Statement of Purpose - My Motivation to Join Information System in University of Melbourne

Hi, I am trying to write my Statement of Purpose in my admission of Master Degree.
Since it is my first experience of writing this type of essay, I have no idea how it should be written.
Please give some suggestions and advices.

My aim is to join the Master of Information System in University of Melbourne, my educational background is linear with the major that intend to join. Hence, I believe I have a strong foundation to join this course but I don't know how to write it in my essay.

Here is my Essay

Statement of Purpose for master degree

Dear Madam/Sir,
I would like to express my current interest to study in University of Melbourne, majoring Master of Information System. I am a bachelor from Information System, University of Jember, with 2 years working experience in related field. I have already read your syllabus on the website and after scrutinized the courses that are offered, I am strongly sure that it is the major which I am looking for. Along with the core subject, I am also particularly interested in elective subject eHealth which I believe can be rigid foundation for my future career.

I was born 24 years ago in January 30 in a small city named Jember, an eastern city in Java Island, Indonesia. As a result of my house which is located in rural area of my city, I had very limited knowledge about modern technological devices like computer when I was an infant. It was 13 years ago when I was in the first year in my junior high school, I had my first introduction with computer. It was IBM brand with 256MB of RAM and CRT monitor. This stuff somehow made me stupefied and triggered my sense of curiosity to study about it which leads me to join Information System major later on.

While I was studying in the university, I have some fascinating experiences. First, I have learnt to master programming languages which is very useful in my career now. The languages that I have learnt are ranging from Website Based languages like PHP until Desktop Based such as Java and Visual Basic.NET. Second, I got my first experience as a teacher along with my position as Assistant of Programming Laboratory, I taught my junior about programming and database. Third, my soft skills were lifted up during the stint. I used to be a leader in several subjects that I enrolled in such as Field Study, Community Services, and Software Engineering. In addition to this, I also found the balance between being idealist and realistic person.

At the end of 2014, I graduated from the university and started working in a multinational manufacturing company from Japan as IT Staff, my job description was responsible to any issues regarding with software and did analyzing (sometimes with developing also) for software needs to be implemented in the company. I had to consider about the company's business process, people's behavior, and other boundaries. As a company with multinational scale, indeed, it has big transaction of data and complex workflow which requires depth analysis before a decision could be made. Working with people from different cultures & background is also something that I cannot avoid; I had to collaborate with them smoothly in order to finish my job, but instead of obstacle, I took it as a good opportunity to increase my professionalism & teamwork capability. While I realized that working in the company had many benefits for me, however, I chose to resign from the company because I want to do something for my long-term vision in my life.

It was about one year ago in the early of 2016 when I was still working the company. I felt stuck with my job and started to think my life goals. I thought deeply about something called "passion", something which is believed as the key of human happiness. I tried to find my passion, I also made some job applications in another companies because I believed maybe my passion was out there. However, after several months, no one of them convinced me and it made slightly frustrated because I did not really know what I want to do in my life. Fortunately, I have had a best friend and discussed about this problem with him. After conducted discussions, I realized something that I missed, something that actually I have done since I was student in the university, something that I love, sharing my knowledge with others, and it is being a Lecturer.

Since I want to be a Lecturer, I decided that I have to be a great one and I believe it is all started with preparing the best education. I did a research on the internet about my destination universities and finally I chose the University of Melbourne because of some reasons. As we all know, the University of Melbourne is the best university in the Australia so I think it will be a great step for me if I can study there. Likewise with their academic quality, I heard many stories about how livable Melbourne itself and very supporting for overseas students. Furthermore, I want to get in touch with the culture and study about their modern live with a hope that perhaps I can implement it in country.

Information System itself is my current educational background and I have already familiar with this field. Hence, I really hope can join the Master of Information System program because it will give me a chance to broaden my horizon about Information System. Based on the courses that are offered in your website, I also they were divided into two categories: core and elective. On the elective courses, I notice that your institution provide the possibility to learn about eHealth. I am really into this course because I always interested to make IT Consultant Company focused on health issues.

Thank you for your help

Iwan, the first thing that you have to know about writing a statement of purpose is that it is to be written in an essay form, not as a letter. So the format that you have at the moment is incorrect. The only letter type essay to be written in a masters degree application packet would be the motivational letter. Revise the essay to present an essay format instead. That said, you have a tremendous amount of unnecessary information in this statement. You actually only have to respond to 5 basic questions in order to create an informative SOP. These questions that require your response are as follows:

1. What is your current occupation? What is the masters degree that you are interest in taking up? How will completing this degree help you to advance your career? If you are discussing a career change, explain why you want to switch careers and why you consider it important for you to do so.

