Hi all,
I have just updated my SOP. Please review my SOP. Thank a lot.
Because my long-term goal of my education life is to do research in the field of machine learning and teach in an academic environment, I wish to pursue a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science with an emphasis on statistical machine learning at XXX University.
I ranked 170th among more than 400,000 high school students in the National Entrance Examination for admission to Iranian universities in July 2000, and was accepted at Amirkabir University of Technology (AUT), one of the top three universities in Iran. I was member of RoboCup team for three years during my bachelor studies in computer engineering. Working with this group I learned the basic concepts of artificial intelligence, advanced programming skills for large-scale softwares, and, more importantly, teamwork skills. Meanwhile, we won the international RoboCup Soccer 3D Simulation, held in Lisbon in July 2004. Then I started the master's studies in computer science, with artificial intelligence major, in the same university. During this period I got the in-depth knowledge of different AI topics, such as neural network, statistical pattern recognition, robotics, image processing, machine vision, etc. I did several research projects, the most significant of which was my master's thesis in the areas of reinforcement learning and neural networks. I developed a new reinforcement learning algorithm for continuous state/action space, based on growing self-organizing maps. This algorithm benefits from a growing Q-Table, which makes the method superior to other RL methods in continuous state/action RL problems, in particular in nonstationary benchmarks. A paper based on this work has been accepted for publication in Neurocomputing Journal.
After my master study in machine learing, I decided to improve my background in mathematics,especially in statistics to prepare myself to be a member of a machine learning group in a top university.Therefore I attended the master program in statistics at ETH Zurich University in September 2009. I believe this was a turning point in my education life and helped me to learn fundamental topics of statistics. To fulfill the core courses of the master program, I have been required to take courses in regression, time series, analysis of variances, mathematical statistics, and multivariate statistics. In addition, to obtain an in-depth knowledge in statistical machine learning area, I took computational statistics, advanced computational statistics, advanced pattern recognition, machine learning and information theory courses. Furthermore, I am currently working on a research project about nonparametric estimation of modes in density functions and its extension to a regression context, under supervision of Dr. XXX. In this project we are analyzing the application of our method to some real data sets as well as investigating some theoretical properties of our method e.g. standard error of estimated modes. I want to continue this research direction in my master thesis. I will be awarded my masters degree by July 2011.
XXX University is a highly prestigious university and it has very strong faculty members in the field of Machine Learning. In particular, throughout my search among the faculty members of the university, I realized that my research interests exactly fit with those of Prof. XXX2. List of his publications and research projects demonstrates that he is an outstanding researcher in the domain of Machine Learning. Particularly I am interests in ... project and it would be an honor for me if I could pursue my PhD study under his supervision.
Finally, because of my strong background in both computer science and statistics areas and my experiences in several research projects and teaching assistantship, as mentioned in my resume, I believe that I am a good candidate for Ph.D. study in machine learning area at XXX University.
Hello,
While reading your essay, I could only find two glaring errors. The first occurred in your first sentence where you stated "Because my long-term goal of my education life..." I'm not sure if you mean education life or your career. You should change this as it is your opening sentence and might be confusing to readers. Secondly, you state that your Undergraduate University was a top three University in Iran. I am a former admissions counselor and whenever students asserted something, I always tried to do a fact check. I fact checked your statement and in none of the 10 Iranian rankings that I checked was your University ranked in the top 3. You are better off by just simply saying a "top university" or "prestigious university." Aside for this your essay is fine. Luckily for you, in these highly technical fields, grammar is not a deciding factor, so your grammar and sentence structure in this essay will not take away from your admissions chances. Please let me know if you need more assistance with this essay.
Regards,
Essays done quickly
Hello,
Thanks for your great comments.
Indeed Amirkabir University is the top three universities in Iran. Any Iranian student, if you know any, would confirm this.
This university is very well-known in Iran and for example several students with ranks below 20 in nation-wide entrance exam for master program will enter this university. But you were right unfortunately via searching in Google for ranking of Iranian universities, almost all the ranking are webometric ranking, even the best Iranian university, Sharif University of Technology, sometimes is ranked 4.
I would have no problem If the admission committee ask Iranian students about this ranking but if they just search in Google then they would think as you. Therefore I prefer to remove it as you suggested.
In addition, to improve the English level of my essay I have edited it several times. Now it is much better than the version you read. May I send you the current version for checking the English. I am not asking you to edit it, but it is a very kind of you if you tell me the English level of it.
Best Regards
