XXXX University is my first choice among doctoral programs in Computer Science for several reasons ranging from the location to the sheer excellence of your program. I have been following the work of Dr. XXXX and Dr. XXXX over the past several years. I especially appreciate Dr. XXXX's recent paper on auto-assist frameworks, which accelerate the training of neural nets by extracting virtual instances from the original network and training a lightweight model for faster neural activity. I also especially appreciate the work of Dr. XXXX on weighted random forests to improve arrhythmia classification and a new weighted algorithm for better arrhythmia recognition and reduce false alarms by applying the proposed algorithm for each tree in the random forest and further comprehensively examining optimal parameters for tuning. In the future, I want to continue my research, combining machine learning with other technologies and producing solutions for real-world problems as I derive my inspiration from the world around me.
In India, my father was selected for a scholarship for graduate studies in the USA. However, my grandfather, from a small village, could not raise the plane fare, and my father lost out on this excellent opportunity. He went on to help my mother get a good education in psychology, and both parents have been especially keen to support me in my teaching. In the 11th grade, in 2010, I was first diagnosed with a solitary dysfunctional kidney. I spent most of that year roaming from one hospital to another to get the correct diagnosis and treatment, as there were no excellent hospitals or doctors in my town. This incident broke my parents. After getting better, I worked hard. completed my high school studies and was accepted to the XXXX College of Engineering. My health issues continued to take a toll on my academic performance, but I never gave up and kept working towards my goal. These days, I manage my disease, so, while challenging, it no longer significantly impacts my ability to perform professionally.
I am the only person who turned down an offer from IBM, which pays near the top in India, to accept a position as a Research Associate at one of the most prestigious universities in my country. Later, working at IIT Delhi, I had the opportunity to meet faculty who had done their Ph.D. at high-ranking universities like Stanford and Texas A&M and work alongside Ph.D. students from various universities and backgrounds. This position cemented my desire to pursue an MS in the US, following the example of those around me. I wanted to have that same level of expertise and confidence in my area of computer science. After getting admitted to XXXX State, I contacted Dr. XXXX, who was heading the compilers lab at the university, and he accepted my request to join his team. He offered me a research assistant position after only one semester of volunteer work. I particularly enjoyed coding up the solutions, and I could present my work as an independent study since my professor was going on a sabbatical.
While working on my independent study, fully immersed in parallel programming, my disease returned vigorously, and I earned an F for the course. Of course, I was deeply saddened. My only hope was a transplant, which I have now had and have been certified to return to my career by my marvelous physicians and surgeons. I am a textbook case of success in kidney transplantation.
After my professor left on sabbatical, I focused on working on improving my grades by retaking two courses and earning a B in machine learning while volunteering with another professor. Thankfully, the professor I worked with developed a project that needed machine learning knowledge and asked me if I would like to take on the project. I studied various machine learning algorithms in detail as I had to implement a few of them to test my datasets. While working on this project, my knowledge from machine learning courses came in handy. The more I studied machine learning algorithms and their applications, my interest grew.
While working at Orby, where I was working as a machine learning engineer, I further realized the strength of technology and had a desire to explore and combine machine learning with other technologies. I wanted to use machine learning and big data to improve and optimize data handling through machine learning; I also saw numerous opportunities where machine learning could help run data analytics on big data. I wanted to explore and maximize image recognition and study generative adversarial networks (GAN) and optimize them or develop a new idea. I tried to improvise, optimize, and make machine learning more secure.
With interviews from companies like Apple, Google, Uber, and Nvidia, my kidney gave up in January of 2019, and I had no choice but to return to India to cover the cost of my dialysis. After a year of waiting for a donor, I got my transplant surgery and soon fully recovered. I hope to hit the ground running in the Ph.D. Program in Computer Science at UXXX.
Thank you for considering my application.
PHD Computer Science Program Personal Statement