Personal Statement
Graduate School Application ·It all started when I saw the most breathtaking possibility in the launch of HoloLens I millions of people’s lives in this century. As a Generation Z boy who grew up surrounded by numerous electronic devices, I naturally developed a keen interest in computer science and dreamed to stand on the stage of a product event, like Steve Jobs, to publish a product that revolutionized the world. As I grew older and was exposed to more technological information, I became convinced that AR technology provides the foundation for the next generation of innovative technologies. At that time, Microsoft launched HoloLens II. While the new version displayed incredible technological breakthroughs, it also revealed that AR glasses had a long way to go before becoming a mature product, and I will be a facilitator on the road to continual improvement of this revolutionary technology.
With this goal in mind, I chose computer science as my major and sharpened my skills via my studies and projects. After class training, I joined VMWare as a software engineer intern in July 2021, and six months of close work with several excellent software developers helped me gain real-world experience while also equipping me with the professionalism and ethic required in a mature firm. I used to discuss with my mentor on the best chart to use in a monthly report to illustrate a large machine learning model’s (BERT) performance with several daily data points, and I was able to persuade him to use my solution. I also created an automated data processing pipeline to generate performance reports, which greatly boosted my colleagues’ analytical productivity. These shining moments not only gave me a sense of accomplishment, but also strengthened my determination to work in the field of computer science.
After the journey of industry side, I came back to the campus and started to explore my passion in the research area. I found that I am highly interested in exploring and expanding the boundaries of computer science. Although working with my colleagues and mentors in the industry taught me a lot, I believe I will be more excited when I create things that no one else has created or ever dreamt about before. Therefore, in the winter of 2022, I started my research at the Intelligent Motion Lab, where I mainly focused on designing and implementing a continual learning segmentation system (CLSS). At the beginning of the project, I was tasked with designing engineering-oriented functions to annotate the object and begin model training. I finished the core functionalities of the main toolkit used in the project after many days and nights of learning new web development techniques and grew to be a full-stack developer from a completely new hand, who not only completed both frontend and backend development but also understood and modified an important component of our incremental-learning model to accommodate our toolkit. Following this project, I intend to dive deeper into a more academic side of research. In the summer of 2022, I was selected to work as an undergraduate research assistant with Professor Tarek Abdelzaher to investigate graph adversarial learning on dynamic link prediction. I am in charge of building our experiment infrastructure and reimplementing many baselines (VGAE/Evolve-GCN/Euler) and attacking methods such as random-attack and meta-attack in this project. Our paper on developing a new model to defend against adversarial global attacks on dynamic link prediction tasks is due to be submitted to ICLR by the end of September. This project provided me with a deeper grasp of research, namely the entire pipeline of a research project from a vague notion to a highly specific thorough article, which confirmed my passion for working in a research lab to develop new technologies and products.
However, as my practical and research experience grew, I felt compelled to extend my education because my dream career demanded a broader and deeper scope of knowledge. Professional training at a higher institute has been a key priority in my agenda. Carnegie Mellon University, as the world’s best university in computer science, is the ideal solution for me. I explored the program brochure and excited to find courses like Visual Learning and Recognition and Geometry-based Methods in Vision, which will lay a solid foundation for the modeling and sophisticated calculations required in the construction of augmented reality, bringing me closer to understanding 3D-vision and actual machine perception technology. The Master of Science in Computer Science program at XXX stands out as my dream program not only because of the rigorous coursework it offers, but also because of the school’s research facility, the Augmented Perception Lab. Since 2014, I’ve established the objective of creating a wonderful product that can impact people’s lives; I never lose sight of this goal and continue to strive in the connected field. I wish to make the computer feel the world because a deeper understanding of the world would allow it to better serve human life. Therefore, I look forward to becoming a part of this lab. After graduating from XXX, I hope to join Microsoft’s HoloLens project team, which brings together the world’s finest researchers. With 2-3 years of experience in the most advanced AR/VR technology, I will build my own start-up to pursue my ambition.
XXX is my top choice, but why should I be? I continued asking myself this question, and after reflecting on my 22-year experience, I came up with my own answers: combining my exceptional leadership with enthusiasm for computer science to support the growth of future talents. I see myself as not simply a great developer or researcher, but also as someone who can contribute to the world. However, the power of an individual contributor is small. I treat myself as an excellent leader. This recognition comes not only from the experience of organizing the greatest E-Sports contest in my country or building a successful game studio, but also from my own personality that attracts like-minded people with a firm sense of achieving my goal. Once becoming a member of XXX community, I will fully exert my leadership to the fullest extent possible to gather my peer and contribute to the school’s already dazzling achievement. I have always believed that I and my alma mater will complement each other.