Machine learning SOP for graduate admission - field change from VLSI

Hi, I am applying for Master's in a few US universities and I would be thankful if you are gratuitous enough review my essay.

Scenario: Field change from VLSI to Machine learning

Please point me to any grammatical mistake or redundant information that I can correct.

Essay:

Statement of Purpose
Learning is an enduring process. We have seen many fields in the past and present. Some thrive, some don't. We have seen physical devices get pushed to their limits and Moore's law getting enfeebled by the limitations on threshold voltages of CMOS devices. But a field in which we make computers learn things is continuous, simply because we have done the same throughout our evolution and we continue doing it. I am captivated with the design challenges inherent in making an intelligent system and want to contribute to meeting these challenges. I want to learn how these next-generation devices can be designed to support next-generation applications. I believe a studying in a graduate program will help me achieve the same.

To me, graduate school is a necessary road to relentlessly explore technology, and the means to symbiotically build more knowledge around it with fellow researchers. Having already been committed to the field of technology for more than six years, pursuing a Master's degree in the same from a reputed institution such as XXXXXX will galvanize my potential, solidify my grasp in the field, and prepare me to become the most competent professional that I have always wanted to be.

I recognised my passion for technology at a very young age. As son of two well established mathematicians, analytical and inquisitive skills inevitably reflected in both my thoughts and actions. Furthermore, I was fortunate enough to get several awards & scholarships, and consequently meet and discuss with esteemed scientists in various fields of science and engineering. After an exemplary academic performance in school, I made my way into NIT-Trichy, one of the premier Engineering institutes in the country, taking up its most sought after course. My undergraduate years here, in Electronics Engineering, opened gateways to work on many interesting projects ranging from building autonomous path finders to writing computer vision algorithms for real life applications. At each and every project, there was always something to learn, something to explore and this never-ending labyrinth completely engrossed my attention.

Image Processing became my focus of interest during the beginning of my undergraduate course. My project in IISc, Bangalore, where I developed algorithm for real-time object tracking in a live video feed, was my first rendezvous with machine learning. In the very short period I was there, I learnt how reinforcement learning can be applied to the problem of object tracking and adapting to different lighting conditions. I was commended for my work and support there in developing the algorithm and came up with bright ideas during discussions on how to implement the project. I was drawn to the wide scope of such research activities and it immediately became irresistible to dive into further exploration. On getting back to college, I worked in the Computer Vision lab to build a classifier for detecting ulcerous/bleeding tissues in a capsule endoscopy video. Using image format conversions and adaptive clustering through K-means I achieved extreme accuracies; the accolades from peer reviewers and my research adviser were highly encouraging, helping me publish the work in an acclaimed international journal.

Besides research and publications, as a member of Robotics club, I have enjoyed putting my skills to test while working with diverse members of the team. My algorithms and programming for the robots was an integral part in my team winning many national competitions. My final year project, where I developed a wireless system to actively monitor and maintain a uterus like environment in incubators, was nominated for the best projects award. The appraisal from the reviewers were highly positive and satisfying. After graduating from college, I joined NVIDIA, a well renowned company, which makes waves in GPU design and computing. Joining the low power design team, I worked on multiple projects, including the one where I architected a system to adaptively compute the live usage pattern of GPU and engage the low-power feature accordingly. This helped in bringing the dynamic power of the system down considerably with minor impact on performance. Working in NVIDIA helped me to understand the market level needs for machine learning and how they can be applied in sectors like automobile, medicine and gaming. I was lucky to join a wonderful team of brilliant engineers who share the same enthusiasm as I have for learning and experimenting new things. My journey with the low power team has been so far enlightening, opening my mind to the wide varieties of challenges faced in the VLSI & Computer Architecture industry, both from the manufacturer and the consumer perspectives. By the time I join the grad school, I would have completed two years of industrial work experience, which I believe will help me to have firsthand knowledge the requirements of modern-day people who reach out to technology for aid.

Academics and work aside, I enjoy taking part in several activities that keep me engaged. Having been elected the Overall Events Head in 2015 and Events Manager in 2014 for the ECE Association, I have developed considerable leadership and interpersonal skills. As a part of Bangalore trekking club and CSR initiative in NVIDIA, I have taken part in organising welfare programs for underprivileged children in Indian schools. It was a heartening experience to interact with them and it further motivated me to involve myself in more such activities.

