I have passion and commitment
"Each man's life represents a road toward himself." It impressed me a lot when I read it in <Demian>. I didn't discovered myself and found my passion all at a sudden. It's a long and gradual process containing many times of exploring, hesitating, and trading off, but I felt thankful to find my passion before graduation so that I still got time to apply for your master program and do more preparation in summer.
Personal happiness does not bring with satisfactory. I want to be of use and doing something meaningful for others instead of finding a job to earn salary and enjoy personal life. As an international student, when I first came to America three years ago, I regarded myself as a newborn who would like to experience anything. I made a bunch of new friends. We held parties to taste wine since most of them were wine-making majors. We also went out to hike and camp in Lake Tahoe or some national parks. For myself, I also joined the popping club, did glass making in craft center, started to play harmonica and joined table tennis team. I was happy during those time, but also I felt lost and emptiness after the happiness. That's when I realized I wanted to make some achievement in my academic but I was still lost and even more anxious since I did not find my passion yet as my life-long career.
Due to my strong interest in psychology, I took many psychology classes in my first two years, and still took mathematics classes at the same time in order to practice my logic. I was eager to take psychology classes to know more about myself and also to better understand and help people around me. I got in dean's list in four out of six quarters in the first two years. The interest in psychology came from my personal experience. I started to live on campus since six grades till now, and got used to help my friends with their puzzles as a listener. In college, I also had friends with depression and bipolar. I wanted to do something for them, so I thought about being a counselor. However, gradually, I found myself not emotional strong enough to directly face some severe mental problems, since I was too sensitive to feel sympathy for others and I needed the feeling of control about what I could do. Due to anxiety about my future and depression from reverse culture shock conflicts with my family, I went to a counselor and a community therapist. I learnt the strategies to be assertive and read some self-help books. While these being helpful, I realized the limitation of counseling services. They are limited by the qualification of the service providers, individuals' access to them, financial conditions of the individuals and some other personal factors of the individuals. Moreover, many factors of anxiety or depression could be addressed or even avoided in advance by providing appropriate information, strategies and resources. This is one of the main elements leading me to apply information science and technology master program right now, even though I did not realize it at that time.
I started to rush taking many classes in a quarter and found a part-time job on campus in order to release my anxiety of not having a career goal. Due to the financial pressure and the expectation from my family, I thought about choosing a career as a way to make money. I persuaded myself learning financial mathematics, but I realized I was so repel to this choice that I had very low motivation to learn and did not even pass the class. I realized that I could not lie to myself, that I wanted to do something meaningful and helpful for others, and that I'm not a money-oriented person.
Till the summer session 2 2017, I took computer science class of data structure. I found myself so excited and engaged in solving the challenge projects. Due to the tight schedule of summer school, I found myself analyzing the problem, brainstorming possible solutions, implementing each solution to select the best one, and trying to improve algorithm and shorten the CPU time whenever I got time, and more importantly, I totally enjoyed the whole process. I did one challenge project by myself and got full extra credits by having my CPU time and total cost shorter and smaller than the standard numbers given by the professor. I did the last challenge projects with a partner, and I enjoyed the the teamwork of believing each other, exchanging ideas efficiently, and even staying up late in 24 hour study room till 3am. The result was, our group was the only one group who handed in a working project by the deadline in the class.
Because of this experience, I started to search about computer science, and I knew about human-centered design and human-computer interaction. The more I know about these fields, the more I felt this was exactly what I wanted to do and also what I was eligible to do! The use of technology, such as designing appropriate applications, could even better addresses individuals' needs without accessibility problems, financial problems and trust concerns in the long run. Meanwhile, the resources of doctors and counselors can also be better used with the assistance of appropriate products.
I understand the importance of information resources. I'm the first generation college student in my direct family. During these years, I witnessed how much effort my parents put in order to make a living, and how much they struggled due to the lack of education and information. My depression a year ago came from lack of information resources not only in academic and daily life strategies but also in health conditions. Whenever I felt uncomfortable, I had to make an appointment in health center which might be several days later due to accessibility problems. Either I want to do researches to better meet individuals' emotions needs or their health concerns, I'm eager to learn more about the research area of human-centered design and health informatics provided in your program.
My inherent interest of design also makes the field a match for me. Whenever I had an idea, I like to implement it with my bare hands. I liked sketching, paper-folding, glass making. I once made a turtle of a paper money without cutting it. I carved a stone into a girl's statue using the sharp point of pencil compass in high school, since I just got this idea when I walked by the sandpit and took a glance at the stone. I understand that design an application is different from simply making aesthetic crafts, but I believe designing a product would be even more satisfying for me than making a glass swan. After all, I enjoy the process of implementing an idea in mind and see where it leads me to.
I want to be a researcher in the future, so that I planned to gain experience in labs after I attended the program and keep pursuing doctor degree after graduation. I chose this program not only because it offered many courses that I'm interested in, such as Bio-behavior Research, Engineering of Cognitive Work, Qualitative Methods in Health Research, Survey Methods and Algorithm Design, but also because this is a program that can be a preparation for a Ph.D. The courses settings and the requirement of milestone can improve my research skill and analytical thinking. Moreover, I'm attracted by the research area of human-centered design and health informatics, and also want to learn more from the faculties, such as Professor Chao-Hsien Chu about stress detection and Professor John Yen about smart healthcare.
I have passion and commitment in these fields. My backgrounds in psychology, mathematics, computer science, and statistics could also help my study in the program. My backgrounds can also help me communicate with other students from various backgrounds and give flexibility when doing teamwork in labs. I'm a good listener but also an assertive participant. I would like to help other students if I could and learn from them as well. I really like this IST master program, and hope to spend my time here purchasing my dream.
