Personal Statement
Program: Statistics
The astounding achievements and breakthroughs made in statistics during the last century have convinced me that statistics as a scientific discipline is bound to continue with its vitality in the new millennium. With the breathtaking development of modern science and technology, statistics will remain an underlying, widely applied and highly useful technology, playing a vital role in economic development of a given nation. That is why, on the point of finishing my undergraduate program in Information and Computational Science at the College of Applied Sciences, University of XX, I plan to apply for a Master’s program in statistics from XX University.

As a 22-year-old girl, I have grown up in XX,  where I have received the best education I could have expected. My secondary education was completed at the XX attached to XX University. With numerous prizes in mathematics contests, I was a constant winner of outstanding student honors. Though I could not very well understand Simon’s Singh’s Fermat’s Last Theorem which my mathematics teacher recommended to me, it still cultivated my interest in mathematics. In my subsequent undergraduate program at University of XX, arguably one of the best universities in XX, I have continued to excel, my GPA ranking among the top 5th in a total of 35 students. Of course, the level of difficulty of the subjects we studied, plus the stringent grading system unique of our university, made my GPA not as high as I would have liked, but the strict academic requirements our teachers imposed on us allowed me to have a solid academic foundation.

My relatively high ranking in academic performance is a result of my commitment to coursework, but more importantly it arose from my growing interest in mathematics and statistics. Receiving fruitful instructions from knowledgeable teachers has significantly broadened my perspectives and ushered me into the realm of freely exploring my interested subjects and working toward higher objectives. Unlike some “clever” students who spend time only on a small proportion of knowledge that might appear in exams, I like to construct a broad knowledge base. Just as what Hilbert said, “I cannot tolerate that type of mathematician who studies a board with a drill in hand and bore a hole in the thinnest part.”

Among all the courses in the curriculum, I excelled most in mathematics and related courses, laying a sound foundation for an advanced program in statistics. Those core courses include the fundamental ones like Mathematical Analysis, Linear Algebra，Numerical Analysis, as well as the more advanced ones such as Mathematical Statistics and Optimization Theory and Method. My academic transcript can indicate my satisfactory performances in those courses.

My most important experience is participating in a mathematic model study team. On my initiative, two classmates and I formed a team which came under the guidance of Prof. XX. For nearly a year, we had regular 4-hour seminar once a week, studying all the mathematical models that were constructed during the past contests. To understand those difficult models, I had to read many related books and technical literature. This experience taught me how to reach quantitative results through mathematical approaches for analyzing, forecasting, making decision and controlling. In one of those seminars, Prof. XX invited me to give a 90-minute lecture, which was a rare experience for me and for any undergraduate in our college.

By reading a series of mathematics books and performing calculations of a large number of mathematical questions (like those in the celebrated collection Gimidoviche，I have grasped advanced mathematics knowledge and basic mathematics thinking. Compared with other students, my rich imagination and strong understanding usually enable me to be creative and to delve into the essence of the matter. In solving a particular question, I would often give out several different solutions. I put my creativity into practice by designing distinctive formats for our college’s journal (of which I am editor-in-chief). During the seminars, the innovative solutions I propose tended to different in important aspects from the conventional conclusions, for I like to verify my own was of thinking. That is why some of my views published in the college’s journal has aroused the attention of several professors, who believe that I demonstrate the capacity for cogent logical analysis and hands-on ability to solve practical problems.

As I come to the end of my undergraduate program, I have chosen the topic XX as my graduation thesis. Having collected sufficient reference materials, I have decided to focus on the analysis of the statistical errors that result from inadequate data and methodological limitations because of the immaturity of statistics as a scientific discipline in China.  My conclusion is that only the application of a set of scientific system of statistics in tourism planning can produce a true picture of Chinese tourism industry and give precise forecast of the future trends of tourism development in our country. Now, under the direction of my advisor Prof. XXX, I am carrying out field studies, sample analysis, and quantitative analysis to make my thesis a substantial one.

Apart from my academic development, I have paid equal attention to personal development by involving myself in colorful extracurricular activities, which are as wide-ranged as they are nurturing. I have been active on various sports including swimming, and I am a lead singer of the student chorus. I have won prizes in piano playing and speech contest, and received Level-4 national certificate for non-professional aerobics dancing. I am the secretary of our college’s youth league committee and a student leader of my class. Although those extracurricular involvements diverted an important proportion of my time and energy that I might otherwise spend on my studies, they nevertheless enhanced my interpersonal communication skills and my leadership.

The Department of Statistics at the University of XX offers Msc in Statistics, which cuts across diverse fields including probability theory, applied statistics, statistical computer, and theoretical statistics. Your research is highly ranked internationally and among your senior faculty members include winners of XX and XX, who represent your unparalleled academic excellence in statistical teaching, research, and consulting. I am strongly interested in your active research programs being carried out and your new computational techniques for highly complex problems, and a regular departmental seminar. Your Statistical Consulting Service is particularly unique. I would like to concentrate on statistical inference, applied statistics, statistical methodology and statistical computing by taking such courses as Linear Models, Longitudinal Data Analysis, Time Series Analysis, Statistical Inference I. I intend my Masters program as preparation for further graduate work at the Ph.D. level.

The erudition, far-sightedness, integrity and a simple way of life of a mathematical statistician are what I strive for. Although in this age of information explosion I cannot expect to be knowledgeable in all fields of mathematics and statistics, I still wish to scale new academic heights through a quality education at your university. This will make it possible for me to live a rewarding life by making statistical teaching and research as my career.