Hello! I'd appreciate if you could kindly review my personal statement for the University of Edinburgh. Thanks in advance!!
Personal Statement:
Pakistan is home to over 70 languages, yet most AI systems operate in English and a limited form of Urdu, excluding nearly 91% of the population from meaningful digital participation. Around 30 of these languages are endangered, and none are fully-represented in global language technologies. This linguistic inequality, now rapidly seeping into the digital world, has shaped my academic path from the very beginning.
In 2012, I witnessed a group of tribal children in northern Pakistan try, in vain, to interact with a smartphone's voice assistant. Their realization of not being understood was tantamount to societal exclusion. This specific moment sparked my commitment to ensure that speakers of lesser-known languages are not left behind in the digital age.
To pursue this goal, I chose an unconventional yet interdisciplinary A-level subject combination: English Language, Psychology, and Information Technology; to explore both human cognition and how we interact with digital systems.
I then earned a BS (Hons.) in Applied Linguistics from ABC University, one of only four institutions in Pakistan offering language science. With no formal programs in Natural Language Processing (NLP) locally, I sought opportunities beyond the requirements. During a curriculum design project, I created bilingual teaching resources and led workshops for teachers in low-income schools, helping them adopt strategies like code-switching to improve student comprehension.
My undergraduate thesis, a 200-page analysis of how language shapes access to justice, further deepened my interest in computational approaches to linguistic equity. After graduation, I adapted my professional path to balance caregiving responsibilities by transitioning into remote work and eventually secured a role as an AI Data Consultant. This experience taught me resilience and adaptability. It also allowed me to remotely gain firsthand insight into how NLP systems are trained. This further reinforced my desire to build inclusive conversational agents for low-resource languages and affirmed my long-term goals.
The MSc in Speech and Language Processing at the University of Edinburgh offers the ideal environment to advance this mission. I am particularly drawn to core modules such as Computer Programming for SLP and Accelerated NLP, which are highly relevant for studying the oral traditions of Pakistani languages. Optional modules like Simulating Language and Automatic Speech Recognition further align with my ambition to build voice-enabled chatbots for underrepresented communities.
I am excited by the opportunity to contribute to research at EdinburghNLP, with my curiosity fueled by past projects like Controlling Prosody in Speech Synthesis and Accented Speech Recognition, which resonate with my goals. I aim to extend such research toward inclusive conversational agents that empower low-resource language communities to build their own datasets and AI models, bringing their voices into the digital age.
As a student at Edinburgh, I will bring both academic grounding and practical insight. My interdisciplinary foundation spanning linguistics, psychology, IT, and language science, aligns with the SLP program's blend of computational and linguistic training. To me, studying at Edinburgh is about becoming part of a community committed to advancing NLP for everyone, shaping technologies that reflect the full spectrum of human language and experience.
Personal Statement:
Pakistan is home to over 70 languages, yet most AI systems operate in English and a limited form of Urdu, excluding nearly 91% of the population from meaningful digital participation. Around 30 of these languages are endangered, and none are fully-represented in global language technologies. This linguistic inequality, now rapidly seeping into the digital world, has shaped my academic path from the very beginning.
In 2012, I witnessed a group of tribal children in northern Pakistan try, in vain, to interact with a smartphone's voice assistant. Their realization of not being understood was tantamount to societal exclusion. This specific moment sparked my commitment to ensure that speakers of lesser-known languages are not left behind in the digital age.
To pursue this goal, I chose an unconventional yet interdisciplinary A-level subject combination: English Language, Psychology, and Information Technology; to explore both human cognition and how we interact with digital systems.
I then earned a BS (Hons.) in Applied Linguistics from ABC University, one of only four institutions in Pakistan offering language science. With no formal programs in Natural Language Processing (NLP) locally, I sought opportunities beyond the requirements. During a curriculum design project, I created bilingual teaching resources and led workshops for teachers in low-income schools, helping them adopt strategies like code-switching to improve student comprehension.
My undergraduate thesis, a 200-page analysis of how language shapes access to justice, further deepened my interest in computational approaches to linguistic equity. After graduation, I adapted my professional path to balance caregiving responsibilities by transitioning into remote work and eventually secured a role as an AI Data Consultant. This experience taught me resilience and adaptability. It also allowed me to remotely gain firsthand insight into how NLP systems are trained. This further reinforced my desire to build inclusive conversational agents for low-resource languages and affirmed my long-term goals.
The MSc in Speech and Language Processing at the University of Edinburgh offers the ideal environment to advance this mission. I am particularly drawn to core modules such as Computer Programming for SLP and Accelerated NLP, which are highly relevant for studying the oral traditions of Pakistani languages. Optional modules like Simulating Language and Automatic Speech Recognition further align with my ambition to build voice-enabled chatbots for underrepresented communities.
I am excited by the opportunity to contribute to research at EdinburghNLP, with my curiosity fueled by past projects like Controlling Prosody in Speech Synthesis and Accented Speech Recognition, which resonate with my goals. I aim to extend such research toward inclusive conversational agents that empower low-resource language communities to build their own datasets and AI models, bringing their voices into the digital age.
As a student at Edinburgh, I will bring both academic grounding and practical insight. My interdisciplinary foundation spanning linguistics, psychology, IT, and language science, aligns with the SLP program's blend of computational and linguistic training. To me, studying at Edinburgh is about becoming part of a community committed to advancing NLP for everyone, shaping technologies that reflect the full spectrum of human language and experience.
