. Visit the skybridge to cross between the towers and take in city views. Shop at the Suria KLCC mall and see the Petronas Twin Towers Gallery located at the base of the towers.

7. Berjaya Times Square Theme Park

Escape the tropical heat at Berjaya Times Square Theme Park. The indoor amusement park is colourful and jam-packed with kid-friendly rides, including the Crazy Bus, Flying Bumble Bee, Buddy Go Round and Robo Crash. There’s roller coasters, bumper cars, a carousel, arcade games and a 360-degree spinning pendulum ride. It has a whole station dedicated to virtual reality with five rides.

The 800-meter long indoor roller coaster is the longest indoor roller coaster in Asia.

8. Batu Caves

To the north of KL, Batu Caves are a series of caves among 400 million year old limestone hills.

The main attraction is an enormous golden Hindu deity, Lord Murugan, at the start of the 272 rainbow-painted steps leading to the Temple Cave. The cave is home to several Hindu shrines and statues.

The area has frolicking monkeys, spectacular city views and mysterious caves with colourful Hindu tales.

9. Kuala Lumpur Butterfly Park

A butterfly might just land on your nose at  Kuala Lumpur Butterfly Park . Here, thousands of colourful butterflies flit free amongst native plants and flowers.

The winged wonders dance among ferns, hanging vines and wildflowers, sometimes landing on unsuspecting little visitors.

10. Meet creatures great and small

At Zoo Negara children can get up close and personal to 476 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish from Asia and Africa, from hippos to leopards, apes to penguins, tiger cubs to bears. But the real show-stopper (and the zoo’s pride and joy): the pandas rolling around and munching on leaves at the conservation centre. The beautifully designed space sprawls across 44.5 hectares around a peaceful central lake.

11. Discover your dream job at KidZania

In this scaled down cityscape , kids can be a banker, journalist, judge, doctor, radio host – really, the world is their oyster – as they play act as an array of professions…. role-playing doesn’t get any more real or educational than this.

12. Indoor Play Centres

These can be found in many of the malls in Kuala Lumpur. Some cool ones to check out are Kid’s E World at The Gardens, Megakidz at the Mid Valley Megamall and Malaysia’s largest indoor theme park: Berjaya Times Square Theme Park .

13. Petrosains science discovery centre

Get hands-on with science at Petrosains. The museum is like Questacon’s Malaysian little brother.

The 7,000-square-metre interactive science centre is a fun way to learn about STEM. The hands-on activities and experiments will have kids entertained for hours. They’ll love the space age exhibits, behind-the-scenes Formula 1 zone, fossils and simulated ride about the oil and gas industry.

Step into the mini theatre to see 3D educational films. Then learn about Malaysia’s geological history and learn to code a Mars Rover.

14. Central Market

The Central Market is housed in an art-deco building in downtown KL. Here you can witness music, dancing, shadow-puppet shows, batik painting and fortune telling as well as grabbing some bargain handicrafts, art and souvenirs – but make sure to haggle! On weekends, the Central Market amphitheatre holds free cultural performances starting at 7:45pm. Performers are dressed in full Malay costume.

15. Petaling Street

This is the centre of Kuala Lumpur’s original Chinatown and is overloaded with exotic sounds, sights and smells. It comes alive at night when legions of hundreds of vendors spread their wares out for the night markets along the street, offering everything from gems to toys to mouth-watering street food. Its chaotic, noisy, over-the-top atmosphere combined with all those delicious aromas are what makes it so thrilling and exciting. 

16. National Museum (Muzium Negara)

The  National Museum immerses families in Malaysia’s rich cultural and historical heritage. 

17. i-City Theme Park

Visit i-City Theme Park during the day for the water park, snow park and fun 3D museum. It’s also a great spot after dark with its dazzling City of Digital Lights.

18. Kuala Lumpur Botanic Garden

The lush Kuala Lumpur Botanic Garden also known as the Perdana Botanical Garden, is home to a variety of plants and animals. The gardens have a variety of kid-friendly activities, including nature trails and a children’s discovery garden where you can learn about plants and nature. Families can rent a boat and explore the lake in the middle of the gardens.

