Graduate / "IF YOU CAN DREAM IT, YOU CAN DO IT" and I know I can do it. Applying for Masters in MIS. [5]

Hi,

I'm applying for Masters in Management Information System and have prepared the following SOP. Would love for people to review and share their feedback:

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
My mother is a Government school teacher who travels 20 km every day to an interior part of Odisha to teach tribal children. My father is a Government college lecturer who teaches Zoology to the bright minds of Odisha. My parents are my inspiration, living their lives along Nelson Mandela's words "Education is the key to change the world." Be it enrolling me for computer classes during my summer holidays or teaching me to solve Sudoku puzzles and crosswords from the Hindu, they have always wanted me to excel. They have always said "Being born in an underdeveloped state like Odisha should be your greatest strength, not a crippling weakness". I am thoroughly justified in saying that the passion for knowledge, discipline and hard work are in my genes. It has been my life's ambition to ride the wave of change happening across our state through education and contribute to its upliftment.

In school I fell in love with subjects that had practical implementations like Mathematics, Science and Computers. Experiments and real life examples helped me in learning instead of mugging up lessons. Computers fascinated me and the reach of technology in every walk of life awed me so much that I wanted to crack open their mysteries. So I opted for Electronics and Communication for my under grad studies. I went on to design a Water Level and Pump failure indicator which used a simple circuit design to solve our daily water woes. My major project included a Buggy robot mounted with a camera, which was controlled wirelessly. It used a microcontroller which has a programmable input/output. The applications of this robot were many; it could be used in various scenarios where human entry was impossible like nuclear radiation affected areas to collect data. This data could later be analysed to make life saving decisions. This experiment changed the way I looked at data. Its sheer potential to change lives inspired me to delve deeper into its applications.

But being a student from Electronics my curriculum only provided the basics of computer programming. So I enrolled for online courses like HTML, Java and Software Engineering. Using this self learning, I created an examination results portal for our college using Java Servlets. I was able to understand the requirements, translate them into a user friendly portal and maintain the large volume of data associated with it efficiently. As it was a single handed effort I faced a lot of challenges, however with perseverance, unalterable focus and hard work I was able to successfully launch this portal for the students of my batch. At that point I dreamed to be an analyst who uses tools for examining, cleaning, transforming, and modelling data to create valuable information. I was determined to take this passion forward.

Meanwhile my interests were not only confined to academics; I always believed that a well rounded education would positively impact a student's success. I indulged myself in extracurricular activities, learning to work as a team and grow as an individual. I was a core member of my branch association called E-onyx. We conducted technical events and seminars. My responsibilities ranged from event promotion, accounts and funds management, stage and acoustic setup, hosting, all of which brought out my creative side. I learnt my first lessons in leadership, financing, networking and communication through these events. It was never all work and no play; I spent my leisure time learning free style swimming, table tennis and participated in dancing and singing competitions.

My consistent efforts and diligence helped me secure a GPA of 8.28 out of 10 and I was in the top 7 % out of a total of 141 students. I landed a job with TCS, Asia's largest IT service provider. My 2 plus years with TCS have been the best ones of my life. We at TCS live and work by the values "Leading change, Integrity, Respect for the individual, Excellence, Learning and Sharing. We work with people from all over India learning to respect the diversity and imbibe the different cultures and traditions of our proud country. I am currently working for the Wolters Kluwer Financial Services - TCS relationship as a Quality Assurance Analyst. I have worked in Iterative Agile SDLC from Requirement analysis, Unit testing, QA, Bug fixes to review. To advance my testing knowledge I took up the International Software Testing Qualifying Board foundation level examination (ISTQB). I realised the importance of using automation to minimize testing effort and so I took up the HP certification in the Unified Functional Testing tool.

After 1 year I moved up to Quality Assurance lead where I played multiple roles like co-ordinating the daily tasks, communicating our status and issues to the product manager and product committee, and task reporting. I also was the DP prime where I used methods like Pareto and Fish Bone Analysis for defect management. This not only resulted in more robust and defect free deliverables but also prevented similar defects from occurring in future. All this was possible due to combination of various data and managing it so that right actions were taken while catering to the business needs. . I learnt a lot during these days but I also realised my shortcomings. I was at the crossroads of my professional career; I could take the path to be a technical expert or choose the path towards management. I wanted middle ground. After a lot of soul searching and weighing my options I decided that a course in Management of Information Systems is tailor fit to my aspirations and Syracuse University is the epicenter of the evolving world of Information management studies.

I am not wrong if I say I am allured by its rich history of being named as the first Information school to the cultural and intellectual diversity it fosters. I bring with me my raw talent experience I gained over the years and Syracuse with its distinguished faculty and students will help transform it into excellence that will make a lasting impression on the world. Special Initiatives like The it Girls- for High School Girls and Women in Information Technology which was listed in the website enticed me.

"IF YOU CAN DREAM IT, YOU CAN DO IT "and I know I can do it.
Thanking you and eagerly looking forward for your acceptance.