One of the main reasons why I would like to be a part of your university is the myriad of research opportunities that are available. It would be a great opportunity to work on one of them. Given my research background, aptitude and love for problem discovery and solving, a career devoted to research is a natural choice. I have always done my best in every venture that I undertake and will continue to do so even while at your college. I believe that XXXXXXX can provide me with a truly unique opportunity to pursue a research career, and that I have both, the credentials to be worthy of, and the drive to be able to do justice to this opportunity. With no doubt in my mind regarding my suitability and level of preparedness for the Masters in Computer Engineering program at your college, I look forward to the favorable consideration of my candidature.

Raghunath, your essay displays more of the motivation behind your desire to take masters classes. It does not represent the purpose you have for higher learning. Do not confuse your motivation with your purpose. These terms are often confused for one another and thus, create a motivation essay instead of a purpose essay.

In order to better reflect your purpose, you must go one step further with your opening statement. Declare the purpose for your higher studies based upon the motivation that you have discovered. That means, you have to tell the reviewer clearly, that you are changing career paths because of a number of reasons. Thus, you create a motivation, a purpose, and a reason for all of the 3 to exist as the foundation for your desire to change careers.

Try to summarize your undergraduate studies because the focus of the reviewer will be less on your academic and more on the practical / work experience aspect of your interests. Speaking of which, you are claiming to be a published author in notable journals. The reviewer will require the name of the journal, the topic of your article, and the publication date. He will definitely want to read that information for himself because it might help him in considering your application data more seriously than the others. You can skip over the activities that you participated in if it is part of your undergraduate experience. The focus of your experience and leadership or other activities needs to be on more professional accomplishments.

You don't really need to present the extra curricular activities at this moment in your essay. It is not relevant to the reason why you wish to switch careers so it just removes the attention from the fact that you need to prove that you have a future in this new career that you have chosen for yourself.

Sure, Holt. Those are some valuable points. Let me edit the essay as per your suggestions. Also, is it necessary to mention the title and publication in SOP? I have it already in resume that I will be supplementing along with the SOP.

It isn't necessary to duplicate information that you have already provided in the previous essays Raghunath. It gets tedious for the reviewer when you constantly repeat information in your essay without offering new information in relation to it. Normally, the publication is used to strengthen your claims of being at the professional level of someone who can benefit from graduate school studies. You might wish to consider strengthening your essay by mentioning the publication information in this essay instead of the in the other essay that you wrote. Only you can judge where the information can be best used so I will let you go with your gut feeling with this one.

Double check your essays for repeated information. Make sure that the reviewer will not end up with reader fatigue due to repeated information. It won't be good for your application to have duplicated information in the final consideration stage. Always try to present additional new information with each prompt you respond to.

Thanks Holt.

I have modified to opening para. Could you please let me know your comments on the below? Is this clearly saying my purpose? Please help with grammatical errors, if any.

As human intelligence gets pushed to its limits, there is an irresistible need to develop systems that can share our burden of putting this intelligence to use. This can be observed from the increasing research focus on machine learning and hardwares like multi-core CPUs and GPUs to support their execution. I am captivated with the design challenges inherent in making these intelligent systems and want to contribute to meeting these challenges. I want to learn how these next-generation devices can be designed to support next-generation applications. My eventual goal is to have a research career and to share my knowledge to the world as a professor. I believe that studying in a graduate program will be the first step to achieve the same. Graduate school is a necessary road to relentlessly explore technology, and the means to symbiotically build more knowledge around it with fellow researchers. Having already been committed to the field of technology for more than six years, pursuing a Master's degree in the same from a reputed institution such as XXXX will galvanize my potential, solidify my grasp in the field, and prepare me to become the most competent professional that I have always wanted to be.

Not bad for a revised opening statement. It works because you offer a complete overview of the motivation, purpose, and goals that relate to your desire for higher academic learning. I do not feel that anything needs to be edited, revised, or deleted from the current opening statement. It should work well with the rest of your essay since the only problem that your first essay had was the missing purpose. You more than adequately represented it this time around.

If I were to critique one thing about this essay, it is the mention of the university along with the purpose statement. The mention of the university and how the institution can help you achieve your dreams should not be part of this summary opening discussion. The university and its relevance to your dreams, goals, and ambitions normally find representation towards the end of the essay where it better ties in with your summarized academic achievements and professional experience. Other than that, the opening statement is great the way it is.

Thanks Holt. I have modified the essay taking in all the suggestions. Yes, as you said, it is only right and sensible to use the university name towards the end of the essay. I have made this change as well.