My enthusiasm to explore data science. Personal Statement - The Data Science Colloquium at Michigan

Hi This university requires a SOP and a PS, I wonder if my PS meets the requirements and if it is overlapping with my SOP. And is it an attracting start paragraph for PS? Thanks for help

Personal Statement for Data Science

There is something in TV series Person of Interest that always come back to me. The leading actor Finch defined π as all of the world's infinite possibilities rest within this one simple circle. He also maintained that what you do with that information, what it's good for, that would be up to you. Those words truly resonated with me and triggered my enthusiasm to explore data science.

Thus, I choose statistics as my undergraduate major, which is concerned with the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data. All statistics and computer science courses equip me with sets of procedures to follow in statistical modeling. Immersed in coding, I enjoy trying out different algorithms, experimenting with different features, and exploring various data sets.

As an enthusiast for newly emerging things, it's fortunate for me to live in a community where deep learning is growing rapidly. Siri can assist me to get things done. Music player will recommend my favorite genre of music. I always believe human behavior can be consistently and scientifically analyzed and predicted via historical data. With the training in Master of Data Science, my dream to become a data scientist will continue to bloom.

Another thing attracts me is, data science requires empathy. There is a lot of love and compassion that is not explainable in terms of neural networks and computation algorithms. In my daily life, some of my friends are very private and they have trust issues about social media. Apart from advanced technical skills, how to utilize data cleverly is one of my interests. The Data Science Colloquium at Michigan will help me understand the ethical implications of this work. Additionally, I have taken several general education courses to analyze cognitive development. I want to go further to tie data to cognition.

The master program of Data Science at XYZ will be in alignment with my undergraduate training, my personal interests and future develop trend.

Hi! I think this is a good start, however, I feel like you should structure your sentences better and maybe have a look over your word choice. Since it is an opening paragraph, you want to make sure you start off with strong vocab and sentence structure :)

Yilin, the personal statement should show the development of your interest in the major you have chosen. It is not a good idea to use the television show reference. Most reviewers frown upon such references as being strong motivational factors in a student's choice of major because television shows tend to either have a wrong interpretation of things or, a distorted idea of how things are done or represented. It would be better if you leave the television reference out of the presentation. Kick off the essay with a clear reference to your first exposure to data science instead.

After you explain your exposure, explain how you continued to nurture this interest and how you developed your skills on an informal basis. You may even use academic references to developing your programming skills in relation to data science. Those information will lay the foundation for your interest and show its development to the point of becoming your first choice college major.

The reviewer will use the personal statement to identify whether you have a true interest in the course you have chosen to study or, if you are just someone who is riding on an educational trend, without a real interest in the course. The reviewer wants to be sure that, if you are admitted to the university, you will stick it out and complete the course.

That is why the personal statement should indicate or imply your academic goal in relation to your choice of university. The choice of university will explain your decision making process, which will prove that this is your first choice university and not just a back up university. You have not properly presented these discussion points in your personal statement.

While this is a good general essay, it does not pass as a personal statement due to missing information and reference points. You may want to rethink your presentation and revise the essay to reflect more of the useful information that the reviewer can consider as a part of your application.