Information Systems Essay with prompt

Hi,

The prompt for my essay is :

-"Your statement of purpose should identify your desired degree program, summarize your academic and professional background, identify your desired field of study, and summarize your likely career goals and plans after graduation. This is your opportunity to help our faculty to get to know you. Generally statements of purpose should not exceed 1 page (if longer, that is okay). " this is for a Master degree in Information Systems.

I am stuck on a few places and have put blanks or placeholders.Also I am looking at ideas to open my essay with a hook .I need some pointers so that I can come up with a hook.

I am including notes for better understanding.Only for review purpose.

Notes : Started with summarizing my academic background

[need hook] I have always been enthusiastic about technology and this desire to focus my career in the field of technology made me pursue my Bachelors Degree in Computer Science and Engineering from GITAM University, India. My desire to gain computer-related skills made me excel in the subjects related to computer science like A,B,C and I have always been in the top 10% of the class when it comes to Hands On Experience (Labs) . In my final semester I was exposed to the concept of Management Information Systems, this felt like a natural extension to my under graduate education and decided to pursue my masters in the same. During the course of four years, I bolstered my undergraduate education by implementing the knowledge and skills earned by publishing two research papers in reputed journals.

Notes : Professional background

However the experience I gained from these research papers was mostly theoretical in nature. I wanted to test my theoretical knowledge in the practical world. Right in college I was offered a job at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), being one of the 21 students who were picked from a competitive pool of 240 students through campus recruitment. Here I was able to use my comprehensive and through learning of computers and software systems. Over the course of 12 plus months in TCS ,I have worked on a variety of projects including on emerging technologies like Cloud Computing , OpenStack ,for a European based Telecom major client. I had an opportunity to use my comprehensive and _______ learning of software systems and computer technologies in the real world.

Notes: Answering Why this course

I was not sure about this part so put it aside.Do I include this or not ?

"I have felt lacking in the sense that my education so far has been purely from a Software Technology perspective, in TCS I had an opportunity to work with Business Analyst and Functional Analysts and see the impact being created by technology in terms of business, economics and management. Decisions had to be taken by keeping the entire system in view and not just individual components, the Enterprise Architecture ...blah blah.. I felt I needed a more management oriented course along with some computer science related course in order to strengthen my skill set to become a better IT Manager."

I noticed over the course of my tenure at TCS first hand and from peers at other such companies that there is an extreme lack of Software Engineers and IT Managers who are attuned to the business needs and practices. I realized that being technically strong alone is not sufficient in the Information Technology Age, but being able to leverage these technical skills in tune with the business requirements is what the future IT managers will be expected to perform. By this experience I feel I need to have a strong business course work than complete computer sciences based education. This makes the Master's Program in Information Systems ideal for my professional goals.

Modern business organizations are extremely reliant on Information Systems, and knowing how to efficiently analyze and solve business problem will be crucial for the successful management of any business. I am eager to purse this field . If given the opportunity to join your Information Systems program, I will be able to effectively use my background in computers, and also learn addition skills that will allow me to reach my potential unbridled.

Conclusion:

Once I graduate from your program, my long term goal is to be able to contribute extensively in the Field of Information Systems (using innovative ideas and being able to convert these ideas-do I chop these) to develop and manage IT applications using a combination of technical and business skills. The role of Information Systems is positioned to grow in the coming years and I plan to leverage the structured curriculum offered by your Masters Program in Information Systems . Therefore I greatly appreciate your consideration of my application.

My queries :

Q1. Do I have to go into the technical details of my work and the achievements I had there ? I have already provided my job role and description as part of my resume.

Q2. I am overshooting my word limit by nearly 200 words,I want potential areas where I can trim content and make the essay closer 500 to 600 words.

Q3. I have refrained from using" GRE " like words since it might seem pretentious, I have seen many Statement of Purpose samples having BIG words,but I decided to keep mine simple.However in case I can trim the length by some smart replacements,I am open to suggestions .

p.s.I am a non-native speaker,so there might be some phrases which are not used by native speakers,please correct my essay for these faults as well .

