Personal History Statement, University of California, Irvine's Human-Computer interaction Masters

Personal History Statement

I was born in a typical Asian family with a strict father and a benevolent mother. My father was a language teacher and my mother was a housewife. My parents built a warm and sweet home for me, but they tried to prompt me to follow their career trajectories. They were always in the opposite position for kids' hobbies which were not helpful to academic studying like majority of Chinese parents. I still remembered my father discarded some pieces of my painting work when I did not reach top one score at school. Even though, I kept a lot of passion on creative arts and digital design, while I always practiced painting skills by myself and shared them to my friends for feedback. It was true that I did not have a computer at home before college. Usually I went to high school's computer lab for doing researching from internet after class.

I was successful to be a college student in animation major in undergraduate school Eventually. My parents began to change their mind and support me in the computer graphics after I getting academic scholarship in first year in my college. They purchased a computer at home and tried to understand its theory, which would communicate with me better in kind of topic. Thus, I could feel they were loving me with an incorrect way before. In college, I had taken part in a lot of events relating about animation film, digital arts and creative design with new friends. Movies from Pixar animation studio impressed me when I was first time to watch 3D animation, I began to explore the 3D software when I was the senior student in my college. Naturally, it ignited my enthusiasm for 3D technology and led me to pursuit of higher education in United States.

After immigrating to United States, I had lived in Seattle for one and half years with my family, I went to Bellevue College and University of Washington to join in couple of non-degree courses. Amanda was my instructor in Bellevue College, who gave me a lot of help in understanding American culture, yet she encouraged me to get a master's degree in the future. Seattle was a decent and clean city as the headquarter of Microsoft and Amazon. However, I decided to move to San Francisco for my graduate program because California kept the top position to influence technology and culture industry in the state. Since I got a chance to join in the Siggraph conference in Los Angeles, I had visited different units there displaying full of imagination and lots of digital product with useful functions, and their virtual lookings were improved a lot comparing with the past.

I started my new job in Los Angeles now for television shows design after getting master's degree in the same year. My current position is Visual Effect Artist and I am using different software to calculate computer simulation. I appreciate I can have this chance so I pay more attention to my project's quality and the feedback from audience. Usually, the feedback of projects is from the website such as Youtube and Facebook. While the shows have been released, demo and trials are first coming into people's eyes online. In other words, new media and internet have a great influence on the culture reproduction in people's life. Therefore, I have purchased a virtual domain to develop my personal website for displaying my creative works as well as a self-motivated female. I was certain that I had to develop my skills on digital arts and computer science.

After careful research, I have determined that University of California, Irvine's Human-Computer interaction Master's program contains the curriculum aligning my career trajectory which focuses on exploring multiple subjects. Furthermore, UCI as one of top universities will enable me to succeed in my goals. I strongly believe my diligence will guide me fulfill my dream in future. Eventually, I appreciate your time to review my application.

Ling, since you are now asking to be admitted to a masters degree course at this university, your personal history should no longer include the backstory about your parents and whether or not they supported your desire to study graphic arts. Your travails as a high school student are also no longer important in this case. Your personal history should instead, focus on your early interest in the arts in summary form, including a mere statement of fact about your college studies. Now, when you speak of moving to the U.S. it is best if you do not mention this person named Amanda in the presentation. She is not known to the reviewer and as such, doesn't really make an impact as a part of your personal history. Instead, try to shorten the essay to focus on your personal history in relation to your professional experience. Since this is a masters degree application, the concentration of the reviewer is more on your professional side because these experiences will help him determine your abilities in relation to completing your masters studies. Save the other types of information for either your motivational letter or statement of purpose instead. Right now, the focus of your history should be on your professional side.

@Holt
Hey Holt, Thank you so much for the suggestion. I will do the revision of this essay for improvement. do you think it is necessary to write more experience of projects I have taken part in either in working or in school? I appreciate your help.