Dear Forum Members!
here's my personal statement for a master program in music and acoustic engineering which is strongly related to computer science.
Please give me some comments. Thanks in advance!
personal statement - motivation letter
Dear Sir or madam,
My name is xxx. I have received a bachelor's degree in Software Engineering at xxx University. Having worked as an engineer for more than a year after graduation, I have been gradually motivated and enlightened, and eventually found where my interest lies. I am eager to be an audio engineer and make an achievement in art fields by my computer engineering capabilities. To lay the foundation for changing the direction of my career, I desire to learn more about creative programming and music production technologies which are suitable for me as core courses. Therefore, I am determined to pursue a master degree in Music and Acoustic Engineering at Polytechnic University of Milan.
After graduating from university, I worked as a software engineer in a technology company for more than one year, responsible for the code writing of projects. Everything was good, my colleagues, my superiors, the environment of the company, and also my paycheck. However, the repetitive and uncreative work contents made me feel tired not on the body level but the spiritual level. I feel like a working machine who just work for money. I cannot find my own value and meaning from this job. So I decided to make some change to find something I really love, not only the paycheck. I believe life is not railway tracks, but plains.
I always went to the local live house to enjoy the different bands' live music, whose rhythms were creative and melody touching. They dispersed the exhaustion and gave me great comfort, so I taught myself how to play the guitar few years ago and try to create some simple music. Since then, music has become an indispensable part of my life, because wonderful music can always enlighten and inspire me. One of the reasons for choosing this program is that I would like to produce more creative and inspirational music, since I have obtained a lot of spiritual energy from music. I hope that I can use my expertise to make more music in the future, to bring more inspiring and enlightening music to people.
I once felt the charms of audio production in a film which is Alfonso Cuaron's film ROMA. The ambient sound plays a significant part of the film, and it helps the audience comprehend the emotions of characters and the atmosphere of the scenes. These sounds sometimes speak louder than dialogues, as it says in the course description of computer music, "Music, in fact, is the ultimate language of emotions." This movie had deeply impressed me with the charm of the science of acoustics, which involves the production, transmission, rendering, reception and control of sound. It was also the first time that I realized the post-processing and reprocessing of sound and music in movies is actually a very difficult and creative work.
Nowadays, information technology is inseparable from the production of audio and music. For instance, singers cannot release songs without recording technology, and movies cannot be finished without the audio mixing technology. What's even more impressive is that artificial intelligence technology can assist and even replace people in composing and arrangement. As for me, I really like electronic music, which is the perfect combination of information technology and music. And I also really interest in the development of electronic music and effector. Fortunately, I found that the core curriculums of Music and Acoustic Engineering program at Polytechnic University of Milan are very suitable for me. I aspire to learn advanced coding tools and methodologies to write a project that could automatically create music through human-computer interaction. And I also want to learn creative programming and computing to understand how to use the Supercollider for audio and music production. Besides, I am eager to learn how to mix audios for music and movie as background through the music production technologies. I think Polytechnic University of Milan can support me in pursuing a music-relate career and offer me a great opportunity to finish my postgraduate research, which will surely become an excellent starting point.
I understand that enthusiasm for ideal alone is not enough. I believe my software engineering educational background and more than one year's work experience in xxx Co., LTD. can fully prepare me for my future study in this field. During my four years' college life, I won the first prize of C language programming contest and the third prize of Blue Bridge Cup C/C++ programming Contest. Also, I always was the leader of the team in some software projects such as personnel management system in C# and hotel management system in Java web, etc., responsible for the main coding work. After graduation, I was mainly responsible for crawling, processing and cleaning data with Python, and developing data visualization application in Java, JavaScript and other technologies. These experiences have proven my engineering skills and teamwork skills.
In the future, I aspire to be a professional audio engineer to make an achievement in the music and film industry. I will strive to advance my understanding of this field, expand my knowledge, hone my skills, and make use of my expertise to create value for better life.
In the end, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule. I would be fully appreciated if you could give my application a favourable consideration, and sincerely hope that I could get the opportunity to finish my postgraduate study in your university.
Holt Educational Consultant - / 15153
4857 The essay tends to be all over the place in terms of presentation. Your interest in music, specifically Music and Acoustic Engineering does not have a deep starting point. You have to remember that you are changing career focuses here. So the motivation has to show that the career move is based on a personal level. Not just enjoying music coming from the neighbor or from watching a specific film.
The motivation has to be seen from the very start. Have you ever tried playing around with digital music on your laptop or PC even as you performed your job as a software engineer? That type of interest will show that your motivation comes from a personal, relaxing level. At the moment, the essay sounds too mechanical. As if you just placed in all of the information you think the reviewer wants to read about, without considering if it justifies a motivating factor or not.
Having relevant technical training is not really considered an effective motivating factor. That is actually irrelevant. What is required for this presentation is a reference to the depth of your interest in music engineering. Where did it stem from? Be personal, you can use the neighbor reference but only after a more personal motivation is presented. The reference to ROMA, isn't effective in the motivational consideration. You will do well to remove that from this presentation.