Personal Statement

Applied Program: Computer Science

In 1993 when I was matriculated into China’s most prestigious university, Tsinghua University, and became an undergraduate at its strongest department, the Department of Computer Science, one of my teachers called our attention during the Orientation Week to the university’s axiom – Eternal Perseverance and Great Virtue. In elucidating this axiom, she laid special emphasis on the latter, the quality of being virtuous as potential scientists whose mission is not merely that of exploring the physical world but, more importantly, that of consciously benefiting the society in general. She believed that as elites singled out from the entire 12 billion population of China, students of Tsinghua University would naturally regard the first quality as the their obligation. For the past nine years, I have kept both of the axiom’s two qualities firmly in my heart and mind. I have devoted special attention to my self-improvement and self-development in the academic and career spheres as well as in my moral conduct. Today, I file this application for admission into your most esteemed university under the conviction that the success of this application will be an important moment of yet another self-transcendence.

As one of the greatest human inventions of the 20th century, computer has introduced inestimable changes to people’s way of life. It was against such a background that I chose the most competitive but the most envied Tsinghua University’s Computer Department. From that moment on, I started my professional training and exploration in this field. For a student of computer science, fervent and intense interests in the subject are the necessary conditions for successful academic performance. And again it is those interests that have served as guidelines for my studies and career over the past nine years. The 5-year undergraduate studies at Tsinghua University provided me with an unusually solid foundation in both software and hardware fundamental knowledge. I was fascinated by many important courses, including data structure and computer network. The special emphasis given by the Computer Department of Tsinghua University to those foundational courses helped to equip its students with unlimited potentials. The strengths of Tsinghua curriculum continued to benefit me in my subsequent career of software development. I must say that I am especially indebted to my Alma Mater.

Even as an undergraduate, I had already realized the importance of developing hands-on abilities to students of engineering. Therefore, having developed an adequate command of fundamental knowledge of computer science, I started to apply my theoretical knowledge to the actual process of problem solving by compiling my own software program and testing the hardware performance. As a sophomore, I became involved in the extracurricular scientific research activities organized by the Software Teaching and Research Team of the Computer Department. It marked the beginning of my formal software development experience, which was much earlier than most of my classmates. With strong recommendations by my advisor, I became a formal member of the research group of Tsinghua University’s Water Conservancy Department which was then engaged in the preliminary research Yangtze River’s Three-Gorge Project, that largest of its kind in the entire world across the century. My research in this team continued until my graduation and my many research responsibilities included developing software for numerical computation, numerical analysis of dam stress and strain, element method for arch dams, safety control and surveillance, and dam behaviors. This period was my most active and important period of research activities during my undergraduate life and I virtually had no weekends. I spent all my time in the lab because I wished to make use of this research opportunity to have full practice and to have some systematic command of the entire process of a project development. In this process, I became fully aware of the importance of teamwork in software development. Software development is itself a systematic project consisting of different departments and personnel and my spirit of teamwork developed during this period has produced a persisting influence on me ever since then. Without much exaggeration, there were not many undergraduates like me in Tsinghua University who possessed such an abundance of practical experience. This has become the unique advantage in terms of my personal competence. It was precisely this advantage that made it possible for me to join the IBM Company in Japan immediately upon my graduation, at the special recommendation of my advisor.

Since my graduation in 1998, I have been working with the IBM Company in Japan in which I first worked at the IMB PDM (Product Data Management) Department and then at IBM ITS (Information and Technology Service Department. I have participated in the research and development of a series of important projects. Those projects include the production project for SONY Company’s liquid crystal displayer (LCD), the management project of automobile production for HONDA Company, the management project of OKI Company’s semi-transistor production, the file management project for OHSIMA Company, etc. I am very proud of my work experience at the IBM Company in Japan because I have proved myself fully capable of meeting the high-level demands for technical expertise and for close interpersonal coordination of those projects. In some of them, I played a dominant role and my satisfactory performance won me very positive comments from my company itself and from my clients, which have gave me a strong sense of achievement. At the same time, working in Japan has significantly enhanced my personal will and the ability to work independently. As the only foreign language I could speak was English and I knew little about Japanese language, I had to make great endeavors to overcome language obstacles apart from having to make speedy adjustments in order to adapt to the new environment when I first start to work. It was a major challenge for an undergraduate who had just graduated. Yet, I have prevailed in this challenge and this has further increased my confidence.

However, overcoming language obstacles was not the sole achievement I made. As is universally known, Japanese employees are the most diligent of employees in the world and in order to become well-established in a Japanese company I had to make extra efforts in order to be successful in competing against my Japanese counterparts. The fact that I got continuously promoted testifies to my extra efforts and achievements.

Toward the end of the 1960’s, Gordon Moore, one of the founders of the Intel Company, used what was later designated as Moore’s Law to describe the rate of technical development at the American Silicon Valley. Moore’s Law has become the most vivid description of the alarmingly rapid transformations that are happening in the field of information technology. The talents and elites concentrated in this field has made the technical advances of this field much faster than any other fields of intellectual enterprises. Whoever has the command of leading knowledge and technology is the leader in this field. Although I have several years’ excellent career performance, I am profoundly aware, perhaps more than ever before, of the importance of enriching my existing knowledge of computer science and technology. This constitutes the direct motivation of my present application. I hope that at your most esteemed university I can systematically learn the most advanced and updated theoretical knowledge. By combining it with research practice, I further hope that I can achieve immediate improvement in the field of software development, an area that I am relatively familiar with. The improvement is expected to ultimately lead to some breakthrough in my future research.

My academic and practical experience over the past makes me fully confident about my potential in my prospective degree program and its related research activities. For nine years I have been involved in computer studies and project development, which has helped me accumulate useful knowledge, experiences and intuitions. Moreover, my overseas background and my life in Japan, with all its difficulties and hardships, have given me unique advantages in adapting to new environments and in meeting possible challenges. Especially worth mentioning is my Tsinghua heritage. At Tsinghua University, I paid great attention to cultivate a comprehensive development of personal qualities. I was the vice chairman of the departmental students’ union and was the head of its sports section. In such a capacity, I was in charge of organizing many on-campus activities and considerably improved my leadership and team spirit. In addition, I have over ten years’ experience in sports and as a Tsinghua undergraduate I was the key athlete of the university’s track and field sports team. I represented my university to have participated in professional sports contests on the national and municipal levels and my sportsmanship has reached a very high professional standard, which is embodied in many honors and awards. In undertaking heavy loads of trainings and participating in highly competitive contests, I have cultivated a strong initiative in all the endeavors that I attempt at, which encourages me to be fearless in the face of difficulties and be able to meet challenges. Just as I am a powerful competitor in various sports events, I believe that I am equally a competitive candidate for your graduate program. Under such a belief, I hope that you could give serious consideration to my application.