Please review my personal statement for MS in MIS. Your valuable suggestions are important
Personal Statement
"Experts often possess more data than judgment". This is a quote by Colin Powell. Today, organizations are faced with a challenge of making the right sense of data that continues to grow at unprecedented levels. This global challenge has generated the need for skilled personnel who can skillfully mine large volumes of data to observe trends and make actionable consumer insights. I wish to build the data mining and analytical skills needed to do just that and I am convinced that nothing short of a MS in MIS - Business Intelligence (BI) will propel me towards my goal. I am drawn to the University of South Florida for two reasons. First, it offers a package of core courses along with a flexibility to tailor the MIS program by choosing electives and a unique opportunity to earn a joint Certificate in Analytics and Business Intelligence from University of South Florida and SAS Institute. In addition, an academic setting like University of South Florida is a perfect medium to intellectually engage with fellow students from diverse backgrounds.
I have a Bachelor's in Computer Science and Engineering. I have industry experience working in product validation teams with Wipro and Honeywell for around 3 years. I also earned a Six Sigma Green Belt certification at Honeywell for 11% increased test coverage, $23,000/annum cost savings for Honeywell, and 10.2% time savings.
My Master's degree (PGDM) not only gave me a solid grounding in business fundamentals but also taught me to harness my problem-solving and decision-making abilities. The PGDM opened doors to my dream job as an Associate Consultant with Infosys. I was primarily tasked with customization of logistics, finance, and service modules in Siebel 8.0 CRM for Johnson Controls Inc. During the course of the project, I successfully overcame several challenges owing to some inconsistencies in the new business rules and assumed a leadership role in the group to work towards the solution proposed, thereby achieving a cost optimization of about $100,000.
While working with Siebel CRM and interacting across data integration teams, I started to gain an appreciation for data analysis and that 'big data' and 'how to mine and make sense of it' were important for making key business decisions. I became convinced that Business Intelligence played an inevitable role in the world of integrating and analyzing big data.
I was forced into a long break from my job at Infosys as I had to look after my father who was unwell at that time. Consequently, I did some research on data mining and statistics and I was left with an overwhelming sense to take a slight turn in my career, into the world of Business Intelligence. Out of the thought process emerged a strong desire to get a formal education focused in that area.
Through my industry experience I have built expertise in CRM, business analysis, quality assurance, and SQL. My engineering degree has equipped me with solid mathematical foundation and programming abilities. During my PGDM, I have gained hands on-experience with Analysis of Variance and Covariance (ANOVA and ANCOVA), and Regression techniques using MS Excel.
If selected to be in this program, I will bring in a diverse set of credentials both professional and academic. Through your program, I foresee myself being able to leverage my capabilities and build an array of skill sets that will put me in an advantageous position in the job market. For instance, with the Data Mining coursework, I hope to build accurate predictive models using large volumes of data and discover new patterns using SAS analytics package. By acquiring advanced knowledge in various data mining techniques, I will become adept at predicting trends and segmenting customers. The Data Warehousing coursework will equip me with the knowledge required to integrate business data in order to accelerate analysis and observe trends. For a consulting career it is imperative to gain hands-on experience in data analysis using statistical techniques such as regression analysis, cluster analysis, and factor analysis to make effective business decisions. The Applied Multivariate Statistical Methods coursework will satisfy this key need.
What makes MS - MIS (BI) an attractive choice is the practicum that opens the doors to exciting opportunities of working hands-on with real-world data, apart from learning the practical use of various tools to analyze complex business problems and to develop solutions. While I am equally impressed with the courses offered by University of South Florida, I am confident that a rich blend of academics and industry experience will prepare me well for a career in Business Intelligence.
My short term goal after MS in MIS is to work in the E-Commerce domain as a BI Consultant, analyzing large volumes of data and transforming data insights into business strategies with the mined data. My long term goal would be to move into a leadership position in Business Intelligence and Data Analytics, leading the development and execution of solutions that improve business intelligence, analytics, and predictive modeling capabilities for E-Commerce startups in India.
I have been taking advantage of my personal break to explore relevant academic courses. I am enrolled in a couple of online courses offered by Coursera 'Big Data in Education' - Columbia University, and 'Statistics: Making sense of data' - University of Toronto. In order to ease into statistical programming, I am working on concepts such as Probability, Regression Coefficients, and Variance in R - statistical software.
Finally, I sincerely thank you for the opportunity to present my academic and professional credentials for your review and consideration.