19. Kuala Lumpur Children’s Museum

The interactive Kuala Lumpur Children’s Museum is a great place for kids to learn whilst having fun, with immersive exhibits on science, technology, and more.

Keep reading:

• Sabah family-friendly travel guide
• Malaysia family-friendly travel guide
• The Best Family Resorts Malaysia
• Exploring the jungles of Sabah with kids

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Complete Guide: Top Things to Do in Kuala Lumpur with Kids

This article is a combination of our experiences over five trips to Kuala Lumpur 2013-2017.

We love Kuala Lumpur. It is a fantastic city to visit with kids, packed full of attractions. It also has delicious food and is easy to get around thanks to several train lines and cheap taxis. We have now visited four times with our kids from the ages of 11 months old to 5.5 years old and every time has been great.

In this guide, you will find a long list of things to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids (most will appeal to adults as well), the best family accommodation in Kuala Lumpur, practical information about eating, getting around and going to the doctor, as well as what baby products you can find. This is a guide for everything you need to know for your next family holiday to Kuala Lumpur!

Things to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids – KLCC

The KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Center) area is just perfect with kids. This is a newish area where the Petronas Towers are located as well as a large city park. There are many things to do with kids just in this area. We visited the massive park, KL Aquarium and Petrosains Discovery Center (science museum). They are all excellent places to visit with kids.

On our latest visit to Kuala Lumpur, we chose to stay in this area to make it ultra easy to hang out in the park area as much as possible. If you are limited on time, then this would be my top area of Kuala Lumpur for kids. Everything is stroller friendly.

Petrosains Discovery Center

This center (basically a science museum) is just awesome. There are so many hands on educational exhibits for kids. Both kids just loved it (as did I). S went at both 2 and 4 years old and loved it both times. She was too young for most of the science behind things but there are so many things to play with that it is still very enjoyable.

They both LOVED Petrosains Discovery Centre

It is lots of fun, and I highly recommend it for kids of all ages. It is very engaging and full of helpful staff with good English. We could spend a long time here. I am sure we will keep visiting every time we are in Kuala Lumpur and they will get more out of it each time.

Practical Information Petrosains Discovery Center is located on the fourth floor of the Suria shopping center at the base of the Petronas Towers. Adults are RM25, 3-12 year olds are RM15, kids under 3 are free

KL Aquarium

Located in the KL Convention Center, next to the Petronas Towers, the aquarium is a must see on any list of things to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids. I missed out on this one, but these are J’s thoughts:

It is good, especially the 90m tunnel. It starts with animals that aren’t actually fish, such as spiders and reptiles. Then you go downstairs to the aquariums, where it is far more interesting. There are a lot of tanks full of fish that are well presented. The 90m tunnel also has some sharks, stingrays and turtles. J liked that part so much that he did it twice.

S enjoys Kuala Lumpur Aquarium

S enjoyed it, but seemed a little bit too young at 2 to get right into it. She rushed through it. Her favourite part was the sharks. She didn’t want to play with the touch tanks.

Practical Information The aquarium is RM50 for adults, RM40 3-12 year olds and free for under 3s.

KLCC Playground

We had no choice but to go to this massive free playground at KLCC as it looked so fantastic in photos. It is awesome! There is also a free water park next to it. It would have to be one of the best playgrounds in the world. I especially recommend visiting in the late afternoon when it is cooler and there are a lot of local families. The playground is just so big that even when there are lots of people there, there is plenty of space for everyone.

