Hi, I am student from Thailand.
I graduated in Electrical Engineering and want to study Ph.D. further in Civil Engineering.
Thanks to this forum, I have a chance to see many excellence SoP.
I am not good at writing and this is also my first time writing SoP
Thus, I need your kind help.
Your comments and advices are really appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
Statement of Purpose
Massive traffic jams in Bangkok are rather daunting and known as one of the biggest problem of Thailand's capital city. As its resident, I have been suffering from long hours of traveling. I believe an effective management and planning is one of key solution for traffic congestion. As a result, intelligent transportation system (ITS) becomes my principle research interest. Besides, I found that teaching is my supreme happiness. I always feel fulfilled when observing their enjoyment in learning, development and accomplishment. With these two strong motivations, I am overwhelmed by my desire to pursue PhD degree in the area of ITS.
Since my childhood, I have always been fascinated by the pure and absolute truth of mathematics. Thus, I have trained my mathematical skill constantly with passion and always got top scores during high school years. The most notable one is the national college admission exam. I got math-1 score of 97 from 100 which is approximately 99.963 percentile. Afterward, I decided to pursue a bachelor's degree in the Department of Electrical Engineering at XXXX University, the best engineering school in Thailand.
In my undergraduate years, I have acquired a solid foundation in calculus, probability and statistics, linear algebra and differential equation through coursework. After earning the degree, I was called by Professor YYYY. We discussed about traffic problems in Bangkok and how my mathematical skill could contribute to ITS and transportation field. The ultimate goal of the particular ITS research is not for the sake of capitalist or business but for millions of commuters. Inspired by this noble objective, I therefore decided to take up his invitation and became a graduate student under his supervision.
During my three successive years of study, I was trained to be independent, innovative and self-criticism. Professor YYY's philosophy is freedom of thought and always broad-minded in both research and opinions. He let me tackle my research from scratch in my own way even though he already had his own approach in his mind. My thesis is about road traffic model. In order to capture puzzling phenomena, conventional cell transmission model (S-CTM) has been extended to multi-class cell transmission model (M-CTM). The proposed M-CTM has been proved to be better in terms of accuracy over S-CTM significantly in the tested networks with non-stationary vehicle composition, with platoon dispersions and with time-varying jam status. Furthermore, this extension does not incur the computational complexity. The work mentioned above got published in Proceedings of ZZZ, and was later formally invited and published in Journal of ZZZZ. Moreover, M-CTM is further reduced to closed form and matrix formulation which has been in process for further publication. This part is extremely useful for programming which affects many applications.
To broaden my experiences in ITS application, I have taken parts as a research assistant in several co-projects on ITS funded by XXXX University and outside organizations such as XXX, AAAA and BBBB. I am responsible for writing program and applying S-CTM and M-CTM to accurately model a few of the most congested networks in Bangkok, for instance, Payathai road network and Sathorn road network.
Both S-CTM and M-CTM traffic simulator are programmed in MATLAB. To simplify modification of programs, they are broken down into many components or functions with concept of modular programming. For parameter calibration, it is carried on by the Genetic Algorithm. The programs are flexible enough to be run on cluster machines for traffic signal optimization. The implementation on cluster machine is done and published by one of my colleagues entitled "CCCC" Proceedings of ZZZ.
I am also a member of Network Research Group which is very active in ITS and CTM. I have plenty of opportunities to enhance my leadership skill in several research concerned with ITS. For examples, bus rapid transit, traffic sensor placement and etc. As a mentor, I enjoy giving insightful comments and direction for many co-workers.
Due to a very limited number of traffic detectors in Bangkok, I am interested in an alternative traffic data collection known as cellular probe. This approach is sustainable and cost effective. There are two options for this approach, GPS-based solution and network-based solution. With a rapid advance in wireless communication technology and increasing in penetration rate of mobile users especially smartphone, it is realizable and promising in the near future.
My reason for taking up the PhD program is the opportunities to do research in the fields related to ITS, CTM or traffic state estimation using cell phones as traffic sensors.
There are a plenty of research concerned with macroscopic modeling, especially CTM conducted at RRRR. Currently papers related to CTM are authored by TTTT (CE), TTT (ME), TT (EE) and etc. In addition, as my research at the master's degree level is a direct extension from his model, it is my long dream to have a chance to do research at the same place as Professor TTTTT. RRRR is also abundant with empirical data for testing as can be seen from SSS data and the SSSS Project. I believe that having many excellent faculties and co-workers in related fields would help me hone my insight and knowledge in the world of ITS and transportation further. This expertise will benefit for my future career of research and teaching greatly. In return, I have full confidence that my backgrounds, experiences and expertise in mathematics, road traffic modeling and its application will become a good asset to your research group.
Very impressive first paragraph I would say.
Except first and last paragraph, rest is you talking about your achievements, not purpose. In short, you have less of SOP in this draft. You might want to increase the purpose and reduce your achievements. Use your achievements to bridge/justify your purposes.
All the best
