• Generally, the SoP is more structured with you answering more specific questions of why this degree and school are right for you, and the Personal Statement is well, more personal reasons why you want the degree. What drove you to pursue this degree. For example, if you wanted to be a nurse your SoP may include information of how the program your applying to has the best anatomy lab and this understanding will be beneficial to your career. Your Personal Statement may include information like a loved one was in the hospital and the nurses made a big impact on your life that pushed you to pursue a career in nursing.

TONE

• As I said earlier, you will write in a professional, straightforward, mature, unemotional, and completely non-melodramatic tone. This isn a creative writing exercise. Its not a screenplay. Its an exercise in clarity and honesty. Dont paint pictures of the difficult scenes in your life. By telling the story straight, youl sound more confident more like a graduate scholar.

Statement of Purpose

• https://writeivy.com/structure-is-magic-a-guide-to-the-graduate-sop/
• Most universities only want to know what youll accomplish in the future. They only ask for an SOP, which is 100% academic, a logical argument for why youll make a great chemist, data scientist, or financial engineer.
• This statement should include your goals and background as it relates to the field of computer science. It is good to include any past work history, your interests, and reasons for pursuing a graduate degree in computer science.
• Your statement will be evaluated for your conciseness, reasons for pursuing a graduate degree, leadership skills, and eloquence. Applicants to our M.S. or Ph.D. program will also be evaluated according to their scientific research interests.

• Generally the Academic Statement of Purpose is between one to two pages.

• Frame Narrative Introduction 1-2 paragraphs (the story of how we discovered our PURPOSE for graduate study)

• Why This Program 1-2 paragraphs (is the perfect place for me to pursue THIS PURPOSE)
• Why Im Qualified 1-2 paragraphs (to be a grad student pursuing THIS PURPOSE)
• Close Frame Narrative 1 paragraph (and firmly restate our PURPOSE, with gratitude for the chance to pursue it)

HOW WE DISCOVERED PURPOSE

• Intrest
• Why I started grduate school and studiedin mathematics and cs
  • I was curious about AI. Had some vague idea of what it was.
  • Application of knowledge after masters. Projects:
  • Particularly interested in RL. Fascination. Interest.
  • Personal projects studied
  • Understanding AI/RL and its guarantees upper bound/properties ..., theoretical framework.
  • Time and an Area to Focus, dedicate and devote, group area, (Mentor, community)
• Curiosity and longing clutch and release, joy and thrill of seeing the work come to life and satistfaction in grounded understanding
• first decision to go to grad (wanted to know why AI and algorithms worked the way they did, gain a deeper understanding)
• Military service, work
  • satellite imagery prediction, 3d pose estimation, protein structure/feature prediction
  • think and decision to return
  • Hyper parameter searching... how do you know if a model is better than another one?
    • RL is a difficult problem, but can objectively measure.
• What do you want to learn while doing RL (PURPOSE)
  • Objectively measure if certain optimizations can achieve optimal policy and how quickly

WHY THIS PROGRAM: PURPOSE

• Which Courses, Which Professors, What topic (how you will meet the requirements of the phd degree program) (what topics you wish to pursue)

• Books

  WHY IM QUALIFIED for this PURPOSE

• Research experience (Worked hard inthe past, prepared to work harder in the future)

• I have experience implementing and working with AI and DL.
• Reading, understanding and implemetning papers.
• Applying my own twist to the paper

• Reading and understanding the theory (much more clearer with mathematical background, started asking good questions and organizing)

  Restate PURPOSE

• Thus, your goal in writing this essay is to prove that youre someone with big nerdy dreams. Someone whol impact the world, if only in a small way. Someone who has a specific purpose, and who knows what she needs to do to achieve it.

• that way, grad schools will know that youre someone just like them: a focused scholar with big nerdy dreams - and the motivation to achieve them.

• Because thats the secret sauce to the SOP: a single, powerful, focused sentence that states your purpose and gives ad comms a feeling that you're a rock star with unconquerable drive.

• If youve read any of my essay guides, you know that the best SOPs start with a brief story that illustrates your academic curiosities and explains why youre applying to grad school. Its not a silly childhood story. Its not creative writing, and its not a gimmick. Its simply an illustration of how you encountered the problems that you hope to study and solve in grad school.

• Why This Program section. As you describe everything thats awesome about the school, you'll continually emphasize how each professor, class, or lab will push you one more step on the journey toward building those surgical devices.

• Why Im Qualified section. All of those good grades and research experiences you've been so eager to describe? They're only useful insofar as they prove you'll succeed in achieving your goal of developing those awesome surgical devices.

DISCOVERY OF PURPOSE

• AI interested me. What is AI to you? (intelligence, creation of a system)
  • Idea and creating
  • Understanding why it works, finding new patterns, framework of understanding, connection to other
• HISTORY: Undergrad -> Work (Interest in AI, wanted to understand it more) -> studied Mathematics/AI -> Implemenation to various fields -> Encountered several key problems
• Convolutions - Kernels - Convolution Neural network

• KEY PROBLEMS:

  • Computation intensive
    • Hyper parameter optimization
    • Estimation of J*
  • Difficult problem more approachable/efficient
    • Alphafold
    • Alphago
  • Characterization of ...
  • Interconnected approximations of [cost-to-go approximation, expected value approximation, simplified minimization]

    WHY THIS PROGRAM:

• Courses, Professors, PhD Program

• Papers

  WHY I AM QUALIFIED

• Strong Interest, self-motivatation, mathematical rigor

  • How can you back up these statements?
    • Strong Interest: past history, studies
    • Mathematical rigor: masters in mathematics
    • Self-Motivation: github project, self-research of control theory (montecarlo, understanding the basic)

      RESTATE PURPOSE

• win-win for university

• pursuit/realization/of one's dreams and goals

• Would really appreciate

• Focus on the positives

DISCOVERY of PURPOSE

• AI have fascinated me for a long time, I studied and applied it. what question did you have before -> (how does it work, ) ?
• I have implemented and worked. I have more questions.
  • How to optimize without gradient descent
  • Sampling/efficiency
  • Newton's method
  • Optimal Control
  • Personal Project
• Interest, statistfaction, process, desire
• I need to learn more
• What motivates you. What drives you?
  • Interest, key questions, and idea coming to fruition. Which grip one's heart, desire, and dedication
  • Process
  • Journey
• I am eager, hungry and ready. Quick on my feet, on solid ground, persistant.
• What are the KEY QUESTION you want to answer
  • The loss function
  • Sampling efficiency
  • EXAMPLE: Landcover, 3DProtein
    • Hyperparameter optimization (sampling)
    • Optimize without gradient descent
    • latent space -> functional output distances
    • invertable functions

WHY THIS PROGRAM

• Learn the strong theoretical background, which courses
• Collaborate with the professors in specific research areas
• Lay out a concrete plan of what you plan to do here
  • Goals, publish

WHY I AM QUALIFIED

• I am quick on my feet (implementation) on steady in theory and design and reorganization persistant and stubborn while eager/flexible to new key ideas
• learned how to pace myself, prepare and lay down the fountdations.
• develop a cautious optimistic view
• Learn to limit my anticipation to drown out the distractions and calm oneself and focus on identifying and achieving key objectives
• Physical mental health, prevent burnout
• Ever preparing, ever vigilant, with recovery, relentless and recovery

RESTATE PURPOSE

• Develop a picture of who you want to become
• What else would I do but pursue great joy and satistfaction in my heart, and to give back
• My whole being, I am convicted to study