Personal Statement for Masters Application - TU Munich

Prompt:

A personal statement explaining why you have chosen this master's program and TUM specifically

(max 2 pages)

In recent decades, computers have transformed every sphere of our lives - from how we communicate and socialize to our opinions and biases; humanity has been revolutionized in a manner unparalleled in history. Witnessing this proliferation in the ubiquity of software and data in cultural, social, and political spheres inspired me to pursue an education in computer science followed by a career in the consulting industry, assisting clients from the healthcare industry to transform their data optimally. With this background, I want to continue developing data-driven projects that provide real-world solutions and impact decision-making in various sectors by identifying, analyzing, and transforming potentially useful data.

Due to my instinctively analytical nature and an interest in problem-solving using programming languages, I chose to pursue a degree in Computer Science and Engineering. These four years were transformational for me in my personal and academic spheres. I was able to solidify my foundational programming skills by choosing elective subjects like Object Oriented Programming, and Visual Programming, and by learning languages like Java and Python. Moreover, subjects like Natural Language Processing, Pattern Recognition Techniques, and Data Mining and Analytics introduced me to the limitless possibilities of data-centered computing - how raw data can be used to derive meaningful information, predict future outcomes, and detect anomalies. While studying these courses, I was also encouraged to work on projects that use real-world data. During my final semester of college, as a part of my curriculum, I worked on a project to analyze the use of Machine Learning algorithms accompanying oversampling techniques to detect hate speech on a skewed Twitter dataset. The anonymity provided by the internet to its users allows them to communicate aggressively. After working on such projects, I realized that the social, political, and economic impacts of big data in the modern world are massive, and data can be used to create a positive influence in these realms. During college, I was also a reporter and student editor for the official newsletter of the institute. I had also participated in several hackathons and workshops that helped me develop my soft skills and network with various people. All these experiences have molded me into a well-rounded individual who would thrive in an international academic environment.

Since 2021, I have been working at xxx, a management consultancy and technology firm, starting as an intern and later continuing as a full-time employee. Working as a data engineer to ingest and process data for clients made me realize the gravity of the role of data in decision-making by corporations and governments. In a distributed computing environment, I work with technologies like Spark, Python, Airflow, Amazon Web Services, and SQL to efficiently convert raw data into actionable information for biopharmaceutical companies by building, enhancing, and optimizing the performance of data pipelines for reporting projects. The metrics and visualizations on these reports heavily influenced their day-to-day activities which, in turn, impacted their performance and reduced manual efforts by automating complex and laborious tasks. I also witnessed how big data not only impacts profits and productivity but also influences human lives directly through a project to create a data pipeline that is used by data scientists to forecast whether a patient is susceptible to Cytokine Release Syndrome (CRS) during clinical trials for drugs that redirect T-cells to treat cancer in patients. Suffering from CRS can lead to severe and fatal organ failure. Developing this piece of the tool was not a means to improve client experiences, cut down costs, or increase accuracy, but a method to potentially save the lives of cancer patients undergoing experimental life-saving therapies. This experience instilled a passion in me to leverage raw data in creative ways to generate insights that have positive repercussions on human lives. My ambitions to continue working with data and technology to actuate material consequences that help people have been strengthened after the time I have spent as a data engineer at xxx. My curiosity and enthusiasm to learn how data can be used to create a similar impact in other domains have spurred me to apply to the MSc Data Engineering and Analytics programme at TU Munich.

Today, all corporations and governments have an increasingly high volume, variety, and velocity of raw data which needs to be cleaned and altered through multiple stages of processing to be leveraged for use. I chose to apply to the MSc Data Engineering and Analytics programme since it provides not only foundational and advanced courses to understand how massive amounts of data can be efficiently transformed and analyzed, but also courses that teach the social and political contexts and applications in which these transformations can be beneficial. Moreover, I am also drawn by the modules that require the implementation of projects to solve problems in real-world domains outside of classical computer science, which will equip me with practical applications of the theoretical knowledge that I will acquire.

My experience in working with data, my academic background in and proclivity towards mathematics and computer science, along with my acumen for problem-solving make me a good fit for the MSc Data Engineering and Analytics programme at TU Munich. I am eager to expand my technical knowledge and theoretical foundations through this course, but I also intend to strengthen my personality through the diligence and discipline that this course demands.

I see the first 2 paragraphs as throw aways that spend too much time on an unnecessary backstory when the prompt is asking for a look into the current and future learning reasons and aspirations of the applicant. As far as I am concerned, the essay starts off stronger and more relevantly in the third paragraph, which is actually where all of the considerable information finally kicks in.


This is an eye catching sentence that is wasted because of the way the writer chose to position it in the essay. This should be used somewhere at the start to help hook the reviewer into reading the rest of the paper. Right now, the essay starts off as a big bore because of the lack of proper introduction focus.

The later parts of the essay actually need better positioning in the essay. The latter information are the kind that the reviewer tries to scan for immediately so bringing it up in the page would be helpful. That said, the writer should also try to better develop the reasons why he chose to apply at TUM. It needs to be more curriculum and training specific because right now, it is too generalized in presentation, making it appear that the applicant does not really understand the curriculum and course offerings at TUM.