Motivation letter feedback

Hey everyone,
I am new here so I don't really know how things work here
I am applying for a university and already wrote a motivation letter. It's just my first draft but I would be happy if someone could give me a feedback and correction tips on it.

Thank you in advance!

Dear Sir or Madam,
After doing much research about colleges and universities within Europe that offer a liberal arts and science program being taught in English, I am writing to express my interest in applying to XXX University for the Spring Semester 2015 for the reason that your college holds an excellent reputation on offering both program tracks in English. Since I have a wide range of interests, I have not decided on a major and thus a future career yet which, I believe, is why XXX University is the right place for me due to the fact that you offer possibilities of combining different interesting courses on various tracks to help discover myself. Additionally, your college not only puts emphasize on an applicant’s diploma but also searches for unique and motivated personalities that help create an incredibly social and international friendly environment which I was completely impressed by. As a sociable, motivated and ambitious person, I am confident, I will fit into and contribute to your environment in a way that will help future applicants identify with XXX University just as I identified with your college.

I am a German student who currently graduated from high school in Germany majoring in English and music. At present, I am looking for a job preferably in the tourism sector since I sometimes work as a receptionist at our neighbor’s guesthouse and thus am confronted with guests from all over the world. Nonetheless, I also gained work experience in a travel agency in 2013 and got to improve research, communication and translation skills by reason that I booked trips for customers and translated travelogues from English into German. As I not only enjoyed working in a team but also cooperating with customers, I would be fortunate to once again work in the travel agency to further enhance my above said skills and, if achievable, visit foreign countries evaluating tourist destinations in view of the fact that I love traveling and exploring new cultures and countries. Moreover, I am musically active. I play piano, guitar, oboe and a little saxophone but I give small concerts singing while accompanying myself with the piano because I have the most experience with that instrument. I do this for free as I believe that making people happy is the best payment for the performance.

The English language played a key role during my education as I, not only visited bilingual taught subjects such as history or biology, but also studied abroad in an English speaking country. I believe, that, as the current world language, it is important to learn and understand English to its fullest. In order to understand English, or any other language, I am convinced, that it is also necessary to study the way a language developed throughout time and how people made use of it by writing novels or plays and thus crafting and emboss their own usage of the language, that is and will be cherished by contemporary and future generations. Therefore, reading literature in class always brought me pleasure and enabled me to dive into and learn from the past and also the language’s development in a way I could have never dealt with when reading modern literature at home. Furthermore, I write a lot myself, generally scripts, short stories or poems. Thus, I would be delighted to be able to attend your linguistics and literature courses aiming of enriching my writing skills and discover my individual writing style.

A striking experience helping me to unleash a hidden interest of me was my exchange with a London college. At Farnborough college, I attended law class and dealing with Involuntary manslaughter made me uncover my passion for analyzing cases from different angles and being fascinated by how many various measurements it takes to judge people as being just or unjust as well as what sentence one should deserve for his action. As a matter of fact, I would love to expand my knowledge not only on criminology, but on the field of law itself and hope to get this chance at XXX University.

Additional motifs on my choice for XXX University is your approach towards students and learning philosophy. Personally, I am of the opinion that a personal tutor, monitoring your path and guiding you, along with a small- scale class format enabling an excellent study ambiance, plus opportunity, provides an encouraging and challenging way in learning and, at the same time, socializing with other students you live with. Lastly, your prospect on studying a semester abroad captured my interest as well since I have already spent a semester in New Zealand in 2011 and have seized the chance on learning about myself, my host country combined with new friends from various countries. This unique experience showed me that you not only learn in educational facilities preparing for a possible future career. You also broaden your horizon about yourself in a thought-provoking environment. Hence, I would be thrilled to get the chance to once again grow with new challenges at XXX University.

To finish, I would be very pleased to be accepted at XXX University. I am convinced that your college will help me in finding my path wherefore I am confident XXX University is the right place for me.

Thank you for considering my application and for your time.

Sincerely,