SOP Sample for MS in Computer Science AI - US Applicants

Statement of Purpose

The computer scientists of yesteryear who dreamt of employing algorithms that could learn from data had to reign down their imagination owing to the limitation of hardware available to them at the time. In this regard, we are extremely lucky; we now have access to processing units capable of running immensely resource-intensive tasks. It is then upon us to exploit these resources to ensure that the promises of Big Data Analytics and Machine Learning are met. I have had a profound interest in the area ever since I first started exploring it as an undergraduate student. The projects I did and the internship I pursued exposed me to the myriad applications of Data Science and Machine Learning in solving hard problems. I continued to educate myself about this and other nascent subfields in Computer Science even as I went on to pursue a career as a Software Developer upon graduation. While this has been beneficial, I recognize that I need dedicated learning if I am to establish myself as a competent Data Scientist and work on exciting projects. This serves as my motivation to now pursue a Master's degree in Computer Science.

My undergraduate study in Computer Science and Engineering at [UNIVERSITY_NAME], one of the premier colleges of technical education in India, had the ideal structure that helped me navigate through the foundational topics in Computer Science and Statistics before delving into more advanced areas. Courses such as Data Structures and Algorithms and Principles of Database Management Systems played a pivotal role in helping me develop a sound knowledge base and hone my programming skills. The later semesters offered Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining courses, all of which helped fuel my interest in Data Science.

I recognized that the best way to augment my knowledge in Deep Learning was to work on projects and acquire the practical know-how necessary to develop accurate models. With this in mind, after exploring some related online and offline resources, I went about building CAPTCHAs that are resilient to being automated by bots. This last line of security that prevents bots from accessing services has been under threat from attackers armed with state-of-the-art CNN-based image classification models. To put up a shield against the same, my approach exploits the weaknesses of Deep Neural Networks in classifying adversarial images. The Fast Gradient Sign Method which is used to generate adversarial examples for making the neural network more robust, is used here to generate CAPTCHAs that are secure against attacks. I had to study multiple research papers to bring this idea to fruition. Among other things, I learned how best to make use of Transfer Learning and the Xception architecture. The training of the model performed on [PLATFORM_NAME] making use of the MobileNet V2 model was successful and 99% accuracy was achieved.

While academic projects were extremely beneficial, I wanted to experience the work culture in a professional setup. Hence, I sought out and pursued two different internship opportunities. The summer internship at [COMPANY_NAME] during my sophomore year, helped me grow into a competent Full-Stack Developer. The project I worked on involved designing and developing an e-commerce website using PHP and Magento. This also served as the perfect introduction to the software development lifecycle and the agile development methodology. Not long after that, I pursued my second internship at [COMPANY_NAME], a market leader which delivers AI-driven customer engagement solutions to enterprises. In addition to assisting the R&D team at [COMPANY_NAME], I developed a movie recommender system, based on user-item collaborative filtering using NumPy and pandas. The dataset consisted of 100,000+ ratings of 8000 users on 500 movies and the RMSE value was minimized to 0.8. The project required me to do extensive research about recommender systems and acquaint myself with generalization and memorization concepts. This hands-on experience helped me to better grasp theoretical concepts which in turn reflected in my academic performance.

During my undergraduate study, I also ensured to remain active in the extracurricular front. I am particularly proud of my contribution to the IEEE Computer Society at my university, where I served as the Vice-Chairperson for over a year. The experience of organizing several state-level technical events and symposiums, especially when I was the event lead of [STATE]'s first comic convention and cosplay competition in 2017, taught me a great deal about leadership and event management. I also spearheaded the [PROGRAM_NAME] program at my university, an outreach event that aimed at discovering budding engineering talents and educating them about the possible paths that they can pursue to cultivate their interests further. This is something that I am particularly passionate about. I hope to do similar work in the future.

Before pursuing my postgraduate study, I decided to accrue some experience as a software professional and hence joined [COMPANY_NAME] as a Software Developer. Over a span of one year at [COMPANY_NAME], I got to work on two exciting projects. The first of these involved developing the front-end of a web application on Angular, writing unit tests, and code reviews of peers. I was hellbent on excelling in my role as a developer, where I also got to work on React, Node.js and NoSQL databases for building robust full-stack applications. As a testament to this, I was then entrusted with the responsibility to work on a more challenging project on Edge Computing. This exposure to the promising developments in Distributed Computing, which bodes well for other areas such as Machine Learning, further fuelled my interest in pursuing higher education.

I believe that an opportunity to learn from your well-versed faculty and work with your modern infrastructural amenities would give me a great impetus as a student and a professional to accomplish these goals. Moreover, pursuing a Master's in Computer Science at [UNIVERSITY_NAME] would allow me to strengthen my domain knowledge along with being able to put special emphasis on grasping AI and Data Science, the specialization of my interest. I am especially eager to pursue MS Plan II: Comprehensive Exam, Standard Option. I have deep admiration for the works of [PROFESSOR_NAME] and [PROFESSOR_NAME] and hence look forward to the honor of working under them. The student communities at [UNIVERSITY_NAME] appeal to me no less, and I particularly wish to join [ORGANIZATION_NAME] as I want to contribute to their noble cause of uplifting minorities and underrepresented groups. Using technology for such causes is one of the key driving factors of my career.

I eagerly look forward to the commencement of this next major phase in my life in the nurturing environment of your esteemed university.