Hi guys, I've been working on my PS for many days and hope you can review it and point out some possible flaws and problems in which I can improve.
Any advice is appreciated!! Thanks in advance.
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I would like to express my keen interest in your Master's program in computer science.
Occasionally, I would imagine how far the booming technologies could take us as I sometimes would dream about the scenes in the future when I get back from work to my "smart house". As soon as I step inside my home after an intense day of work, the "smart camera" (Netatmo Welcome) recognizes me and asks the "smart speaker" (Amazon Echo) to greet me and start playing relaxing music to ease my nerves. The "smart lights" (Philips Hue) are also turned on and adjust themselves to the best color temperature as per the current time of the day (f.lux), and I slowly walk to the couch and rest myself in this cozy ambience. This still sounds like what happens in science fictions to date, but thanks to the rapid development of the Internet of Things and magical web service glues such as IFTTT, those technologies are turning the once unlikeliness into reality.
I was fortunately selected to work full-time at Walt Disney World for five months under Disney's international college program after my junior year started. Working in such world-class tourist attraction significantly strengthened my interpersonal and collaborative skills at work. But most importantly, I witnessed myself how Disney took advantage of recent technologies and maximized the guest experiences accordingly. One thing that impressed me most is its MagicBand, which integrates room key, theme park entrance pass, fast pass, and wallet all in this wearable device. Knowing what this MagicBand has to offer, I started to wonder how such device was created and what kind of system was at work behind the scenes, and this curiosity became the driving force that brought me into the real web development.
Although several web programming languages such as PHP, JSP were taught in my sophomore year, the lack of project experiences in classes still made most of the students difficult to develop a functional web application, which was the problem I later tried to overcome. Around the beginning of the senior year, I have self-learned enough of the Ruby on Rails framework online and decided to build an online bookstore, for practice, as well as for my bachelor thesis. This whole development process deepened my understanding of the concepts such as object-oriented programming when interacting with the Ruby language and designing the application architecture, and relational databases when defining its overall schema. Moreover, the project experience greatly nurtured my independent development abilities and problem solving skills.
In addition to some project experiences in college, I also gained valuable one-year industry experiences through internships at Shanghai Venus Software Corporation and SAP Labs. During the internships, I have had the opportunity to learn both the client and sever side programming with Rails and J2EE. This internship experiences gave me reals insights into how the prevailing web development technologies were put into use to solve real-world problems. Also, it was the first time that I was exposed to huge codebases, that I collaborated with my team members on a daily basis, and that I realized the importance of the architectural design, performance, scalability to web applications. Frequent exposures to modern technologies and original ideas in these companies immensely stimulated my desire for further study in computer science.
Undeniably, recent technology trends have opened up a lot more opportunities for innovations and technological breakthroughs. The Internet managed to link information and ideas, Facebook is capable of interconnecting people, but the Internet of Things have the tendency to connect everything on the planet. Although I may have a general knowledge of such technological changes, I believe a Master's degree is fundamental to have a solid foundation for deeper understanding and explorations. For example, the "smart home" mentioned earlier is solely one scenario of the Internet of Things that brings about conveniences, out of countless other use cases. One the one hand, how should we analyze the enormous amount of data it gathered to predict, prevent, or even solve problems? On the other hand, how do we also ensure the security and privacy challenges are well-dealt in the world of ubiquitous connectivity? Therefore, I feel that I am in need for a Master's degree in computer science in that it will give me a place at the forefront of computing research and industry.
It is my heartfelt eagerness to continue on the path to the prosperity of my career in your Master's program with distinguished faculty and excellent research facilities, and it is my conviction that my academic knowledge as well as internship experiences combined with my curiosity and enthusiasm for advanced knowledge of cutting-edge technologies will make me a strong candidate of your desired students. Besides, I believe I could personally add to the diversity richness to your program for several reasons. Firstly, I came from a semi-business related academic background, and project experiences at school and work enabled me to gain a general picture of how assorted technologies were effectively utilized to meet the real-world demands in businesses. Secondly, born and raise in Shanghai, I witnessed how technological advancements have bolstered tremendous development in our infrastructure, economy, and society in the past two decades. And lastly, the unique internships in both large entertainment and technology companies for months strongly shaped my gregarious and creative personalities, which could be key factors leading to my successful accomplishment of your program.
My ultimate career goal is to make significant contributions to the technology industry and become part of the group that makes technological revolutions happen, thus benefiting all humanity in terms of healthcare, living standards and common welfare.
