[Essay] Need expert review of statement essay

[omar_neo]

Hi,


I apologize if this the not the correct section for this, but I kindly need an expert(or a native user) review of my graduate "statement of purposes" essay.


Please consider these suggestions:
- Any sentence rearrangements/optimizations
- Logical flow of events
- Grammatical fixing
- And please suggest how I could make the starting and end more alluring (i.e., a phrase, re-structuring, etc.)


Essay:

From my childhood, I have always excelled in the subject-matters that intrigued me the most. Since the onset of my undergraduate studies, I was fascinated by the programming languages aka “coding” which placed me among the top 3 in “MIST Inter-University Programming Competition - 2010”. Eventually, it lured me into preferring software development as a career choice where currently I am a senior software engineer and a Team Lead. During the past five years of my career, it awarded me - “Top performer of the month, Employee of the month” and other awards multiple times among approx. 500 employees.


To me, it was a great achievement. However, I wanted to aim higher and walk a mile further. Being best at my workplace was excellent, but being the best among the best requires a lot more on my part. And I did not want my skill-set and experience to become stale through the process of grinding my way through the same kind of tasks at my work. Then it dawned on me that I have already used up one-third of my life-span, according to our county’s avg. Life expectancy. So, it was preferable for me to start working towards my goals while I still had the youth and aptitude. And what better way to master my skills and hone my intellect than through research? Therefore, I decided to choose my research area from my favorite topics, AI/Neural Networks/Deep Machine learning, then to apply acquired knowledge on other subject-matters. I want to contribute towards - cell biology, genetics, chemistry, and other natural sciences. I believe this beautiful dream is more practically achievable via deep learning. For example, in the field of chemistry, we could use Deep Learning to find algorithms for optimizing chemical reactions and then finally make a complex substance which would, otherwise, require more production time at a production facility.


So, I set a distinct career objective in pursuing MS leading Ph.D. degree in Computer Science. After receiving the Ph.D. degree, I cherish to practice at an internationally acclaimed university to prolong my research endeavors.


I have completed my undergraduate studies from Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) of <institute>, one of the highest ranked institutes across the country in the field of engineering and technology. Although I cannot claim to have the best of scores, I did manage to always be among the top 25%(approx.) of my class. My sessionals and lab performances were my most significant strengths rather than abstract classes. My best achievement was my perfect score in my final year thesis and the database project. I was responsible for leading both of the works for my teams. I also would like to note my involvements in different community services as my extracurricular activities experience. I joined several "peace and social welfare movements" to help out our recent flood victims and the poor people across the country. Activities as such brought out the best in me and will aid me in achieving my goals.


My research activities began with my undergraduate thesis work. In my final year of graduation, I worked with professor Dr. Mahmuda Naznin on "Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network implementation via beehive monitoring and their communication structure prediction.” In this work, I along with my team tried to develop and simulate an optimized algorithm for H-WSN based on current BHO(Bee-Hive Optimizations) algorithms. We sought to find the most optimized path to improve the efficiency of the network and lower the energy consumptions compared to other similar implementations. Primarily, experiences from this work and my practical professional experiences nurtured my research thoughts in Machine Learning and Artificial Neural Networks. I have taken the online course of Machine Learning by Stanford University (Andrew Ng) and Neural Networks for Machine Learning by University of Toronto. I have started working on my personal research project (OpenAI research) Multitask Reinforcement Learning with continuous actions.


I have communicated with Prof. <prof>, from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, via email. We talked about my interests as his work and research interests (cell biology/machine learning) align with mine. He encouraged me to apply for the postgraduate program at the Ph.D. section in the department of CSE of <institute>. This encouragement was one of most staple reasons for choosing the <institute>. Moreover, my desire to be a part of the graduate program at your well-recognized institution dramatically underscores my decision to pursue graduate study in the United States. Besides, I have spoken to my professors, seniors, and relatives about my choice of the university, and they all responded positively.


Consequently, your school has become my dream destination and I am confident that I will be able to achieve all my goals. And now, I have my priorities straight and sights set on my target. Through my past experiences, I learned to balance things out, giving priority to academics without compromising other activities. I believe in my diligence, focus, and aptitude.

I cordially appreciate your time to read this.

 

[teechar]

In my opinion, your letter is too long. Were you given a word limit or any guidelines?

 

[omar_neo]

In my opinion, your letter is too long. Were you given a word limit or any guidelines?

Thanks for your reply. No, there were no hard-fixed limitations. But 800-1500 words are generally the limit.

 

[teechar]

Thanks for your reply. No, there were no guidelines or limits, [STRIKE]hard-fixed limitations[/STRIKE] but 800-1500 words [STRIKE]are[/STRIKE] is generally the limit.

I think 400-500 words is usually more than plenty!

 

[teechar]

Since my childhood, I have always excelled in the subject-matters that intrigued me the most. At university, I became fascinated with the programming languages and was among the top 3 in “MIST Inter-University Programming Competition - 2010”. I chose software development as a career path, where currently I am a senior software engineer and team leader. During the past five years, I achieved “Top performer of the month”, “Employee of the month” and other awards multiple times out of approx. 500 employees.

However, I have decided to gain higher qualifications by conducting research in, for example, AI/Neural Networks/Deep Machine Learning. I then wish to apply the knowledge I acquire into other fields such as cell biology, genetics, chemistry, and other areas of natural science. I believe this is more readily achievable via deep learning. For example, in the field of chemistry, we could use deep learning to find algorithms for optimizing chemical reactions and then finally make a complex substance which would, otherwise, require more production time at a production facility.

So, I set a distinct career objective in pursuing an MS leading to a Ph.D. degree in computer science. After receiving the Ph.D. degree, I hope to practice at an internationally acclaimed university to consolidate my research experience.

I completed my undergraduate studies at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) of <institute>, one of the highest-ranked institutes across the country in the field of engineering and technology. Although I cannot claim to have the best of scores, I did manage to always be among the top (approx.) 25% of my class. My sessionals and lab performance were my most significant strengths. My best achievement was my perfect score in my final year thesis and database project. I was responsible for leading both for my teams. I also would like to note my involvements in different community services as part of my extracurricular activities. I joined several "peace and social welfare movements" to help out flood victims and poor people across my country.

My research activities began with my undergraduate thesis work. In my final year, I worked with professor Dr. Mahmuda Naznin on "Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network Implementation via Beehive Monitoring and their Communication Structure Prediction.” In that work, I along with my team tried to develop and simulate an optimized algorithm for H-WSN based on current BHO (Bee-Hive Optimizations) algorithms. We sought to find the most optimized path to improve the efficiency of the network and lower the energy consumption compared to other similar implementations. That work and my practical professional experience have nurtured my interest in Machine Learning and Artificial Neural Networks. I have taken the online Machine Learning course by Stanford University (Andrew Ng) and Neural Networks for Machine Learning by the University of Toronto. I have started working on my personal research project (OpenAI research) Multitask Reinforcement Learning with Continuous Actions.

Furthermore, I have communicated with Prof. <prof>, from the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, via email. We talked about my interests as his work and research interests (cell biology/machine learning) align with mine. He encouraged me to apply for the postgraduate program at the Ph.D. section in the department of CSE of <institute>. This was a major reason for me to choose the <institute>. Moreover, my desire to be a part of the graduate program at your prestigious institution is another factor in my decision to pursue graduate study in the United States. Besides, I have spoken to my professors, seniors, and relatives about my choice of university, and they all responded positively.

I am confident that I will be able to achieve all my goals. From my studies and work experience, I have learned to balance things, giving priority to my academic work without compromising other activities. I take pride in my diligence, focus, and aptitude.