Speedbiker, you can immediately cut down your word count by immediately giving your answer to the question "Why do you want to go into advanced studies? What is your goal ? What do you hope to achieve career-wise by completing this advanced course?" Show us the relationship between your past academic and professional achievements in such a way that the we will arrive at the conclusion that you need to enroll in advanced studies in order to promote your skills and career development. You don't need to summarize all your academic and professional information. Just show us the logical flow or progression of your career path. That is all you need to present in order to write an effective SOP.

In answer to your questions:


- No. You do not need to restate any information you have already presented or can be read by the admission officer in other sections of your application. He or she will take note of it based upon importance or impression of you in other areas.


- See my comment about immediately stating your purpose in the introduction of the essay. Then refer to my comment about summarizing your work and achievements. Those should help you lower the word count to a more comfortable 250-500 word count.


- You don't need to sound like a pretentious expert in your essay. In fact, it could harm your application if you get too technical in discussion with an admission officer who is not familiar with the theories and practical applications of your chosen major. So keeping it simple was a good move on your part.


- Since my advice to you requires a major revision of the content of your paper, I would rather hold off on revising any grammar problems until we have finalized the content of your paper. We need to nail the content first because if the admission officer will not bother to read your paper due to boredom or irritation, then correcting the grammar errors would have been a futile exercise.

Thanks for the prompt reply,I am working on my SOP from scratch over this weekend and will post it once done :)

Nine Hundred and Eighty Three Dollars. The amount of money I invested in my online start up called the "The Hive Network" An online community custom made to promote and showcase arts, literature in the city of Hyderabad .The Hive quickly catapulted into one of the fastest growing communities in South India and at its peak had over 5000 contributors and averaged 50,000 page hits a month. However the success didn't last long , two years hence The Hive went defunct from being the apostle of online communities to a mere Facebook Page(past link ?) as my venture was unable to generate revenue on its own. I lacked the vision to look at technology from a business perspective and my shortcoming caused The Hive to go defunct. In the summer before my final year, I had to make a choice to either focus on my academics or continue trying to make The Hive work inspite of knowing it would be futile to continue trying .

[...]

Speedbiker, your current word count clocks in at 643. That is still 143 words over the normal limit for a masters application essay. A normal application essay is only 500 words long (maximum) and uses double spacing. So we still need to cut back on the wordiness of your essay. It is important to cut back on the words because the admission officer will not be interested in reading a short story length essay of your accomplishments. He has over a thousand essays to read so he needs to get through your paper quickly. summarize as much as possible and only go into lengthy paragraphs when you are discussing an important accomplishment.

That said, I have to commend you for using a very impressive hook at the beginning of your statement. Talking about your endeavor truly builds the image of a go-getter, never say die, don't give up, and keep trying person that any university will be glad to have for a student. Do you think you can shorten it a bit more though and integrate your grades discussion into it as well? We should try to achieve only 10 paragraphs maximum covering only 2 pages, double spaced. That means you can only write 5 paragraphs per page. As for the sentence number per paragraph, try not to go over 10 if possible. I am not sure where you would want to tweak the essay so I will leave the editing up to you for now. I don't dare make any suggestions as you may something else in mind for your editing.

So that is the stage we are at at the moment. We need to compress the information in your essay in order to make it more effective by summarizing the important aspects and less time consuming to read by writing more informative sentences that use lesser words. Don't beat around the bush, always talk directly to the point. It will be a great help towards shortening the essay. If you find yourself stuck in the editing portion, if you can't figure out what to delete, let me and the others here know so that we can offer suggestions as to which parts we think you can cut or shorten.

I was thinking about shortening the Introduction and Grades part.

Q1. Can I skip my university name and degree I pursued ?

It will save me 12 words,plus it is already covered in many parts of my application like resume,LORs ,grade cards and the Application itself.

Q2. Is my conclusion/summary a place I can play with or do I leave it unaltered ?

Its at 150 words and I think it can be trimmed to make something more effective.

Any other areas which are can be trimmed to make the content tighter ?