It would be a great honor for me if given an opportunity to pursue further studies at your highly esteemed university.
Any advice is appreciated!! Thanks in advance.
================================================================
I would like to express my keen interest in your Master's program in computer science.
Occasionally, I would imagine how far the booming technologies could take us as I sometimes would dream about the scenes in the future when I get back from work to my "smart house". As soon as I step inside my home after an intense day of work, the "smart camera" (Netatmo Welcome) recognizes me and asks the "smart speaker" (Amazon Echo) to greet me and start playing relaxing music to ease my nerves. The "smart lights" (Philips Hue) are also turned on and adjust themselves to the best color temperature as per the current time of the day (f.lux), and I slowly walk to the couch and rest myself in this cozy ambience. This still sounds like what happens in science fictions to date, but thanks to the rapid development of the Internet of Things and magical web service glues such as IFTTT, those technologies are turning the once unlikeliness into reality.
I was fortunately selected to work full-time at Walt Disney World for five months under Disney's international college program after my junior year started. Working in such world-class tourist attraction significantly strengthened my interpersonal and collaborative skills at work. But most importantly, I witnessed myself how Disney took advantage of recent technologies and maximized the guest experiences accordingly. One thing that impressed me most is its MagicBand, which integrates room key, theme park entrance pass, fast pass, and wallet all in this wearable device. Knowing what this MagicBand has to offer, I started to wonder how such device was created and what kind of system was at work behind the scenes, and this curiosity became the driving force that brought me into the real web development.
Although several web programming languages such as PHP, JSP were taught in my sophomore year, the lack of project experiences in classes still made most of the students difficult to develop a functional web application, which was the problem I later tried to overcome. Around the beginning of the senior year, I have self-learned enough of the Ruby on Rails framework online and decided to build an online bookstore, for practice, as well as for my bachelor thesis. This whole development process deepened my understanding of the concepts such as object-oriented programming when interacting with the Ruby language and designing the application architecture, and relational databases when defining its overall schema. Moreover, the project experience greatly nurtured my independent development abilities and problem solving skills.
In addition to some project experiences in college, I also gained valuable one-year industry experiences through internships at Shanghai Venus Software Corporation and SAP Labs. During the internships, I have had the opportunity to learn both the client and sever side programming with Rails and J2EE. This internship experiences gave me reals insights into how the prevailing web development technologies were put into use to solve real-world problems. Also, it was the first time that I was exposed to huge codebases, that I collaborated with my team members on a daily basis, and that I realized the importance of the architectural design, performance, scalability to web applications. Frequent exposures to modern technologies and original ideas in these companies immensely stimulated my desire for further study in computer science.
Undeniably, recent technology trends have opened up a lot more opportunities for innovations and technological breakthroughs. The Internet managed to link information and ideas, Facebook is capable of interconnecting people, but the Internet of Things have the tendency to connect everything on the planet. Although I may have a general knowledge of such technological changes, I believe a Master's degree is fundamental to have a solid foundation for deeper understanding and explorations. For example, the "smart home" mentioned earlier is solely one scenario of the Internet of Things that brings about conveniences, out of countless other use cases. One the one hand, how should we analyze the enormous amount of data it gathered to predict, prevent, or even solve problems? On the other hand, how do we also ensure the security and privacy challenges are well-dealt in the world of ubiquitous connectivity? Therefore, I feel that I am in need for a Master's degree in computer science in that it will give me a place at the forefront of computing research and industry.
It is my heartfelt eagerness to continue on the path to the prosperity of my career in your Master's program with distinguished faculty and excellent research facilities, and it is my conviction that my academic knowledge as well as internship experiences combined with my curiosity and enthusiasm for advanced knowledge of cutting-edge technologies will make me a strong candidate of your desired students. Besides, I believe I could personally add to the diversity richness to your program for several reasons. Firstly, I came from a semi-business related academic background, and project experiences at school and work enabled me to gain a general picture of how assorted technologies were effectively utilized to meet the real-world demands in businesses. Secondly, born and raise in Shanghai, I witnessed how technological advancements have bolstered tremendous development in our infrastructure, economy, and society in the past two decades. And lastly, the unique internships in both large entertainment and technology companies for months strongly shaped my gregarious and creative personalities, which could be key factors leading to my successful accomplishment of your program.
My ultimate career goal is to make significant contributions to the technology industry and become part of the group that makes technological revolutions happen, thus benefiting all humanity in terms of healthcare, living standards and common welfare.
It would be a great honor for me if given an opportunity to pursue further studies at your highly esteemed university.