Personal Statement
Applied Program: Computer Software Engineering

I underwent a most painfully discouraging experience in 1998. On August 3, 1998, after making relentless and assiduous efforts, I succeeded in obtaining admission into Tsinghua University --- the most reputable university in China for her leading excellence in science, technology and engineering --- to embark on a second Program of Bachelor‘s Degree in computer software engineering in the Department of Computer Science and Technology. I was on the verge of entering this most distinguished palace of science when the exorbitant tuition kept me out of its gate. This agonizing experience helped to develop inside me an acute awareness of the urgency and the significance of making advanced education accessible to everyone in this world. My most fervent aspiration is that, with the gradual social and economic progress, every average Chinese who longs for knowledge can enjoy equal opportunity for education, never to be confined by the fetters of poverty and become the dispossessed. I believe that education is the cornerstone of human civilization and that education, as a form of resource, should be equally and effectively distributed. In this way, everyone‘s intelligence can be tapped to the maximum extent to be contributed to the society as a whole. It is my further conviction that education should be one of the unalienable human rights, not restricted to the privileged few.

My second aspiration, which is closely correlated with the first, is to become a software engineer who can introduce the internet to every corner of the world to make it possible for every ordinary person to enjoy the abundant and easy-to-access information, bringing about the universal sharing of educational resource in the true sense of the phrase. Imagine the prospect: even those children in the remotest and most impoverished village in rural China can have access to the academic presentations by the most celebrated professors from MIT and Stanford in the United States!

In 1997, I completed my undergraduate studies in the Institute of Communication Engineering, Nanjing Communication Engineering Institute. While establishing a solid groundwork in my field of specialization, I cultivated a profound understanding of communication network, especially computer communication network. My industry and my perceptive nature brought me first-class and second-class scholarships for four consecutive years and my undergraduate GPA (4.0) ranked among the top five percent among the 103 classmates of my major. Such courses as Communication Theory, Analog Circuit & Digital Circuit, Computer Architecture, aroused my great interest, but I was especially distinguished in Mathematics and Physics because they are the basis of all sciences.

By the time when I graduated in 1997, Intranet and Internet was rather an outlandish development in China, but I had the prescience that they are bound to radically influence the conventional telecommunication business. With great eagerness, I participated in the special training program in Microsoft Certified System Engineering, which allowed me to forge an in-depth understanding of the importance of computer software to the Internet. I visualized the computer software as an extension of human brain, which commands the otherwise isolated individuals within the network to serve individualized functions but at the same time be able to communicate and coordinate with each other to fulfill their specific tasks according to human instructions, making the telecommunication network intelligent and flexible. Thenceforward, I developed an intense interest in computer software and a deep fascination with its virtual omnipotence. Thanks to my solid undergraduate academic build-up, I taught myself all the courses of a computer science major, including Algorithm & Data Structure, Mathematical Modeling, Network Theory, Digital Discrete Mathematics, and Electric Circuit. Meanwhile, I became well-acquainted with a number of computer language such as VC++, VB and Delphi, and had a good command of the designing and analytical methods of computer applications such as SCO Unix and Windows Platform. Supported by my cutting-edge expertise, I passed the Level 3 B and Level 4 of National Computer Rank Examination, which indicates that I have reached the professional standard of China computer science.

Upon graduation, I found employment with the Research Institute of the Equipment Engineering of Electronic Systems of China, serving both as technical support engineer at the Service Division responsible for helping clients solve the problems that they encounter when they maintain the HJD04 Switching System and as the system administrator and database administrator of the office building‘s LAN Network. On account of my prominent performance, I was promoted to be the system analyst at the Technical Division one year later. I participated in the projects in improving the HJD04 Switching System, which is the sixth largest Chinese-produced switching system. I was put in charge of the No.7 Signaling Section and developed the trunk communication system. In an attempt to apply software engineering method and object-oriented approach, I designed successfully the ISUP (ISDN User Part) module mainly with Altera programmable logic devices -- ARM?-based hard core embedded processor and MAX 7000 families, in MAX+plus design environment using VHDL, and the customer is satisfied with the highly powerful DSP solution in an FPGA. Trying to apply software engineering method and Object-Oriented approach, I also re-engineered the software of the important part with C++ Language. In doing the work, I found it inefficient and even tedious to recover software documentation from legacy code. In seeking an innovative solution to the difficult task of reengineering, I consulted a large amount of technical literature at the library such as "Information Elicitation from Software Code"、 "An Automated, Intelligence-based Approach to Elevating Source Code to Domain Model"，but still failed to solve the problem efficiently. I felt that lack of further knowledge in the methodology of new software engineering and in artificial intelligence (AI) has prevented me from achieving further progress in the area. Under such circumstances, I feel I have no other alternative but to pursue a more advanced degree program abroad.

As I delved deeper into my work against a background of the rapidly changing computer science which seems to render even the latest technology obsolete, I came to discover that the knowledge I had acquired theretofore was gravely inadequate. Under such pressure, I took part in an advanced program in the applied computer technology at the Electronics Department of the Graduate School, China Academy of Sciences. At this first-rate polytechnic institute, with a clear objective in my mind, I trained myself rigorously and fruitfully, turning myself into a "gifted student" recognized by the entire department. In my class of 81 students, the GPA in my first semester ranked me among the top 1%, which brought me the honor of Outstanding Student of the Class.

I have witnessed the tremendous growth of China computer industry in the past decade. But frankly speaking, the overall level of our domestic technology lags far behind the developed countries in the West. Neither the quantity nor the quality of the current Chinese software professionals can satisfy the rapidly growing needs of the China‘s social and economic development. To realize my ambition of becoming a successful software engineer and to shorten the gap between China and the developed countries, I need to study the advanced technologies from the United States so as to hone my expertise in software engineering.

I choose the Graduate School of your university because of your leading position in the field, offering graduate programs that are at once intellectually exhilarating and challenging. Your university has a world-class faculty, advanced research facilities and a stimulating academic atmosphere, all of which are conducive to the development of my potential into actual ability. If accepted, I will concentrate my prospective studies on Software Engineering, specially on the study of Chinese-based software platform, which will necessary involve the erudite knowledge in a number of technical fields such as database and information system, artificial intelligence, and parallel distribution processing software. Another reason of my choosing your university is that your university is situated in the vicinity of the Silicon Valley, the Mecca of a computer programmer, where I can encounter the best minds of computer software in the world with whom I exchange ideas and experience so that I can keep abreast with the latest research advances and enrich my research experience in a developed country.

It is universally known that the Silicon Valley in the American west significantly enhanced the productivity of the entire United States with its software industry. By comparison, the Western Region in China remains the most impoverished and backward part of the country over the past few decades. In recent years, the Chinese government has realized the essential need to develop this region and has thereby formulated the grand strategy of opening up the area, giving priority to the development of software industry by investing in the construction of many software centers in the region. On completing my degree program in the United States, I will come back to China to be engaged in the opening-up campaign in China‘s West by launching a software company or a website. By cooperating with famous institutions of higher learning in the world, I hope to design my own educational software and carry out online education. By that time, I will witness all my aspirations coming true.