Just part of the great playground at KLCC

Berjaya Times Square

This is reputedly one of the world’s biggest shopping centers and was located under the hotel where we stayed on three of our visits to KL, so we spent a fair bit of time there. We loved it. There is lots of energy and some great food at good prices which are kid friendly. Even within the shopping center there are lots of things to do with kids. They also have some cool random stuff, like “piano stairs” that played piano notes as we walked up them and we enjoyed going to the cinema – so much cheaper than in Australia and everything

Berjaya Times Square Theme Park

We also visited the amusement park inside this shopping centre which was great fun. The first time we went, it was the kids’ first time in an amusement park. Z couldn’t do anything at 11 months old, but there was a kids’ area where S could do everything bar one ride at 2. We went on some with her, but she was just as happy to go on them alone which is a big testament to how much she loved this place as she has been ultra shy here, spending most of her time plastered onto me.

I loved the big roller coaster which is easily the highlight for adults. There are also a few other adult rides, but unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to go on any others.

S enjoys the rides at Berjaya Times Square theme park

As a testament to how much S loved this place, when she caught sight of it in 2015, nearly 2 years after we went to it, she remembered going here and started talking about some of the rides.

This theme park is best suited for preschoolers. The kids’ area has 8 different rides, a playground and a kids’ cinema (they show movies throughout the day for kids which we enjoyed). S was borderline too old for most rides at our last visit when she was nearly 5.5. The annoying part is that you need to be at least 4 foot 2 to go on any of the adult rides. S is crazy tall for her age and was just under this.

There were only three adult rides running included in the admission both times we went. There are 5 in general, so the park would get boring fast if you didn’t have kids with you I suspect. There are also some extra rides you can pay extra for.

We also loooved the hotel here.

Located on the Imbi monorail station. The amusement park is currently RM51 for adults, RM41 for 3-12 year olds, free for under 3, although we had some raised eyebrows and the person serving us got the manager’s approval for S to get in for free. They obviously did not believe she was 2 (which I don’t blame them as she was very big but it was very awkward). 

Lake Gardens

One of the popular places in Kuala Lumpur for kids is visit the Lake Gardens… At least that is what I read.

The Lake Gardens is sold as a popular and lovely park in the middle of Kuala Lumpur. It is huge and full of things to do with kids like museums, a bird park with the “world’s largest free-flight walk-in aviary”, gardens, butterfly farm and, of course, a lake. After reading all of this, it was on my list of what to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids on our first visit, and I was looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, the reality was a bit of a disappointment. After researching the attractions, I decided on the butterfly farm and deer park. The bird park was quite pricey, so I decided to give that a miss. I figured we only really had time for two attractions plus the lake before the kids were too tired. We chose to go on the weekend, as I had read that we could hire boats on the lake on weekends.

Butterfly Farm

We started at the butterfly farm. It is pretty good. Lots of butterflies (although not as many as other ones I have been to. They were not landing on us or anything), a few fish ponds where we could feed the fish and some random tanks with things like turtles in them. It was a decent size and a nice place to wander around. At the end, there is a whole lot of exhibits inside showing lots of insects and creepy crawlies.

S loved feeding the fish, but was actually a bit scared of the butterflies!! Z fell asleep soon after we got there.

The lake area is free but many of the attractions have entry fees. The butterfly farm was RM20 per adult or RM10 per child (2+). When I tried to buy S a ticket, the lady asked how old she was and said not to worry about a ticket for her when I said she was 2.

I asked for directions to the deer park, and it turned out it was shut for renovations, so we asked for directions for the lake instead. This is where things became ridiculous.

It took us 45 minutes to get to the lake, which I expected to be about 5 minutes away. The roads were all winding and nothing was at all clear. We ran into a couple of other groups of foreigners who were lost too. Otherwise, there was barely anyone around. By the time we got to the lake (45 minutes later, pushing Z asleep in the pram and carrying S in humid heat on hilly roads), we were over it.

We seemed to end up walking all around the bird park in that time, and I was quite disappointed we didn’t go. It looked massive and pretty damn good. The lake is quite small. There are no boats and barely anyone was there either, so we stopped to eat some sandwiches we had on us and then started the journey home.

I had expected the Lake Gardens to be all park land, but the actual park land isn’t that big. The attractions seemed far more spread out once there and the roads are lined with massive trees, so it is hard to get any type of bearing.

