STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION
I discovered that the best course to fulfill my dreams and goals would be a course that will broaden my knowledge base and challenge me to work harder especially in lacking field in my society. My motivation comes from a passion to solve a major challenge in my society (Nigeria), this, coupled with a thirst for a wider knowledge base and solving challenges has greatly influenced my choice.Growing up in Nigeria, a country with much natural resources yet plagued by ineffective coordination and hardworking people that are ready to face the challenge of poor industrialization, has largely stirred up my passion to work in this field.
As a naive teenager, my interest in the oil sector was mostly motivated by the high pay it offers, The best steps are not always the most convenient ones to take, because on deeper introspection, I knew I wanted to be able to contribute to the industrial development of my country actively through teaching and reviving active research in Nigeria (presently only 2 schools offer industrial engineering in Nigeria),this slow development of industrialization has greatly stunted the growth of Nigeria. At the expense of a lucrative career in the oil sector, Am greatly convinced that a graduate study in industrial engineering will be more self-fulfilling for me in the long term.
AREAS OF INTEREST AND LONG TERM GOALS
A petroleum engineering degree has provided me with the strong analytical and mathematical knowledge needed for a graduate degree, my final project, an independent practical research project, where I had to get optimized electroplating parameters to plates different metals and hence save cost has greatly whetted my apettite for research while juggling lab and lecture hours.
A deeper inspection would disrupt the notion of industrial engineering being very disimilar to petroleum engineering, which is an highly research oriented field as lots of research are carried out daily to drill crude oil in the most cost effective and safest way possible, an equivalent of an industrial engineer trying to optimize parameters of productions to cut waste and cost (lean management and sigma six). Simulation of the different possible scenarios to accomplish a task (reservoir simulation in petroleum engineering) is similar to the ways industrial engineers use to get the method that works best for a project(decision problems). This similarities resonates with my passion for a broader application of this aforementioned skills to solve more real world problems on a more versatile scale which industrial engineering pervades. A graduate study will be a major brigde in the larger scheme of things to achieving my long term goal of being able to transfer and improve on existing knowledge through research, active service and teaching.
I have physically travelled down to one (University of Ibadan) of the two schools that offers the program in Nigeria, interactions with two professors I met there greatly strengthened my resolve to follow this path. My research interest lies along the broad field of optimization, lean management, operation research, sigma six and decisons problems, this parrallels Doctor Richard Carons interest too. I have been in touch with him lately. The environment and research facilities are an asset to aid a great graduate study and most important, morestill, the research interests of the faculty are in sync with mine. This has majorly influenced my choice of the University of Windsor
VOLUNTARY ACTIVITIES, SKILLS AND NETWORKING
I have been able to develop my communicating and networking skills majorly on the privileged platform of service and volunteerism, It has greatly helped to develop my ability to work in a teamMy undergraduate days of serving as the chaplain for my hostel floor, taking chemistry tutorials for first year students, events organizer for society of petroleum engineers (SPE) covenant university chapter and also the welfare secretary for the departmental Christian fellowship to my national youth service year (a mandatory one year of national service for every Nigerian graduate), during which I taught a class of over 40 students mathematics (algebra and geometry majorly) for 9 months, there was great improvement in their overall performance. I was so glad to be part of their development. Working part time with a Nigerian startup company (icorpers.com) enabled me to be experience the lean startup approach with a team of passonate youths. Identifying a major need in the community i was in (during my national service year) and solving it by starting a small business, with other experiences as greatly influenced my choice of course
Am currently volunteering with the charity arm of my alumni (eagleshope.org), a recent activity being a free summer camp where teenagers were camped for 10 days and lectured using debates and games majorly to prepare them to be leaders. Also I have been involved in group community development services and charity outreaches to rural communities for religious purposes.Seeing the orphan support program (between october 24th-28th) on the University of Windsor website gives me joy that the Windsor school community offers opportunity to such courses coupled with the fact that I would not have to look too far to get a volunteering opportunity.
With my career goals in mind, am confident that being offered a Teaching/Graduate assistantship even on probation will help my learning while also adding value to the department. From experince, am confident I have the mental strength to effectively undertake such a task.
LOW MOMENT
An inconsistency reflected in my transcript, my performance for the second and third years were bizarre. A gloomy period in my life, losing a dearly loved family member who was a symbol of hope and encouragement for me, coupled with few wrong choices dropped my grades drastically (to a second class lower), fortunately, I was able to pick myself up, through commitment, discipline and passion to succeed, I put in great efforts and sleepless nights which reaped consistently good results in the final two years. Reminiscing, I appreciate what happened, it made me discover myself, build resilience and take on challenges that turned low points to highlights, after-all, our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up when we fail. The most rewarding part, was not in coming back to get a second class upper grade, what really mattered was the journey involved, it was life-changing. It passionately instilled in me greater discipline, self-reliance and commitment. I was able to transfer these virtues of success to other areas of my life through personal development. it built me a better rapport with my lecturers, most especially my course advisor who was very helpful all through the period.
Aside the top commitment and discipline it takes to complete any graduate program successfully,I must acknowledge the fact that I absolutely recognize that the learning curve for me in this program is going to be steep has I will have to master a relatively new discipline and its body of knowledge in a short period of time, however I am passionately convinced and am ready to go all theway out to acquire all the help I can get by meeting experts and mentors (which I have already started by meeting staff in the University of Ibadan and subscribing to the INFORMS, IISE website to give me relevant information on the field) in this field and most importantly disciplined personal study to successfully fast-track my learning experience. I am convinced i possess the ability to sacrifice leisure or pleasure for the greater good of contributing to the society, this coupled with a tolerant and friendly attitude and an the emotional intelligence required to succesfully work alongside other people on a team will be a developed skill of mine that will aid my graduate study
I believe that a course is only great when greatly pursued and that the only limitations to succeeding in this course will be the ones I allow in my mind, I will allow no such limitations. I sincerely believe the success of my application will be a mutually benefitting event for everyone involved in the long term. I look forward to getting a great time in Windsor. Thank you for your time in reading this.
Warm Regards,
I need a detailed critique on this. Help me point out unnecessary sentences and paragraphs. It's about 4 pages and I need it to go down to 3 pages or less. Thank you
