Motivation Letter for MSc Human Computer Interaction in Universität Siegen (3 years of experience)

Masters of Science application essay

Hello EssayForum community! I am looking to apply for MSc Human Computer Interaction in Universität Siegen for Summer semester 2020. I would really appreciate some suggestions on the below essay. Thank you so much!

Dear Sir or Madam,

With this letter, I am applying for a position in the Masters of Science, Human Computer Interaction program, offered at Universität Siegen. I wish to combine the 3 years of experience I possess as a User Experience Designer with the knowledge I will gain from this program to pursue my goal of becoming a Usability Expert.

I graduated with a Bachelor of Computer Science from the University of countryName. During my degree, I was active in many facets of university life. In fact, my interest to pursue a career in UX in big corporations stemmed from the internship programs that I completed during my study. First I was involved in the IT Application Delivery team at bankName and second with a UX consultant with clients coming from the banking & insurance industry. In those internships, I personally contributed as an interface designer, to digitally transform the application process for unsecured loan and bancassurance products.

I currently take responsibility as an all-rounder designer at companyName, a countryName oil and gas company. Being a company that just started its journey towards UX maturity, our team became the in-house pioneer in spearheading user-centric approach to design. I helped kick-start a project to build the design language system. My contribution includes information architecture, low-fidelity prototype of the platform, writing content, building UI kits, and manage resources for the platform development. On top of that, I also became involved in facilitating and contributing assets to design thinking and design sprint workshops. Besides those, my day-to-day job also includes facilitating design sharing sessions to other project teams, conducting design heuristics evaluation and delivering concept interface designs to new projects.

Before my current role, I was responsible for the UX process from start to finish of a project management application tailored for the making of AAA games. I mostly delivered interface designs for features with clear requirements and conducted usability tests. However the usability tests were not so thorough considering the limited tools, resource and time provided.

After experiencing the many facets of design roles, I realized that I get more joy when working on the UX research part. Moving forward, I want to become more specialized in UX research and its implementation in the industry. And my progress is somewhat decelerated by my lack of education and experience in the field. The Human Computer Interaction program at Universität Siegen addresses the next step in my professional career development.

The courses on the basics of HCI will lay the foundations of UX and help me explore other research methodologies that I never acquired in formal education. The choice of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning & Collaborative Work particularly interests me. Even more, the combination of interdisciplinary contexts subjects such as Introduction to E-business and Information Management would help me gain an understanding of the internet economy and the importance of implementing the right information management framework.

The emphasis on research activities such as projects, seminar, and mandatory master thesis will be beneficial in preparing me before entering the workforce. Lastly, the prospect of participating in an internship program is an excellent way to apply what I will have learned in the course, as well as adopt best practices from technology companies in Germany.

My decision to pick Germany as the country destination for my Master's study came from a lack of equivalent professional programs offered in both my home country (countryName) and the country I'm currently living in (countryName). As well, we all know that Germany is home to many reputable and sophisticated companies with world-class practices, where there is a huge demand for people in UX roles. This would be a perfect ground to establish the next step of my professional career.

After obtaining the master's degree, my career goal is to work as part of the UX Research team in one of the renowned consumer goods industries in Germany, such as automotive and electronics. I have also started learning German in my spare time, so that hopefully by the time I graduate I will have been able to speak German with full professional proficiency, and able to contribute my work in German companies.

With all of my experience listed, I am in search of bringing my career to the next level. The subjects offered in this program are specifically in line with my professional goals. Additionally, the research activities, internship program, and mandatory master thesis provide a great opportunity to apply the knowledge I will gain. I am certain that the knowledge and skills learned from my professional experience and university would make me a valuable addition to the Masters of Science, Human Computer Interaction program offered at Universität Siegen.

@ayunovianti
Hi there! It's good to see you here. Hopefully, my feedback will be a positive contribution to the betterment of your application materials.

From the get-go, I think that you have quite a structured approach to writing, which is great especially because this requires a lot of precision writing. Despite this structural writing, I do think that you can still improve the body paragraphs by being more precise with your wordings. For example, when you make mention of a specific task that you have done, try to give a brief and yet concise explanation as to what this means for the improvement of your knowledge.

Furthermore, I think that from the fourth paragraph onward, you began to struggle a little bit when it comes to the relaying of data. Notice how, in these portions, you started to have shorter paragraphs that were stacked clumsily on top of each other. Try your best to write with more of an intentional approach.