I imagine it could be a great family day out, with the right expectations and transport. You really need your own transport, or to hire something or do a tour if you want to go around a couple of the attractions here. I would definitely go back as I still want to see the bird park, but otherwise I wouldn’t bother.

The lake area is free but many of the attractions have entry fees. We took a monorail to KL Sentral and tried to walk from there, but ended up giving up and getting a taxi (RM12 coupon taxi – a rip off). We walked back to KL Sentral, but the last bit was very dodgy (walked up a lane of a main road :-/). It is definitely worth taking a pram. There are footpaths in the park but there are some staircases in the butterfly farm and it was a bit awkward walking back to KL Sentral with it.

KL Bird Park

On our latest visit to Kuala Lumpur, we were not missing out on this attraction. It was the first attraction we visited in 2015. We were happy we did – It is awesome!

Photo bombed by a peacock

I have not visited a bird park before, only bird aviaries that were part of bigger attractions such as zoos. I am far from a bird watcher and I have always been underwhelmed by aviaries at these places. This is why I was surprised by just how much I liked KL Bid Park which has the biggest walk in aviary in the world. It is a lot of fun. This is mainly because it is a very big site in a lovely setting.

The first half of the experience was more like walking around a very well done botanical gardens that just happened to be under a massive net with birds everywhere. It was very green and filled with plant life which made it feel like we had the place to ourselves as we walked around. There are regular points where we could buy food to feed the birds and fish in the many ponds and lakes. There are many different types of birds and lots of peacocks around which the kids particularly enjoyed. We even noticed monkeys playing on top of aviary.

S feeds a parrot

The second part had aviaries as well as educational centres, a bird show auditorium (we were there at the wrong time unfortunately) and other exhibits. The kids probably liked this section best as there were emus and ostriches they could feed as well as parrots. They loved holding out food for the parrots to eat.

All in all, we loved it. We spent about two hours which says a lot as the kids get bored easily especially at attractions which require a lot of walking such as this one. J and I could have easily spent longer. We didn’t look at the educational centre or go to the bird show which I would have loved to do.

Adults RM48, children RM38, under 3’s are free. It only cost about RM9 in a cab from KLCC – we were not going to make the mistake of not taking a cab this time! It is pram friendly.

We headed here one evening to check out the market and eat dinner. We aren’t shoppers, and I have been here many times before, so it wasn’t that interesting for us. We did have a nice dinner though!

Yummy dinner in Chinatown hawker centre

Practical Information We caught the monorail to Maharajalela and walked from here (not far). We caught a taxi back. We only asked a couple, but they wouldn’t use the meter and both said RM10. We didn’t take a pram, but it would have been ok, apart from the stairs at monorail stations.

Little India

Our vegetarian feast

We visited here mainly to eat – which was awesome! But it is also a nice place to have a wander and look at shops. I do have a warning though. It may result in lots of whinging from little girls who want their own beautiful Indian outfit.

KidZania Kuala Lumpur

The brilliant KidZania Kuala Lumpur

After the success of our visit to Bangkok’s Kidzania the kids were excited to do it all again. This was all the excuse we needed to visit KidZania Kuala Lumpur. If you’ve been to any of the KidZanias around the world then the Kuala Lumpur one is no different, other than the brands used and some variation in activities.

If you’ve never been to one then KidZania is a miniature city made for kids where they can undertake different activities representing different careers. Kids can be firefighters, medics, police, store clerks, cooks, pilots, journalists, doctors, nurses, photographers, couriers and even tax collectors. Each “career” lasts for various amounts of time usually 15 or 20 minutes and for each activity there’s some education aspect to it. For example kids learn the value of hygiene before making food, or fire safety before going to fight a fire.

Kids can earn money (in the local currency, Kidzos) from the jobs and get paid in cash which can then be spent on activities with a cost where they usually get something to take away (like a hamburger from working in the hamburger restaurant or milk from working in the milk bottling factory). There’s a department store where kids can spend their earnings too, but it isn’t so easy to do so.