2. Provide a summary of your college background. Did you attend any seminars or internships that would result in your receiving informal training regarding your chosen masters degree? If you are enrolling right out of college, add information about any internship program you might have completed.

3. Explain any relevant work experience that you have that will convince the reviewer that you have the proper professional foundation to help you complete this course.

4. If this is a thesis based course, include your question and the type of research that will be involved in it. How can you apply the results if your research to the problem you want to resolve in your community? If it is a non-thesis course, then don't include a thesis question.

5. Why did you opt to study at this university? Include any information about your interest in their internship programs, research abilities, professors whom you admire, or other relevant information. This should be the point where you close the essay as well.

You can review the essay that you wrote and use whatever portions you can to help you create a new foundation for your revised essay. It would be best for you to use my guidelines for writing the statement rather than trying to make your current essay fit the commonly known expectations of a reviewer regarding a statement of purpose.

@Holt
Ok, got it!

Bu let's pretend t if it was a letter of motivation, can you give me your review?

This is not an essay you can use for any masters degree requirement. If you were applying to college, then you can use parts of this as a foundation for some specific common app prompts. Do not try to use this essay as a motivational letter as it doesn't contain the required elements for it either. A motivational letter presents a problem that you hope to solve in your home country and how you expect masters studies to help you develop the hypothetical solution that you have in mind. If you need to write a motivational letter, post it as a new topic , in a new thread and I'll help you develop it there. This thread is meant to discuss your statement of purpose. I will be unable to advice you regarding any unrelated essays posted in this thread.

Bagu, your statement of purpose is really confusing because you mixed your information up. You also focused too much on the academic side rather than balancing it with your work related activities and career advancement opportunities that you have had. Let's see if I can make it easier for you to revise this essay. Let's focus on delivering the correct content for the paper first. Always remember, perfect the content first because the grammar changes as you revise the essay. The grammar correction comes last. That can only be properly completed when you have perfected your content. Believe me, you can spot the errors once the content is complete and if you don't spot it, I will spot it for you.

Now, to better present your purpose in this essay you must accomplish the following per paragraph:

1. Introduce your current line of work and how it relates to your interest in this masters degree. What are the reasons why you feel that you require additional training in this field? What do you hope to accomplish by studying this course in relation to your field of work?

2. Summarize your college studies. Indicate any honors you received, and highlight your most impressive courses in relation to Information Systems. If you are taking a thesis required masters course, discuss your college research and how it might relate to a continued study on your part within the realm of Information System studies. What question do you hope to answer or what innovation do you hope to produce by the end of the course of study?

3. Describe your related work experience. Remove the reference to being an assistant in the programming laboratory from the earlier version of the essay. Discuss it in this new paragraph instead. Provided it relates directly to the sort of skills and academic training for Information System. If it doesn't apply then don't discuss it. Use this paragraph to help establish the kind of foundation or additional training that you received from your workplace that prepared you to take this course.

4. Improve on your discussion about why you chose the University of Melbourne. Do not discuss Australia in itself or Melbourne in particular. Just focus on the academic side. Don't mention the country being friendly to foreign students either. The only reason you have for choosing the university has to be academic or training related. Nothing more, nothing less.

These suggestions should help you get your essay onto the right track as an improved draft. We can look for other shortcomings or points for improvement once you complete the revision.

@Holt
Your reviews are always appreciated very much.
Okay let me try to follow your guideline, I'll post the revised version soon.
Thank you

@bagusetyawan
Hi! I have suggestion and i do not know whether it is correct or not . First of it your idea is really good but you need to make it more clearly . For example, delightfull not delighted . you need to show more certification such as where to you graduate from or how long . also you have seriously grammatical problem

@maitouyen1
Can you give more explanation about make my idea more clear?
Is it any difference between delighted and delightful? Because I've checked on my Oxford they have the same meaning.
Also, can you give me detail about serious grammatical mistakes because my grammar is so weak.
Thanks

Hi Bagu, I hope you won't mind if I kick in here with the difference in the meaning of the two words. Though the words are based on the same root word, "delight", there is a difference in the actions taken in relation to the two words. Delighted means to reference a "feeling or showing great pleasure." While delightful indicates something "causing delight; charming." I hope this clarifies the meaning of the words for you. The meaning of the words also explains why there is a difference when using one of the two words in any given sentence. Therefore, the word that you should be using in your essay will be based upon what intention or action you wish to convey to the reader is. I hope that my clarification of the meaning of the words can help clarify the matter of word usage in your essay.