Motivation Letter - Masters in Artificial Intelligence in Netherlands

Hello Everyone,

I thank you guys for taking you valuable time out to review this Motivation letter. I have written this for application of a Master's Program in Artificial Intelligence for Radboud University in Netherlands. I request you to be very brutal in reviewing this letter.

Master's program in the field of Computer Science

15 years ago, I could not have seen myself applying to a Master's program in the field of Computer Science. I was raised in a middle class family where computers were not only a luxury, but also an enigma. My first encounter with Computer Science was when I studied C++ in my secondary education. The more I worked on it and the more I read about it, the more it piqued my interest. It was challenging, it was logical, it had pointers and wow, it powered Windows. Gradually, programming in C++ became my favourite chore of the day. Consequently, I was able to present a minimalistic version of a game called Othello as my high school project. But, I was not able to nurture this interest because in the pursuit of getting into the top college in the country, I compromised on the subject I could get, which was Mechanical Engineering.

2 years in college, I realised the mistake I had made and I knew that this is not what I want to do. The only things that aroused my spirits then were Mathematics and technical festivals. We also stood 4th out of 300 teams at a National level technical festival at IIT-Delhi where we had to create a manually powered vehicle out of junk. While enjoying the challenges that Mech. Engg. had to offer and getting inspired from the top minds of the country, I had put my mind again into what I liked, programming. I learnt Java by myself and did a small project of creating a test application for Facebook which interacted via web service. Going down the same path, I was soon admitted to one of the biggest IT companies in India, Tata Consultancy Services. I was elated to start a new life with what I loved and looked forward to make new strides.

In my almost 8 years of work experience I have held diverse roles from a technical developer to a solution designer. In addition to learning multiple languages such as Java, PL/SQL and SQL, I worked extensively in Data Management. I also got the opportunities to work on end to end solution designing assignments and participate in architectural decisions on projects. Not Long ago, I successfully lead my first project as a technical lead which required 3000 hours for delivery. It was delivered on time and I pride myself as to how I dealt with deadlines, breaking them into smaller deadlines for every team member. I also worked in Scotland for a year, collaborating directly with our customer. My main task at the time was to showcase the technical competency of our team. Consequently, I was hired by the same customer for my performance and learning agility.

I love to stay abreast of the latest trends in the technology world. This involves me spending considerable time outside of professional duties, in learning things I like. For example, once I developed a python price alert application that alerts me when price for an item on amazon drops. I had been reading about Artificial Intelligence(AI) and Machine learning for quite some time now. It was astounding to see how Tesla so quickly helped us visualise autonomous driving, how Facebook could, mostly without fail, recognise us in the photos we upload. But one article on Artificial Intelligence by "waitbutwhy" in 2015 changed how i thought about AI. It explained how our future would look with Artificial Super intelligence(ASI). How quickly we are moving from Artificial Narrow intelligence(ANI) to Artificial General Intelligence(AGI). It was both scary and fascinating to read what Ray Kurzweil had to say about ASI. Thinking that Singularity can happen well within my lifetime still gives me goosebumps. Soon, I was sure that i cannot miss to be the part of this revolution.

Since I was not able to leave my job because of financial responsibilities, my immediate move was to enroll in a 2-year work-integrated Master program in Data analytics offered by one of the premier institutes in India. This program gave me a strong foundation in basic computer and mathematical concepts such as Data Structures, Algorithms, Design Patterns, linear and logistical regressions, Decision trees, Complex Neural networks and SVMs and the magic they created. My programs could now detect numbers in images in MNIST database. In my official assignment, we were now able to predict the failure rate of our UPSes. For my final year project, I took the topic from Requests for Research section(openai./requests-for-research/)in OpenAI website to create a program that can generate jokes or humorous sentences(A Funny-bot). Although my implementation, based on LSTM Neural networks can now predict sentences, they are far from humorous. I am currently working on the same and it should be completed soon. Attending classes on weekends and working on weekdays helped me manage my arduous schedules and multi-task while performing well on both fronts.

The concept that intrigues me most about AI is the concept of morality and ethics. Therefore, I aspire to contribute to the development of an ethical ASI system. To achieve that, I believe that I need to extend my knowledge beyond the basic techniques, and that is where the specialisation in Computation in Neural and Artificial Systems offered by Radboud would be pivotal. Brain-computer Interfacing and Computational Cognitive Neurosciences are courses that excite me most. I strongly believe that this specialisation will provide me the required depth and breadth to my knowledge. After my graduation, I aim to continue the research and enrich myself in the same field to earn a Ph.D and study robot decisions in diverse social settings, before moving again to industry as an expert. With the research opportunities that Radboud provides, I am positive that this path, while fulfilling my dreams and appetite for knowledge, will also enable me to contribute significantly to Brain Computer Interfacing research at Radboud.

Jatin, a motivational letter needs to be similar to a statement of purpose, only on a smaller, single page, 5 paragraph scale. Your letter doesn't really define what motivated your interest in enroll in AI masters classes in the Netherlands. Try to present less of your background, as that is not required in a motivational letter, and instead, focus on your current work responsibilities in relation to AI development. The motivation needs to come from your professional experience and where you think the field of AI technology is headed in the future. What kind of AI do you think should be developed for future use and why? Describe this as the motivation for your advanced learning. You have to explain how your future ambitions or interest in AI motivated your increased interest at this university in particular as well. Focus less on your family and academic background and more on your professional requirements that could be falling short of your current interests in the AI field at the moment. The moment that you felt that you are no longer properly equipped either technically or theoretically to deal with this particular field should signify the start of your motivation to pursue higher learning. That is not really reflected accurately in this letter as you are presenting way too many side topics before the main topic, which actually became an afterthought in the presentation due to the length and amount of information that you shared.