The awesome thing about KidZania, though, is the staggering level of detail. Kids will be involved in organisations they would see in the real world. Most activities have a uniform of some sort that will look close to the real thing – firefighters wear hats and coats that look like real Malaysian firefighting gear.  There’s even a small ambulance and fire truck that the medics and firefighters ride to their call-outs complete with lights and sirens.

Being Malaysia there is even a kids only prayer room (plus one for adults, too).

Activities have age guides. Many are recommended for ages 4+ and younger kids might struggle to get much out of it. We pretend Z is 4 (and pay the associated higher admission) so he can get more out of it. The age limits can be flexible but height limits, where required for safety reasons, were not. Thankfully there were few of them.

Our kids loved it. We were in place for the opening at 10am and I didn’t manage to lure the kids out until just before 6pm with the bribe of a special dinner. They left exhausted but very happy. The immersive nature of KidZanis is such that kids get right into whatever they’re doing. It was pretty much the same as the one in Bangkok and just as well executed. It was a lot of fun for the kids and me, although tiring.

As good as it is, I do have a few small gripes. Eating options range to the unhealthy and/or bad value, although that’s to be expected. I don’t think there’s anything to stop you bringing your own food and drinks though (we brought our own water). Second, activity times tended to drag out so 20 minute activities were more like 30 and S and Z got bored during some things while waiting. Often this was due to the official photographer taking photos of each kid for many activities. The upside of this slow speed, as well as being a cause, is that kids got a lot of attention and assistance when needed. We found things moved faster in Bangkok.

Lastly, it was hard to spend the kids hard-earned Kidzos. The kids could participate in activates that watered and fed them but they couldn’t use them to buy any of the other food and drink. And the prices at the department store were beyond the earning potential of many kids. The cheapest things were 150 kidzos, and were small things like a pen. Even with our kidzos from Bangkok, all of the kids pooled earnings would have bought virtually nothing, like a pair of hairclips – so that is after two kids “working” two full days.

Unfortunately, this resulted in the kids leaving KidZania grumpy and upset. It’s best to prepare them in advance that they won’t be able to buy anything unless you have already been a few times and saved your money.

That said it’s more about the doing, not the buying at KidZania. And that is a whole lot of fun.

More information here . Tickets are currently RM80 4-17 year olds, RM39 for adults and 2-3 year olds. You can get discounted tickets by buying in advance on their website which is what we did. A taxi from Berjaya Times Square is RM30 if you get one to pull over, RM60 if you are stuck getting a coupon taxi.

Sunway Lagoon

Part of the Water Park themed area at Sunway Lagoon

Sunway Lagoon is a fun theme park located a short drive from the centre of Kuala Lumpur.

It makes for a very fun day in Kuala Lumpur with kids. There are six different themed lands and we loved going on rides, getting wet and meeting Nickelodeon characters.

If you are travelling with kids, the Nickelodeon Lost Lagoon is likely to be the highlight. It only opened in 2016 and is loads of fun with many chances to get wet and play. We also loved the wave pool.

Kid heaven at Nickelodeon Lost Lagoon

In addition to the Water Park and Nickelodeon Lost Lagoon, there’s also an amusement park section, “Scare Park” and “Extreme Park”. There’s also animals and various animal shows.

It is also a short drive from KL International Airport and is an alternative option for a short stopover in Kuala Lumpur. The theme park is also home to several hotels and a shopping centre – click here for more information about Sunway Resort and here for the cheaper (but fabulous) Sunway Clio .

Click here for discounted tickets  and read the full review here.

Click here to download a PDF version of our Malaysia guides!

Sunway Pyramid

Having an ice skate at Sunway Pyramid

Sunway Pyramid shopping centre is located adjacent to Sunway Lagoon and it has enough activities for a half or full day. It makes for an easy KL stopover combined with Sunway Lagoon especially as you can stay at one of the Sunway hotels mentioned above which are above this shopping centre.

