SOP Sample for MS in Data Science in Germany

Statement of Purpose

"Find out what you like doing best, and get someone to pay you for it", says [NAME], a famous journalist and writer.

This quote of hers inspired me a lot to take one of the biggest decisions of my life—choosing the field of my profession. That is the reason why I chose the MPC stream in my intermediate and followed my interest in Mathematics to become an Engineer. I feel that I should not just do a job that I am only capable of, but do something that also excites me. For the same reason, I opted for Computer Science and Engineering as a major in my under graduation, during which I realized the importance of Data Science in today's world, especially in the fields of Banking and Finance, Public Services, and Medicine, through the courses of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data, and was intrigued by it.

I have always been a zealous student ever since my childhood and Mathematics is my all-time favorite subject. I am also very competitive when it comes to academics and strive to stay ahead in class. The results I achieved in the examinations of SSC (10th) with a GPA of 9.7/10, Intermediate (12th) with 96%, EAMCET (Engineering Agricultural and Medical Common Entrance Test) with being among the top 2% of the total appeared candidates for the test, and B.Tech with a GPA of 8.3/10 proves the same. I achieved the certificate of merit in my final year of under graduation for securing 2nd rank in the college.

Apart from academics, I proactively participated in the [ORGANIZATION] Regional Student Workshop 2018, in association with [ORGANIZATION], where I managed the team as team leader and gave a presentation on modern methods of education using high-end technologies. Moreover, I organized an event as student coordinator for the "[EVENT]" fest by the Department of Computer Science and Engineering held at [UNIVERSITY], [CITY]. I participated in basic engineering skills workshop with special emphasis on basic professional and soft skills organized by [UNIVERSITY]. I represented my college in the National Women's Parliament as a part of the network of all-around and spirited women of India conducted by Legislative Assembly Andhra Pradesh. I also participated in social services as a member of the Rotaract club in my college, as a part of which I conducted a blood donation camp and presented a paper at [COLLEGE] about natural calamities and measures to be taken.

During my under-graduation, I have found myself more inclined to some courses like Statistics with R Programming, Database Management Systems, Operating Systems, Data Mining, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Computing, Big Data Analysis, Machine Learning, Artificial Neural Networks and Distributed Systems than the others, and achieved individual scores of 8/10 or above in those. I also learned Discrete Mathematics, Probability, and Linear Algebra in Mathematics courses with great interest. It also gave me great joy when I had hands-on experience in programming, especially using Python language. Being a merit scholarship holder and top scorer in college, I have also been a winning participant in many Hackathons like [COMPANY], [COMPANY], [COMPANY], and [COMPANY], and possess valid proficiency in Java, Python, Flask, Dash, R, C, C++, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL to name a few. Such academic and technical proficiencies I harbor shall help me perform well in the course if admitted.

During my sophomore year, I interned at a non-profit organization called '[ORGANIZATION]' in Data Science, where my interest in the Data Science field stemmed from. In the internship project of Analyzing and Reporting Summary of real data on different villages of Andhra Pradesh and its people, I made an analysis report on the data using the Weka tool, based on the features like climate, social and economic status, perspectives on government policies, fears, goals, etc. When appropriate, similarities in a group of people and dissimilarities in different categories of people concerning features were also reported. I have also done another internship at a company [COMPANY] where I was able to design a Drowsiness Detection System, using a facial landmark detector created with the help of ensemble regression trees and calculated Eye Aspect Ratio (EAR) from the face. Based on the EAR value, an alarm is triggered. In addition to these, I have attended workshops on Artificial Intelligence with Machine Learning in [UNIVERSITY]. In this workshop, as a team of 3 members, we created a Chatterbox. These projects and internship experiences boosted my interest in data science.

When it comes to my academic projects, I have done a Machine Learning project Student Performance Analysis System. It will predict student performance in the final semester based on his/her performance in previous exams. I collected data of students' marks on different subjects from different departments where I performed data cleaning and used decision tree classifier algorithm and calculated Gini index, entropy, and Information gain. Based on these values, a tree is constructed and results are predicted. I generated a performance report of the model and also visualized data. I also managed the database and performed a few Data Manipulation and Data Query Language commands. For all the efforts I put into the project and how well the output came out, I have been awarded a 10/10 GPA by my university for the project. I also developed an individual project for the [ORGANIZATION] and college feedback for my college which are still in use. Also, I have a startup idea to employ household women by creating an application to order food from homes and rate houses. As part of this startup idea, I created a website and application with features like ordering food, rating homes and curries, providing feedback, and tracking orders. In the future, I would like to add machine learning and artificial intelligence to incorporate more features like recommendations.

Currently, I am working as a DevOps Engineer in the domain of the Information Technology unit of [COMPANY]. I have 1.5 years of experience in [COMPANY] where I gained knowledge on different technologies. I worked on real-time industrial projects dealing with a large amount of data where I have created continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines to different edge nodes. In the project, we are using different machine learning models on datasets to extract useful data from them. As part of the training, I have been upskilling on Data, Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, and Informatics along with Big Data, Hadoop and others. I have acquired a basic knowledge of Data Mining, Analytics, Big Data, and Machine Learning from both academic and industrial perspectives. Hence, I reckon Data Science is the most suitable stream for me, not only because of my knowledge of it but because all the technologies of my interest are centered on it too. But to grow vertically in the field, I would require a deeper knowledge of Data Science, which I would like to acquire by pursuing a Master's degree in it.

The university that I am going to get a graduate degree from is as much important to me as the degree itself. Hence, I researched the top universities of the world that offer Data Science as a graduation major and found [UNIVERSITY] would be the most suitable university for me, in terms of course curriculum and quality of education. I found all the courses that I would like to gain profound knowledge in are being offered by [UNIVERSITY] like Advanced Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing and others. I believe that with the hands-on experience I would get from the program, I would gain the required knowledge to work in an industry in the field of Data Science. I am certain that a Master's degree from a top university like [UNIVERSITY] would add additional value to my resume and allow me to obtain great opportunities to work in reputed companies after my graduation.

Once I complete my graduation in the course, I would like to work as a Data Scientist or a Data Analyst for a well-reputed company and gain a lot of experience in the field. Also, as I mentioned previously, I would like to further develop my '[PROJECT_NAME]' project and undertake it as a start-up by launching it as an online application. Though I know it is not an easy task to set up a start-up, it is my life goal to become an entrepreneur, which is why I would be ready to do whatever it takes and achieve it after gaining enough industrial knowledge. It has been my dream to study at [UNIVERSITY]. When I get a chance to make that dream come true, I would surely make myself worthy of it and I promise to utilize the opportunity to its fullest.