Personal Statement

Program Applied: Computer Graphics & Vision

I can only find my self in the studio designed and furnished by myself. In the middle of this small 10-square meter studio is a double-CPU computer which I assembled during my high school years according to the technical specifications I downloaded from the Internet. In it, I used the then most advanced Windows NT operating system, whose speed and functions remain quite ideal even to this day. In a huge cabinet over my computer system are displayed over 100 electronic gadgets and models that I designed in my elementary school, each consisting of hundreds of spare parts and components, along with many computer magazines and books by domestic and foreign publishers. It was in this very studio that I once worked for 18 hours each day for an entire week during which I produced a two-minute animation for the Konka Multimedia Grand Competition (launched by China’s biggest producer of home appliances KONKA Group) and walked away with a third-class prize. Now, by using the same computer, I solemnly write this Personal Statement to indicate to you both my determination to obtain admission into your prestigious university and my passion for computer science, as well as strong interest in achieving success in my future research and in project execution. My philosophy of life is “Fighting for My Dream”. I realize that my mental faculty is my gift and that the determination to fight is the guarantee for exercising this gift to the fullest possible extent and for achieving the ultimate success.

First and foremost, I am most indebted to my father, an experienced engineer, whose enlightenment in my early education played a key role in developing my intelligence and who created important conditions for me to learning computer knowledge at a very early stage. In 1989 when I just entered the third grade in elementary school and when computer was by no means popularized, I passed the most rigorous screening test to join my school’s Computer Olympics Class. Within one year, I mastered all the fundamental computer knowledge and excelled the elder students to represent our school in a all city computer talents contest and became the youngest prize winner. My exceptional receptivity and wide-range exposure to computer knowledge always distinguished me from the rest of my classmates. Not merely a “specialist” in computer hardware, I self-studied the then latest programming language Visual Basic 2.0 with which I translated my ideas into reality one by one. I made it a habit of formulating specific learning tasks and then attempting to seek problem-oriented answers by reading relevant books and consulting professional knowledge from my father and the Master’s students under his supervision. With even more remarkable progress in both hardware and software, I naturally selected the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China as the place in which I could develop my scholastic potential in computer science to the full.

My formal university education allowed me to bring my interest in and my passion for computer into full play, on both theoretical and practical levels. I endeavored to absorb every technical detail of computer technology behind the textbooks without letting one off. Meanwhile, I paid close attention to the integration of knowledge drawn from different courses. By studying such important courses as Pulse and Numerical Circuitry, Software Engineering, Principles of Microcomputer, Computer Networks, Mobile Computing Systems and Applications, Computer Graphics Lab—Modeling, Animation, and Rendering of 3-D Scenes, Multimedia Databases & Data Mining, Networking: Advanced Network Services, and Mobile and Wireless Networking, I was able to arrive at new levels of understanding and application of computer technology. What made especially proud of myself is the fact that I have far surpassed my classmates by achieving straight A’s in all the core courses. In order to supplement my classroom education and to keep myself abreast with the latest computer technology, I devoted myself, with a sort of computer mania, to learning two courses –Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE) and Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA)—as early as the first year of my undergraduate program. With due efforts, I obtained very high scores (over 90 points) in two most difficult examinations in MCDBA and was the first student in the School of Automation Engineering to have received MSCE and MCDBA certificates (for the latter certificate only a very few number of students in my university have proved eligible).

Attending various lectures and academic conferences and participating in diverse contests have also enabled me to improve my professional level and to exchange with others. My vision becomes widened and my analytical competence sharpened. My creativity and experiment skills are enhanced through the actual process of solving problems. In the HuaWei-Cup Contest, my team’s assignment was to design a portable digital oscillograph which involved hardware design, interface design, and software design. This complicated project presented many technical and design problems, but the newly-organized group solved them one by one by means of close cooperation and collective wisdom. In working on the most difficult problem-the oscillograph-computer connection, we first planned to use the serial interface. However, due to the extremely high sampling speed of the oscillograph, the low transmission speed of the serial interface made it impossible to complete the data transmission in time. I consulted relevant technical literature and came up with two proposals. One alternative was to reduce the volume in the transmitted data so that the disparity in the speed between sampling and transmission could be reconciled. Another alternative was to use USB interface to increase the transmission speed. Ultimately, the problem was solved with the desired effect and the project was successfully completed, winning positive evaluations from our teachers.

Even though I am assured of a lucrative employment upon my graduation, I have nevertheless decided to continue with advanced studies in the United States. Even at a very young age, my mind used to be replete with many novel ideas, many of which have been translated into reality. It dismayed me to find that as new ideas keep emerging, my existing knowledge and abilities prove gravely inadequate to materialize them. To achieve a breakthrough, it is imperative for me to seek professional trainings in the country with the most advanced computer technology, especially to learn scientific and systematic methodologies for analyzing and solving problems. In my future study plan for a Ph.D. program at the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), I wish to focus on the following areas—computer graphics, robotics, computer vision, motion capture techniques, or wireless networking. Computer graphics is a research subject that has achieved relative breadth and width so far. Within its framework, computer vision, sometimes dabbed as the “eye of the robots”, will play a vital role in enhancing the intelligence of future robots. I am really fascinated by this field. On the other hand, I had experience of using the motion documents developed with motion capture technology in producing my animated characters. The documents significantly simplified the entire process of animation production and also made the pictures much more vivid. With this tentative knowledge and experience in motion capture, I am all the more interested in delving ever deeper into this field until complete mastery.