We had fun ice skating and visiting The Parenthood which is an indoor play centre among other things. There’s also a cinema, bowling alley, arcade games, small amusement rides and they were building a Kung Fu Panda area when we visited.

Behind the shopping centre is the massive Sunway Lagoon so there is plenty of things to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids around here.

Mega Kidz World

On the top level of the gargantuan Mid Valley Megamall is Mega Kidz World, an indoor play centre that’s a great place for kids to run out some energy or go as a payoff for going along with some shopping. Inside is a large padded structure with places to climb, slide and leap around, common to these sorts of centres. It isn’t the largest of its type I have seen, but it is very tall and so works well for kids young and old (kids up to 12 can play).

In addition to the big structure, there is a small bouncy castle, a TV screen showing some movies and an area of younger kids to play in. There are some activities not included in the entrance fee that cost extra like painting.

Socks are required, but if you forgot them like I did then they’ll sell you some. They’re decent quality socks, too. The centre is well secured, with a guard and staff making sure kids leave with the people they arrived with. Staff check on crying kids to make sure they are okay.

Although not being huge our kids happily ran around and played all afternoon (there is no time limit) and emerged four hours later tired and happy. For parents there’s a small “cafe” that serves food and drinks that isn’t too bad.

The centre isn’t cheap: RM 50 per child (+ GST) or RM 25 for kids under three. Thankfully one adult per child can go in free. There is a train station at the shopping centre.

Getting to and from Kuala Lumpur

Getting to and from Kuala Lumpur is very easy thanks to a big international airport with flights to many parts of the world.

If you are coming from elsewhere in Malaysia or a neighbouring country, we recommend checking out easybook.com to buy bus and train tickets online. Buses and trains in Malaysia are generally very good and we have had no problems travelling round the country with our kids.

If you are flying any budget airlines in or out of KL check out our guide to KLIA2 and the Tune Hotel at KLIA2.

Best family hotels in Kuala Lumpur

If you are looking for somewhere to stay with kids, there are some great accommodation choices in Kuala Lumpur that are not only well suited to families but are generally very good value as well.

Berjaya Times Square Hotel – Our favourite choice

I always spend a very long time working out the perfect accommodation in every place we go. We obviously have a budget, and with two little ones things like size, cleanliness and location are very important. We have to be able to eat easily and there needs to be somewhere for them to run around, especially if our room isn’t too big. Ideally, our room needs enough space for the kids to nap and for us to do stuff without disturbing them.

Berjaya Times Square Hotel seemed to tick every box and more when I booked them online. About $90 a night for a one bedroom suite, complete with living area and kitchenette in a hotel with (amongst other things) a massive pool, a kids pool and a playground. And we mustn’t forget the massive shopping center that lies underneath complete with food courts (over 65 food outlets!), over 1000 retail outlets, train station, cinema and an amusement park.

The reality?

It was everything we promised to be and wins extra praise when we were able to check in at 8:30am after our long haul flight from Australia. The staff were just awesome in general, they helped us with all our bags and really took away any stress after a long night getting there. They helped us quickly with any request, and I was very impressed.

The hotel facilities are also awesome. The shopping center is great (see above), and there is the biggest pool I have ever seen in a city hotel, as well as two kiddy pools, one of which suited our kids perfectly, and the playground was great too! I want to move in here permanently 🙂 We actually ended up going back to Kuala Lumpur later that trip just to stay there again!

Z checks out all that space

Practical Information Berjaya Times Square Hotel – we had a superior suite with an early bird discount for about $90 a night. Kids are free as long as they use a cot or existing bedding. An extra bed was RM100 a night.  Click here for the latest prices

Sunway Clio Hotel

If you are in the Kuala Lumpur area for a short stopover, another alternative is to stay at Sunway Clio which is actually in Petaling Jaya, between the airport and the centre of Kuala Lumpur.

This hotel is superbly located being above the big Sunway Pyramid shopping centre, next to Sunway Lagoon. This makes it an ultra easy choice for a short stopover.

Our Deluxe Park room

We spent three nights here in between long haul flights and it was a great choice with two easy days at Sunway Lagoon and in the shopping centre.