Nine Hundred and Eighty Three Dollars. The amount of money I invested in my online start up called the "The Hive Network" an online platform to showcase arts, literature in the city of Hyderabad. The Hive quickly catapulted into one of the fastest growing communities and at its peak had over 5000 contributors and averaged 50,000 page hits a month. However the success didn't last long, two years hence The Hive became a Facebook Page from being the apostle of online communities as I was unable to monetize it. I lacked the vision to look at technology from a business perspective and my shortcoming caused The Hive to go defunct. Before my final year, I had to make a choice to either focus on my academics which were ordinary with an average CGPA of 6.6/10 or continue trying to monetize The Hive, despite knowing it would be futile.

The average GPA of my last two semesters 7.8/10 reflects the choice I made. Technology was never my weakness; I setup my own Virtual Private Servers from scratch and managed Cloud Services when I was 19 years old, but business process was. In my under graduation, one course stood out due to my prior experience with Technology and Business,(MIS) mixture of a etc etc etc xxxx I intend to bolster my computer science based undergraduate education by studying in your Masters Program in Information Systems.(1)

Knowing the importance of practical experience I decided to work at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). Here I realized that the role of Information Systems is positioned to grow in the coming years as modern business organizations are extremely reliant on it. Knowing how to efficiently analyze and solve business problems will be crucial for the successful management of any organization. Being technically strong alone is not sufficient, but being able to leverage these technical skills in tune with the business requirements is what future IT managers will be expected to perform. This makes the Master's Program in Information Systems ideal for my professional goals.

If given the opportunity to pursue this course, I intend to hone my existing background in computers and acquire additional business skills. This will help me in creating a tactical value for enterprises by leveraging technology as a "Business Technologist". In the long term, I wish to make efficient organizations using a systematic approach to manage large scale, complex IT challenges faced by them. I plan to pursue the structured curriculum offered by your school, along with Project Management and IT Management strategy. This is in line with my aspirations and will allow me to achieve my goals.

Note : 1 [bottleneck : I am not sure how to make the flow from my acads to my work experience, Will work on this later]

Right now I have the following sections in the last para :

What are your future goals

How will this program help you achieve your future goals

I am not really sure If my SOP is able to differentiate between these two points. Should I split the final para and address the above points separately?

p.s. My word count is 435.

Speedbiker, with your permission, I will step in now and try to help you edit the paper in such a manner that the word count will continue to go down so that you can allot more words to important essay parts.

- During my college years, I invested $983 in my start up company called "The Hive Network", an online platform showcasing the arts and literature of Hyderabad. Unfortunately, I was unable to monetize the popularity of my 5000 contributor large website. With its over 50,000 page hits a month, we were reduced to a defunct Facebook page within 2 years. Somehow, my knack for technology did not come with a knack for business. Prior to the start of my senior year, I made the conscious decision to try and save my floundering business instead of working harder on my academic career. This was a decision that I would some to regret as my grades reflected the slew of bad decisions I made in my life.


- With an average GPA of 7.8 during my last two semesters, it became very obvious that I was not a businessman. Technology was my thing ever since I set up m first virtual server from scratch and managed Cloud services at the age of 19. That is why I made another conscious decision regarding my masters studies. I am good with technology so I should specialize in that. More specifically, I should concentrate on furthering my Information Systems know how with a masters degree. I already started the ball rolling towards that by working at the Information Services department of Tata Consultancy Services in order to strengthen my technical skills alongside the business requirements of the company. It was this exposure that opened my eyes to the fact that I need an MS in Information Systems if I want to remain competitive in the job market.


- Merge your answers to these two prompts in one paragraph since they are connected prompts.
I cut the essay down to 354. You have room to discuss your goals nowDoes it work for you? If it does, feel free to use it in its totality :)

That is quite some magic you did there.I initially started with 900 words.

This current version will allow me to focus on my future goals.

Thanks for the assistance.I will get back with the last prompts by tomorrow.

p.s.I have become am evangelist for EssayForum in the last 24 hours, I made 8 people sign up for it :)