Moderators,
I feel my essay is very lengthy. Kindly evaluate and suggest necessary changes to make it better; This is my SOP for American Universities
Thanks in Advance,
----------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------
"Build passion for knowledge rather than success". This is the principle that I followed throughout my career. Gain knowledge and the rest follows is the motto that inspired me.
Ever since I can remember, my encounter with the functioning of mechanisms happened when I was nine, when I happened to enter an operation theatre along with my mother, who is a surgeon. I was so intrigued about the working and manufacture of such intricate surgical equipment's that I forgot the ambience that I was in. Since then, I have been fascinated by manufacture and functioning of many objects ranging from tiny Micro gripper to heavy turbines, but this was the incident worth penning that had aroused curiosity in me.
Going ahead, I did my secondary school education from "------------", one of the best schools in my state. My admission into that school took place through a screening test that was held all over the state and I stood third in that. It is the place where my roots for career got entrenched. Qualities like discipline and focus were learned by me, there. I completed my high school with 88%. Apart from my regular academics, I also fared well in baffling competitive examinations in Mathematics and Physics then, which made me choose Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry as the main Subjects in my Higher Secondary school. During my Higher Secondary School Education, I realized that I have very good analytical skills and could solve even the very difficult problems in mechanics with utmost ease. The curiosity I had since my child was directed at unraveling the mystery of making. I often pondered about companies that churned out inch perfect machines with seamless perfection. Collating these attributes, a mechanical engineering degree was the logical career choice.
Admission to undergraduate courses in Engineering was through a screening test (AIEEE) taken by more than 10, 00,000 students. I stood among the top 0.6% of the total candidates taking the test. My performance in the test provided me the privilege of choosing Mechanical Engineering as my undergraduate major at a very reputed and one among the top 10 institutes of India, ------, where courses like Design of Machine Elements, Production Techniques and Precision Engineering created a concrete foundation to admire and appreciate the processes of design, manufacturing and assembly. The ever-increasing part played by computers in every discipline of Engineering and their synergetic role in manufacturing procedures called 'Computer Integrated Manufacturing' or CIM has encouraged me to learn various design application software packages like Auto Cad & Pro-E.I also chose 'Advanced Manufacturing Processes' and 'Tool design' as my electives in my final year which even honed my knowledge in the field of Manufacturing Engineering.
In my senior year, perhaps as a consequence of one of my childhood fascination about the manufacturing of intricate surgical apparatus, I have chosen "Design of Micro gripper for Biological manipulation with Nanometer resolution" as my project topic. Apart from myself being determined to accomplish the project, I have successfully motivated my fellow project mates for the same. We have simulated a micro gripper for manipulating biological cells of nearly 20μm size, particularly handling isolated tumor cells in a blood sample. The design is based on compliant mechanisms, i.e.; flexures. In general, as the gripper hands move inclined to each other and there is a chance for the micro object to slip away. Here we designed the gripper in such a way that the hands move parallel to each other. The actuation method used is piezo-electric actuation as it best suits the purpose with its large power to weight ratio, relatively fast response, low input power, large bandwidth and high accuracy motion and dynamic response.
Following my sophomore year, I have undergone an eight week Industrial training at Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, through which I have gained understanding of the turbines, compressors, condensers manufacturing and assembly. Machining of such heavy grooves on the turbine rotors to such precision using a CNC lathe appealed me to such extent that I immediately learnt the programming of a CNC lathe, i.e., two years in advance to our regular schedule. Inspired by the experience gained in handling CNC machines and its limitless advantages contrasted against the laborious, though satisfying, manual fabrication, my interests further collimated in wanting to optimize production by controlling and monitoring its multitudinal facets including inventory management, production scheduling and process planning. To satiate this desire, I explored these avenues through courses like Manufacturing Science and Productivity, Total Quality Management. After gaining sufficient knowledge of all these concepts and manufacturing processes, my interests were focused in wanting to realize the utopian environment with a perfect balance struck between people, processes and plans. I wanted to have a pragmatic experience of integration of such diverse business functions and systems for a common objective- a quality output.
Greater impetus was added in this direction by the invaluable work experience at ------Power Company Limited, India's largest integrated power company. The selection process composed of a Technical aptitude test followed by Group Discussion followed by a personal interview, which required superior technical and communication skills. I was proud that I was one among the two candidates from the whole class who made through. In my one year tenure at Tata Power I got an opportunity to visit all its major Generating stations. I have worked in Design and Engineering Department at India's first _______ Power Plant ---------, a subsidiary of ------ where I have undertaken a project "Optimization of Regenerative Feed Water heaters to improve cycle efficiency". Where my aim was to do the Techno-economic optimization of the heaters, In this I understood how the concepts of Industrial Engineering like Cost analysis, Operations Research and the role they played in achievement of results. I have noticed that the plant I was working in was facing a huge loss, in spite of its amazing generating capacity due to the hike in coal tariff rates. This is when I realized the importance of Production planning of power plants given various factors such as production capacities, energy demand, and fuel price and supply. The company has now succeeded in making up the losses by forecasting of energy demand in which you have to determine future demand based on historical data using a techniques such as regression analysis, time series and neural networks. I have also visited the Distribution and marketing divisions of the company where pricing techniques for proper determination of energy products prices considering our costs, network configuration, and that of competitors. In this field, I have observed them use a variety of optimization techniques and game theory. Another important situation in which the concepts of Industrial Engineering have been applied is Company had a chain of generating stations spread all over the country and there are many more projects coming up. There is a need to apply some technique for finding appropriate location of power plants with respect to current and future customers' locations. A multi-layer power network design problem consisting of various power generation, transmission, and distribution facilities. Here, they usually use integer programming and combinatorial optimization techniques while dealing with network and discrete location problem. I have realized the importance Operations Research in the operation of any Industry.
Owing to my initial passion for manufacturing technology, I realized that manufacturing any product involves management of systems that integrate people, materials and energy in productive ways and I also recognized that Industrial engineering is a combination of the above aspects and teaches us to make the best use of the available resources to get tasks done and cut down unnecessary wastages in the process. I saw the ubiquity of Industrial engineering which instilled in me a strong motivation to pursue a higher study in industrial engineering. I have an ardent desire to pursue my graduate program in your esteemed university, expecting to be richly benefited from an extremely dedicated faculty, extensive research facilities and an environment endowed
With a plethora of academic activities. I hope that my academic accomplishments, test scores, and my exposure to industry practices may be viewed favorably for admission to your graduate school, for pursuing a master's program in Industrial engineering.
I do hope that I may be offered admission in your graduate school. I assure that I will strive hard to match the high standards set by your university, and complete the graduate program successfully, earning good credits, by contributing my best possible to this field.