We booked connecting rooms which meant we were able to experience both the Deluxe Park and Deluxe Plus rooms. Both rooms were quite similar with comfortable beds, new furnitures and fixtures, couch seats, desks, mini bar, cupboard and room for our luggage. They were both a great standard.

The Deluxe Park was bigger and had a huge shower. Otherwise, they were the same. We had to book the different room types to get connecting rooms. You are allowed to have two adults and two kids in one room though.

The hotel has a small gym and lovely infinity pool. We had breakfast included which was a very good buffet with great variety. There is room service and plenty of options for eating in the shopping centre downstairs as well as a supermarket.

Click here to see the latest prices.

Other best places to stay in Kuala Lumpur with kids

The pool area at our apartment with one of the Petronas Towers in the background

Some other top family hotels in Kuala Lumpur are:

• For a prime KLCC position close to all the attractions listed above, try the fabulously priced Hotel Maya which is 5 star rated a short walk from Petronas Towers. There is a beautiful semi indoor pool. Kids under 5 stay free in existing beds. Click here for the latest prices.
• For a great location near everything (especially Berjaya Times Square) with the option of large family suites in a 5 stay hotel, try the PARKROYAL Kuala Lumpur . This hotel also has a large pool and kids under 12 stay for free when using existing beds. Click here for the latest prices.
• For a location super convenient to transportation at KL Sentral, free shuttles to several areas and an infinity pool, the Ramada Plaza Kuala Lumpur is a great option. It especially stands out to me as a good option for families who want more space in a great hotel at a good price. It was only about US$100 a night last time I checked for two bedroom executive apartments – a bargain! There are also one bedroom suites and regular hotel rooms as well as a kids’ pool and babysitting. Click here to see the latest prices.

You can also read our complete guide to the best places to stay in Kuala Lumpur .

If you are just having a short transit in Kuala Lumpur, we have stayed in the Tunes Hotel at KLIA2 several times and have reviewed that option here .

Eating in Kuala Lumpur

We all love the food here. The kids have had no problems adapting. Every second meal, S is declaring something different her favourite. She probably is the least fussy toddler in the world when it comes to food though. We eat just about every meal at food courts or hawker centers. They are fabulous. The food is generally made fresh, ultra fast and tasty with many options and it is very cheap. Less than $10 usually with drinks. We eat something different every meal, and generally order three mains which is enough for all of us (Z eats bits and pieces off all our plates).

S doesn’t like the milk. I’m not sure why as it tastes normal to us. She has stopped having it as a drink because of this. She’s also not interested in eating breakfast which is cereal with milk in our room (usually her favourite meal). Strange how it’s the one meal that’s like home that’s the main problem. We bought soy milk as well (for me and Z), but even though it was meant to be plain, it just tasted like sugar, so we haven’t been using it. We brought so much formula with us (5 tins, crazy right!), that there is no need for him to have it at the moment anyway.

High chairs have been available in most places we have eaten. However, they don’t have tray tops. This has proved a bit challenging for us as Z insists on feeding himself and likes to play with the food for awhile before eating it. This involves lots of placing it on the table. It’s not very sanitary, but we are struggling to stop it. We only sit at places that seem clean (obviously), and I wipe down the area in front of him with a baby wipe. He has only had baby food a couple of times, basically when he needs to eat at a time that doesn’t coincide with us.

Getting around Kuala Lumpur

Part of what we have always loved about travelling is taking local transportation. We worried how this would work with the kids, but it is mostly fine. We took the occasional taxi, but mostly took the monorail or buses.

The monorail is cheap and easy. It is only one line, but it took us most places we wanted to go and was situated next to our hotel so very easy. It could get very crowded though. It was very crowded the first time so we nearly didn’t catch it again, but it wasn’t so bad other times. Z found it tough as he didn’t like the crowds. S was ok and at times, loved it (being a two year old who loves different transportation) . It was free for the kids and for adults, the cost varied depending on distance. We never paid more than RM1.60.

