GKS-G Personal Statement for AI & Natural Language Processing

personal statement

Hello, I plan to apply to the GKS program for a master's degree. My first language is Turkish. I would appreciate your comments. These are the requirements for the personal statement:

- Motivations with which you apply for this program
- Family and Education background
- Significant experiences you have had; risks you have taken and achievements you have made, persons or events that have had a significant influence on you

- Extracurricular activities such as club activities, community service activities, or work experiences
- If applicable, describe awards you have received, publications you have made, or skills you have acquired, etc.

When I tell people that I study both Computer Engineering and Translation Studies, they say "Why did you choose those fields? They aren't even related to each other". When you think about it, it looks like they have nothing in common. But they perform the same operation. Engineers "translate" algorithms into code while translators "translate" sentences into another language. The field where we see these two professions together is Machine Translation, more generally Natural Language Processing.

My interest in machine translation started in high school. One day my English teacher said that "I don't want anyone to use Google Translate for your homework,". At that time I was not aware that Google had a translation tool. The idea of a tool that can translate sentences fascinated me. The only question in my mind was "How?". It takes a lot of time to learn a new language for humans but how can a translation tool do this? How did they design this tool? How many languages does it have? How can a program understand a sentence's grammar and translate it to another language? This is how I started to develop a passion for machine translation.

I'm currently studying Computer Engineering at X University. At the end of my second year, I applied for a minor program in Translation Studies to learn more about the translation process and got accepted. Through translation, I have gained knowledge of syntax and relationships between English and Turkish. I translated Margaret A. Boden's A Very Short Introduction to Artificial Intelligence book to Turkish. It's under the screening process by a publishing company. I performed two internships. In my first internship, I created a Body Mass Index calculation website with PHP that shows meal and workout plans according to your BMI value. In my second internship, I created a simple Online Learning website on the .NET platform with C# where students and teachers communicate. I took Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Digital Image Processing courses at university to gain more knowledge about my postgraduate studies.

My parents are both high school graduates. My dad is a bus driver, my mom is a housewife, and I have a little sister who is about the graduate from high school. My parents were not as lucky as I am when it comes to education. My dad got accepted to one of the best universities in Turkey but could not continue his studies due to his family's financial issues. My mom's parents had not let her attend high school therefore she got her high school diploma from the Open Education High School after marrying my dad. Because of the obstacles they have encountered, they always try to support me and my sister in every way they can.

In May of 2013, I traveled to Hungary with my middle school teachers for a two-week EU exchange program called "X" to learn the educational, cultural, and historical values. In January of 2015, I took part in the Erasmus+ Project "X" and traveled to Portugal to learn more about Portuguese culture. Within the university, I am part of the administrative team of the Science, Fiction & Fantasy Club. Outside my studies, I play badminton once a week for more than 8 years. I have been a member of Korean Culture Center in Turkey and I visit there with my friends when we have free time. I'm very excited to learn more about Korean culture and language, which I have taken an interest in since watching a drama on TV when I was 15.

South Korea is the world's one of the leading tech economies. A lot of Korean firms such as Samsung, SK Telecom, and LG give place to AI systems and invest in this field. Even though NLP is a very challenging area -since it has not been studied much, the number of start-ups in South Korea that are focused on AI is increased recently. The universities I applied to offer courses in Natural Language Processing and have highly qualified professors in the NLP field.

This scholarship will enable me to further my education and to become the first person in both sides of my family who has a master's degree. The knowledge I will gain from my postgraduate degree will be of great benefit to me in my career path. Technology and language are evolving continuously and there will always be something interesting and new to discover.

The early part of the essay is a good introduction to your profession, but does not really apply itself as a motivational response. The motivational response should depict the experiences that you have had within the world of Machine Translation that has influenced your desire to attend this specific masters course. The first few paragraph lends itself mostly to the development of your interest in the course. However, being a G applicant means that you are beyond the high school. You need to portray your motivation in a manner that allows the reviewer to see your motivation as a forward thinking professional. Someone who wants to come to Korea, as a part of the motivating factors, because of the trends that Korean Machine Translation has set as international standards. Think of what you want to achieve as supported by the learning potential offered by Korea along these lines. You have created a tentative mention of this, but not solid enough to create a strong and convincing motivation factor.

While you can mention the other relevant activities you have had in relation to risks taken and accomplishments, try to play up the EM+Projext "X" aspect. That is a considerable accomplishment that relates to your ability to function as an international scholar. It will show that you understand the risks you have to take and what you are expected to accomplish and, most importantly, that you can accomplish what is expected of your as a scholar.