Personal Statement for Master of Science in Human-Computer Interaction

Hello everyone, I am applying for graduate school for a human computer interaction program as an international applicant. This is what I have been able to come up with so far and I would appreciate any feedback on grammar, clarity, etc. Thank you for your patience.

Communication between gamers and games creators

My interest in graduate study at ＳＣＨＯＯＬ ＮＡＭＥ is driven by the desire to improve communication between users and digital creators. As a part of the so-called "Gen Z" myself, I have witnessed the advancement of technology skyrocket from pressing physical buttons for a call to receiving information solely from personal smart devices. I believe that there's so much potential out there for all kinds of purposes and applications, but the learning curve for someone besides the developer to fully utilize the capability within his or her reach is what's slowing us down on the path towards a brighter future. I want to create interaction systems that provide responsive feedback and an intuitive operating process that builds a solid relationship between people.

My primary research interest lies in exploring the relationship between user experience and user behavior. My interest in this field started with my studies in university as I teamed up with creative individuals in and out of my class to work on game design projects. As I progress on my path of designing interesting mechanics I noticed that people can be unconsciously affected by subtle differences in design. When I was working on ＰＲＯＪＥＣＴ ＮＡＭＥ, a reimagination of ＧＡＭＥ ＮＡＭＥ, I was surprised to find out that our game can "intimidate" players to quit while the response to the original game was totally different. I later realized that although the gameplay mechanics were almost identical, the theme of ＰＲＯＪＥＣＴ ＮＡＭＥ was more futuristic and made the game seem to feel more daunting than the original game with a cute and simple theme. This realization was a spark for my flame in finding possibilities to optimize user experience for digital products, which contributed to my works during my internship at ＥＭＰＬＯＹＥＲ ＮＡＭＥ, a creative studio for new media arts.

While developing interactive installations for exhibitions, I made a few attempts to present new approaches to provide new ways for our audiences to interact with our devices. One of the projects I worked on was developing an installation as a part of an interactive questionnaire for a museum. Apart from a regular form that is just one directional we wanted to present a different approach and create an interactive device to provide a little feedback from the users response. We used the users feedback and used it to make a poster showing their response along with the response of others.

During my internship I was amused by the direct impact we have towards our audiences through installations and exhibitions. I want to bring the impact and dynamic we had with users out of just gaming and art, I want to make our relationship with devices more engaging and fluent.

As the pandemic hits heavily on the world, creating a bigger demand for digital social interaction, it is obvious that the social media we had needs a huge renovation. I aim to innovate and create interactive systems that encourages user generated content to bring people together and the enriched research and interdisciplinary courses at ＳＣＨＯＯＬ ＮＡＭＥ will enable me to develop the skills and thinking methods to extend what I have learned and known to bring the engaging dynamic between gamers and games to other realms of digital media.

I wish I had a copy of the prompt requirements that your personal statement has to respond to. As of now, I feel like it is overwhelmingly informative, which can be a bad thing in some cases. That is because reviewers tend to focus only on the information required by the prompts, disregarding the unnecessary information presentations in the essay. So if there is more unrequired than required information in the presentation, the essay you are writing may not help your application progress. Due to the lack of prompt requirements, I am not sure which parts I should advise you to shorten, remove, or rewrite. I am sure you can understand my predicament in this case. Without guidelines, I cannot properly assess your work.

One thing I noticed though is that your internship is the shortest presentation in this essay. Why is that? Since that is also considered a professional experience in some cases, I would have liked to have seen a more in-depth presentation of that section. While I can say that the essay is informative, my only worry, is that it may not be hitting the required discussion points that the university requires of its masters applicants.