It was not pram friendly. Lots of steps, even in the stations that had some escalator access. We would usually have to fold up the stroller before hopping on.

We made use of the KL-Go free buses between Berjaya and KLCC. These were great. I could only get the stroller on with help unless it was folded down, but I had no problems getting help (although I’m sure the man who lifted the pram with S in it over a barricade wished he hadn’t made that offer when he realised how heavy the whole thing was!!).

Taxis are easy and everywhere. They are cheap, but unfortunately, we had no luck getting them to use the meter, so we paid an inflated price compared to what we should have. Short rides were about RM10. The drivers were all helpful and good with the kids.

Click here to download a PDF version of this guide!

Taking a stroller around with us can be challenging – it is pointless to take one with you anywhere if you can’t handle some stairs. We found it was worth dealing with stairs occasionally for the benefits it provided. J would carry Z in it up flights, unless they were narrow, and S just had to learn that she had to walk up or down the stairs and then get back in the stroller. I would definitely not recommend taking anything but a lightweight umbrella fold stroller though (more tips on choosing a stroller for travel here ).

I have written about KLIA2 (the international airport for low cost carriers) here .

The people are fabulous. I love Malaysians!! This place is just so kid friendly. People go out of their way to help all the time. It is quite amazing and a bit of a shock after being in Australia, where most people just ignore you or give you looks like you are irritating them. Sometimes, they are too helpful as I feel bad when old ladies give up their seats on buses for us.

Z is constantly getting positive attention. He is absolutely lapping it up. S also gets a fair bit of attention. She just grabs me and looks at the person blankly as she is quite shy. Some people even take their photos (after asking, they are polite). People often touch the kids. Only in a positive, friendly way and it doesn’t bother me or them, but I can see why it may bother some parents. In food courts, we often get offered free food for the kids too.

Baby products

In the supermarkets there are lots of nappies that cost about the same as I pay back home (where I admittedly get the cheapest ones). There is baby food, but only fruit purees. Formula was also available, but not what I am used to, so I’m very glad we brought all of what we need.

I wish I wasn’t able to write about this, but unfortunately Z was unwell the first time we went to Kuala Lumpur. We took him to a medical center on level 5 of Berjaya Times Square. We went in when it opened at 10am without an appointment and only had to wait for half an hour. The doctor was very thorough, wrote a note saying he was fit to travel, among other things like he could have measles… (you’re fit to travel if you have measles???!), and they gave him a whole bag of medications. Seriously. 4 medicine bottles and a cream. Not sure if we will use anything but the paracetamol. It cost RM150 all up (under AUD$50) including medications.

Some random stuff

Don’t under estimate how much water everyone needs here. As a baby, Z was literally having 3 times as many bottles as at home and we still had some dry nappies. We learned to be constantly handing him a sippy cup of water.

Our verdict?

We have loved all four visits we have had here since having kids.

I found this surprising as I had been to KL a few times before having kids and never thought much of it.  With kids, my focus has obviously shifted, and Kuala Lumpur has so much to offer a travelling family.

A big part of why we liked it so much was probably our hotel.  Staying at Berjaya Times Square was just awesome.  Even without the massive shopping center downstairs, the hotel is in a great location, the room was just fabulous and the hotel facilities as good as I’ve seen.  I really can’t believe that it was only $90 a night.

It is easy to get around.  Food is everywhere, cheap and very good.  The people love kids, especially babies.  At times, it felt like we were with famous people as everyone was so interested in our kids.  Really, what is there not to like?

Our favourite KL attractions are Sunway Lagoon, Petrosains Discovery Center, KL Bird Park and KidZania Kuala Lumpur.  They are just great fun with kids, and I think I probably could have enjoyed it myself alone too (excluding KidZania, you need kids to go there).

You may also want to consider visiting nearby Port Dickson while you are in Kuala Lumpur.

What are your best things to do in Kuala Lumpur with kids?

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. This means that if you make a booking after clicking on one of these links that we receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

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