Graduate / SOP: Agricultural & Biological Engineering [NEW]

Hi,
Please help me out in finalizing my SOP in terms of grammar,logical consistency and word usage. I am applying for MS in agri & Biological engg in US.

Thanks in advance. My essay is over 1000 words. Let me know where I can cut down as they may restrict to word count <1k

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'Everything else can wait but not agriculture' remarked the first Prime Minister of Independent India Jawaharlal Nehru in the context of acute food shortage situation then. Living in a rapidly developing India with over a billion people to feed and two-third of the population dependent on agriculture for employment, I feel that his words assume all-the-more significance today. Globally, food demand is expected to be doubled by 2050 due to rising population pressures while production environment and natural resources are constantly shrinking and deteriorating. Therefore, I feel a strong sense of responsibility as well as opportunity to harness the power of science and technology to ensure food, environmental and livelihood sustainability for the world in the coming years. My urge to contribute to development in agriculture coupled with my interest in science and engineering motivated me to explore various magazines and journals such as 'Computers and Electronics in Agriculture', to attend agricultural technology exhibitions that made me realize the huge potential of technological advancement in improving agricultural production while maintaining ecological balance. Apart from the work of great agricultural scientists like Dr.Norman Borlaug, Dr.MS Swaminathan, reading about the work of young engineers: Rikin Gandhi's Digital Green project and Prajwal Kumar's remote controlled system for power tiller featured in MIT technology review India,2010 further fuelled my interest in agricultural engineering. Ultimately, I found the multi-disciplinary field of Agricultural and Biological engineering that bridges the gap between engineering and agriculture, a fascinating and fulfilling career to pursue with high research potential and chance to make a difference to the world.

Belonging to family of farmers, I had innate interest in agriculture, biological systems and nature in general. With frequent field trips with my father who also works as Irrigation engineer in state government, I came to admire the role of engineering to safeguard the earth's resources and improve lives of people and dreamed about doing the same one day. My fascination for both biology and engineering reflected in my class XII score of 96.50% in physics, chemistry, mathematics and biology group that put me in top 5% among the 7,00,00 students who appeared for the higher secondary certificate exam in Maharashtra State. With this academic achievement, I sought admission to the highly competitive branch of Electronics and telecommunication engineering in the top private engineering college of Maharashtra. During my freshman year of engineering, I was exposed to variety of subjects like Engineering mathematics, applied sciences, basic mechanical, electrical and civil engineering. In my advanced years of undergraduate studies I gained deep theoretical and practical understanding in various fields of electronics engineering including Control systems, Measurement systems, embedded systems, Mechatronics , signal processing, Electronics Product Design.

I presented a paper on 'Biometrics' at National level paper presentation competition during my second year of engineering. The paper investigates and compares different biometric identification technologies such as face recognition, iris recognition, fingerprint recognition suitable to be used for ATMs(Automated Teller Machines) serving rural areas of India which have predominantly agrarian population with high rate of illiteracy and low access to banking facilities.

In sync with my interest in engineering for agriculture, I chose to do my third year engineering Mini-project on "GSM based Irrigation Pump" in farm automation. The idea for project struck to my mind after seeing a similar prototype at an agricultural technology exhibition. The automation allows Farmer to control his irrigation and other agricultural equipments sitting anywhere using mobile and thus not only saves him time and efforts but also helps him use critical water resource efficiently. The project received great reviews in various state and national level technical project exhibitions including an award. The project was also appreciated by engineers at Jain Irrigation Systems Limited, a multinational company manufacturing irrigation systems, greenhouses and solar equipments.

My final year project 'Reconfigurable FIR filter' in recently developing research field of reconfigurable computing involved implementation of reconfigurable signal processing system on a FPGA (field Programmable Gate Array) hardware which allows to adapt the hardware during the runtime to control signal processing system. The project has high potential for application in instrumentation systems used in various fields including agriculture where it is necessary to adapt on-the-fly to the ever-changing environmental variables.

After completing my undergraduate studies, I joined VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) division of <company name>, which is the largest third party R&D provider in the world, through campus recruitment process. I successfully completed a 3-month intensive corporate and technical readiness program conducted by Talent Transformation team of <company name>. The technical training involved comprehensive theory and lab work covering various aspects of semiconductor design and verification process. Thereafter, I gained significant work experience working as a project engineer in 'Product Engineering Services' unit of <comapny> for a U.S. semiconductor innovator client in a team which develops SoC (System on Chip). On account of my exemplary performance in project execution, I was awarded with 'Feather in My Cap' award. I believe that my work experience in VLSI, which is the science of miniaturization of devices, provides me a background to develop micro-devices, micro-sensors for future farms.

Going forward, with my dual interest in agriculture and engineering, I feel obligated to utilize my potential towards making scientific contributions towards helping the humanity find answers for serious problems like hunger, poverty and climate change. I believe that agricultural engineering can provide me both rewarding career and job satisfaction that no other profession can provide. Pursuing higher studies in agricultural engineering will equip me with important knowledge, training and skills to realize my career goals.

Being the largest agricultural producer, America with its strong research culture, technological leadership and professional organizations like 'American Society of agricultural and biological engineers' is a natural choice for higher education in agricultural engineering.{University of Name} promises me great quality of faculty, flexibility of graduate program, state-of-the-art infrastructure, diversity of research areas and vibrant environment to thrive in. With my academic background, I am looking forward to --------- {mention areas of interest spec to Univ}

The application oriented research and development carried out in { LAB NAME} coheres my liking. I would like to mention that research work done by {faculty name 1 } and {faculty name 2} in your department inspires me to be an active part of it.

With my aptitude, drive and academic background, I am sure that I will be successful in fulfilling my goals and living up to your expectations as well if you give me the privilege of studying at <University Name>.

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