SOP / statement of purpose Graduate, University of California, San Diego

My goals:

After considering my aptitude and the type of work that I like to do, I am convinced that I want to take up a research career in Computer Science. Since a good research career can only be built on the firm foundation of good education, my immediate objective is to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science.

My background and my primary interests:

I have always had an excellent academic record. I was awarded scholarships at the National level in the 10th and 12th standards. Later, I secured the rank 151 among 100,000 candidates (99.8 percentile) in the All India Joint Entrance Examination for admission to the ****. Due to my keen interest in Mathematics and fascination for computers, I chose Computer Science and Engineering as my major field. The excellent facilities, courses and faculty at *** have extensively drilled me in both theoretical as well as implementation aspects of computer science. I believe that this combined with the mathematics courses I have taken, form a sound foundation for graduate study.

During the course of the B.Tech. Program, I have developed a keen interest in Systems. My experience in Systems includes, besides the courses listed in the sheet titled Computer Science Background, a number of projects such as a project on Linux NFS, an implementation of extendible hashing for a toy DBMS and an implementation of a Compiler for a subset of Pascal. As far as research experience goes, I am working on my B.Tech. Project (Senior Thesis) titled `Surface Design for 3-D Graphics’, under the guidance of Prof. yyy and Prof. yyy. I have included a brief summary of all these projects separately. I shall also be doing a course in Parallel Computing under Prof. yy All these courses and projects give me a firm foundation in Systems and I intend to build upon this foundation in my graduate studies.

Other activities:

I have been actively involved in various co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. I have regularly participated in Elocution and Dramatics competitions and have won prizes. I am also a member of the IEEE and the IEEE Computer Society.

Teaching experience:
I have some experience as a teaching and laboratory assistant for an institute level course for first-year undergraduate students. The experience was an enjoyable one and what made it even more so was the fact that students appreciated it. This gives me confidence that I will be a good teacher as well.

Why UCSD?

I believe that in order to be a successful researcher, one must not only be a master of one’s field, but also have a feel of other related fields. Hence, I want to pursue graduate studies at a university, which has an excellent program in Systems and is also good in other fields of computer science. UCSD satisfies these criteria perfectly. I am sure that working in such an excellent setup will give me valuable research experience and enable me to produce excellent output in my Ph.D course.

In conclusion:

I am aware that UCSD expects very high standards from its students. On my part, I can assure you of sincerity and hard work. I am confident that my enthusiasm will enable me to meet your expectations.

Eagerly looking forward to joining the University of California.