SOP Sample for MS in Computer Science in Canada

I recall carrying an iPod, copying hundreds of songs every time I wanted to hear my favorite song, and now I simply use a voice-controlled virtual assistant to do the same. Thanks to AI and Machine Learning technology that has been constantly evolving and changing our lives 360 degrees. This intrigued me and paved my path towards exploring the wonders of machine learning as it has to unfold. This further propelled me to pursue a wide range of online certifications in Machine Learning, Python, and Artificial Intelligence to satisfy my compelling interest in ML. Being recognized globally as a top-ranked knowledge enterprise focused on solutions to society's greatest challenges, advancing a better life for all, I feel pursuing MS in CS at your university will hugely impact my portfolio, boosting my career trajectory to envision myself and establish my own venture in the long run making giant strides in the field of Machine Learning.

My undergraduate curriculum inspired me to augment my practical knowledge through projects, seminars, research, and assignments. I specifically enjoyed studying Data Structures, DBMS, and Artificial Intelligence, probably because math had always been my favorite. During my 1st year of BTech, I traded stocks quite often. So, I thought of writing a Python script for automating stock trading. That's when I first became interested in programming and Machine Learning. As I had just started learning Python and Machine Learning algorithms at that time, I found it hard to convert the logic into the script. After spending a couple of weeks going through 6 different Machine Learning and Deep Learning specializations in [ONLINE_PLATFORM], I made a small script that could predict buy/sell operations using neural networks. With this script, my friends and I began paper-based trading and it showed great results. This is the first step in my coding journey. From then, I started participating in competitive programming contests. With the guidance of my HOD/Professor [PROFESSOR_NAME], I created an android app which could guide beginners who were interested in trading stocks.

During Covid-19 lockdown, owing to my blooming interest in Machine Learning, I began researching on ways to reduce the time in creation of new drug creations. This led me to work on my project titled "De Novo Drug Design for Generating Superior Drug Libraries Using Recurrent Neural Networks Coupled with Genetic Algorithm (RNN-GA)". This project focuses on producing High-Quality Drug Libraries with the ability to automate de novo design of compounds along with reducing the search in the chemical space by focusing on regions of interest and eliminating the need for a manual enumeration of a drug compound library. This technology allows us to capture the imperceptible associations among the chemical and biological aspects, providing us with easy-to-use and on-the-fly drug libraries that could help fight pandemics and save millions of lives. I learnt tools like NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib, Keras, and TensorFlow through this project.

Being a student at a publicly funded university, I always felt blessed. I was able to stand in the top 5% of our university and was even recognized with first class with distinction in my overall academics in my undergrad. My internship at a product-based startup named [COMPANY_NAME] during my 4th year of undergraduate boosted confidence in me. I was among the 4 students who got selected out of nearly 200 applicants. During my internship, I worked on technologies including Optical Character Recognition, Java, Google Cloud Platform and Firebase. I have learnt a lot of things during this 6-month internship. The Scrum meetings, Code reviews, and Unit testing together made me stronger both professionally and personally. I was able to meet the deadlines comfortably and I was able to communicate my ideas more lucidly. Post-internship I joined [COMPANY_NAME] as a full-time System Engineer owing to my expertise in Java programming. Now, I am directly involved in product enhancement and development of [PRODUCT_NAME] which powers financial institutions in 10 different countries. I was given an opportunity to work on a new framework named Struts and integrate banking API's responsible for international transactions.

Apart from acing my academic ventures, extra-curricular activities formed a major part of my academic life. I was the founding member and Vice Chairman of IEEE Student Chapter, [UNIVERSITY_NAME]. During the Covid-19 lockdown, we organized many webinars to keep people educated on the latest technological advancements helping fight pandemics and organized hackathons to bring out great ideas. I was a captain of my department's soccer team, which advanced the leadership qualities within me. My other hobbies include reading and teaching. Reading regularly helped me achieve a band of 9.0 in the reading assessment of IELTS exam. I actively tutored underprivileged kids around my neighborhood and helped many students get good grades. I have been a proactive Wing Coordinator in National Level Technical Fest [EVENT_NAME] 2020 and Student Coordinator for our mess committee, [UNIVERSITY_NAME]. Acquiring all such leadership qualities and skills during my undergraduation will help me contribute to the learning environment in your program.

The prospect of modeling real-world situations with research and providing appropriate solutions excites me. Following graduation, I wish to explore emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to devise customized and innovative solutions to better serve industrial/business needs. Passionate about serving humanity, I wish to establish my own venture in the field of programming and contribute immensely to open source development in the long run.

To achieve my career goals, I wish to pursue an MS in Computer Science from [UNIVERSITY_NAME]. The rich curriculum which includes courses like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Cloud computing is aligned with my career goals. I'm excited to contribute to [PROFESSOR_NAME]'s research in Algorithmic Computational Biology, Bioinformatics and to the Computational Biology Research and Analytics department ([DEPARTMENT_ACRONYM]). Given my fascination for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, field preparation for the program and the propensity to contribute to the student clubs at the university, I am hopeful that the admissions committee shall assess my preparedness in a favorable light and grant me an opportunity to be a part of your esteemed institution.