A young lady sitting contentedly facing to the computer - suggestions about my SoP

Hello.Can anyone do me a favor to give some suggestion about my statement of purpose for undergraduate application?

Statement of Purpose

Imagine a young lady sitting contentedly facing to the computer with codes and papers on the screen line by line. It is the epitome of my past two years, most time of which has been dedicated to academic research. During this period, I developed a nuanced understanding about the significance of research, which to me, has become a meaningful way of exploring the brand-new concepts and innovation based on my bold imagination, rational derivation and scientific experiment.. Above all, I realized scientific research is no longer the privilege of only a few super smart people, but can be achieved through my perseverance and tenacity. Interested in computer science for a long time, I decided to scale new heights both academically and professionally in this field through a Ph.D. program.

My enthusiasm in programming stemmed from a group coursework in my sophomore year, when our group was requested to implement a submission system in the course Data Structure. Staring at the computer screen with constant type and build-debug, for the first time in college I stayed up all night to finish a project despite the ample time left. A sense of accomplishment overwhelmed me after large amount of coding, which enticed me to choose a professor whose research was close to programming and computing instead of circuit design as my advisor when embarking on my graduate study.

Then in my first year of the graduate study, I began my first formal research project. In the project, I was in charge of creating the desired experimental pattern by using real clients in a live streaming evaluation platform. The process of meditating and communicating inspired me to formulate the solution in discrete time scale with distributed scheduling mechanism. Besides, my tendency to solve technical problems in implementation or simulation independently, instead of seeking help from others immediately, further enhanced my skills in searching materials and programming. This experience sparked my interest in scientific research, through which I recognized my potential to be more than a coder, but a researcher, and generated the idea of pursuing a Ph.D. degree overseas, where I can gain more inspiration in a more culturally diversified and open academic environment.

After completing the project above, I joined the Live Streaming in Mobile Ad-hoc Networks project. It was supposed to be a long-time independent research under the guidance of my supervisor; however, as the plan was adjusted later, I was expected to finish the process from solution, evaluation and writing paper within three weeks. Though a hard period, the result was rewarding: two papers published and the opportunity to attend the 11th IEEE International Conference Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing in Bali, Indonesia. There I gave two oral presentations to share our researches, and met many renowned professors and elite students whose professionalism and wide vision strengthened my determination to pursue a doctoral program abroad for more sophisticated knowledge and broader horizon.

With this inspiration, I joined the project about Networking Scheduling in Data Center Networks (DCNs) and earned a chance to cooperate with scholars from Nanjing University. To propose a new topic, I devoted four months to doing literature review on DCNs and often stayed up in the lab to analyze and implement algorithms established in some influential papers, such as Varys, Baraat and Aalo. By devising a representative example to indicate the divergence between flow completion time (FCT) and job completion time (JCT), I realized the "smallest-flow-first" mechanism applied in most flow-level schedulers, such as Varys and Aalo, may elongate average JCT in big data compute clusters, which established a foundation of the motivation in the project. Through dozens of revisions, a sound topic is finally determined and a paper submitted to SIGCOMM is in preparation. This experience deepened my understanding of the big data computer cluster as well as its development trends and current research achievements, all of which shaped my research focus in DCNs.

My past study and research experiences have honed my expertise, logical thinking and hands-on skills, and proved myself to be an independent thinker with an open mind, making me a qualified candidate for a doctoral program in computer science. I am particularly attracted by the computer science Ph.D. program at XXX University, especially its Systems and Networking research, which is consistent with my research interests. The flexible curriculum, dedicated faculty, world-class research and open atmosphere will equip me with a solid academic foundation in computer concepts, enhance my intellectual skills to deal with challenges within multiple perspectives, and guide me to integrate information from diverse sources in problem solving. All these valuable resources and opportunities convinced me of the compatibility of my skills, experience, and interests with the computer science Ph.D. program. After graduation, I plan to work on systems and networks in a computer firm in the US, where I hope to exert my potential in real-life situations and create more possibilities by conducting related research. I sincerely wish that the XXX University will be my point of departure.[/i]

I think the opening paragraph is kind of boring but I do not know how to make improvements.

Junhua, the first thing you have to do with your essay is remove the reference to your college years. That is no longer relevant to your application. What matters the most now is how you plan to progress your career since you already have a masters degree.You have already show us how your career has progressed since completing that course of study so what comes next for you?

How do you plan to scale this new height in order to gain your PhD.? At this point in time, you should be looking at how you can take what you learned from your masters degree, maybe your thesis project, and then spin it off as a topic for higher research in your PhD field. That is usually one of the ways that you can best explain to the reviewer how the university can help you and how you can help the university during your tenure as a PhD student. It is all about networking now so creating that contact through the university channels will somehow help you advance your career in the future.

Don't just say you want to work at a U.S. firm after graduation. Explain to the reviewer how your personal interests in this career will be helped by your degree. Maybe you see yourself setting up your own company in the future. Or maybe, you plan on creating some sort of software breakthrough. Whatever the purpose for your study, make sure that you involve the university and it's study grants, internship programs, professor apprenticeship opportunities and the like. You already mention that the university offers a program consistent with your research, so explain how you see the merging of the two so that the university will be put on the map by your work.

By the way, don't use the term departure at the end, that means you will leave the university try to find another term that will indicate you plan to stay and complete your studies instead.

Thanks for your suggestion. I intended to use my experience in college year to explain how I developed my interest in the field of CS. Maybe it is better to remove this section and make a detailed explanation about the reason why I choose this university and the program. Honestly speaking, when writing the essay, I was quite stuck by this section.

Again, thanks for your reply. It is really helpful !

Don't mention it. I am happy to help. As for your concern, you don't really need to establish the reason for your interest in CS anymore. The fact that you already completed a masters degree in the same field and are awaiting publication of your work in the area already establishes that interest far better than explanation of your college pursuits can :-)

I agree that you should instead use the space for the reasons as to why you chose this university and its programs. However, do not use research information for that. Don't make it sound like a student brochure or like you just lifted it from their website. Don't provide generic information. Just concentrate on the reasons why you feel the university can best help you achieve your goals based upon your plans and their abilities to assist you.

Just keep the essay on point by focusing on your purpose. Nothing else matters except the purpose and the relation of the university to your vision of your future achievements and career path. Good luck with the revision :-) I know you can do it well :-)

Hello. Based on our discussion, I have rewritten the last paragraph. Can you spare a moment and give me some suggestion about this version? Thank you in advance.

Junhua, see if this edited closing paragraph is something that you would like to use :-)

Upon graduation, I plan on working with systems and datacenter networks either in a firm or in an academic institution. I understand a Ph.D. degree is critical to further hone my expertise, logical thinking and hand-on skills. That is why I am particularly attracted by the computer science Ph.D. program at Cornell University, especially its systems and networking research, which are consistent with my research interests and future goals. I believe the focuse on both principles and implementation techniques in building large prototype software systems will provide me with a new perspective to work in relevant research areas that I cannot anticipate at the moment, and give me an invaluable opportunity to broaden my horizons in relation to my future research and development work. .

It's yours to use with your essay if you feel this is an enhanced version that you appreciate :-)