Personal Statement

Program Applied: Computer Technology

As is often asserted, entering the Stone Age is no different from entering the Information Age; those who get the best tools will survive. I aspire to become a computer specialist who commands advanced technological tools in this modern world. I believe this is a realistic aspiration because my formal education, research achievements and work experience have fully prepared me to develop into the kind of person that I aspire to be. Nevertheless, the cruel reality is that, for the foreseeable future, China’s development in the field of computer technology is to lag behind that of the United States. My conclusion is that the best course of action for realizing my aspiration is to seek a more advanced education in the United States whereby to bring myself closer to the technology summits of the world and to my career objective—a leading researcher in computer software technology.

Immediately after finishing my undergraduate program, I joined Nokia (China) Investment Co,. Ltd where I have accumulated nearly 4-year rich R & D experience in wireless communication network management. As the Network Management Department’s R & D engineer, I have participated in quite a few extra large-scale network management projects. Among those projects, the one that deserves special mentioning is the project Network Management Construction for China Mobile Communications Corporation (CMCC), the world’s largest GSM operator. My main responsibilities in this project was to help with the CMCC’s definitions, to improve the CORBA-based GSM network management interface standards, and to realize the interface system.In the early 2000, I cooperated with engineers from Finland and Germany and succeeded in developing the CORBA-based NMC-OMC Interface for the British Orange Telecom and in the early 2002 we produced the second edition. Even without going abroad, I have developed important international perspectives and experiences through working at Nokia. At the department where I work, there are 20 engineers from seven different countries. In this micro international community consisting people from different cultural backgrounds, the international awareness I have shaped has become a precious asset that is to benefit me for the rest of my life.

At Nokia, I performed other important responsibilities. (1) As its representative, I worked with China Network Management Standardization Group (NMSG). Based on the existing international ITU-T, 3GPP specifications, we formulated China’s GSM, GPRS, and 3G network management specifications. (2) I attended the New Generation Operation Systems and Software (NGOSS) Seminar organized by NMSG at which we discussed the recent development of mobile network management system, focusing on the technological advantages of NGOSS and its future development. Through my thorough discussions with Mr. Tada Hisashi, vice president of TMF Organization, and with specialists from NTT Comware, I knew more about the structure of TMF’s NGOSS system and about the successful cases of its application in NTT Comware. (3) I helped CMCC submit 3G Network Management Interface Proposal to 3GPP. Finding that some technical details conflicted with 3GPP standards, I have tried to coordinate between those two systems of standards by helping CMCC conform to 3GPP standards. (4) I attended three Conferences on 3GPP TSG-SA5 (Telecom Management) held in China and Finland in June and August 2002 at which I made presentations and exchanged opinions with leading experts in the world.

My competence and achievements at Nokia should be attributed to the sound professional foundations I established out of my undergraduate and graduate programs at the Computer Science Department of Northwest University. My undergraduate GPA for specialty courses (such as Operating System, Software Engineering, The Principle of Compiling, Computer Network, Artificial Intelligence, Object-Oriented Methodology, Database System, etc) reached 3.55, ranking top second in my class. My distinguished scholastic performance brought me four honors of Student of Excellence and one scholarship. My Master’s program focused on Software Engineering, with special emphasis on human-computer interactivity. To be directly exposed to international development in computer science, I started reading computer science classics such as Data Structure C++, Operation Systems Internals and Design Principles, Computer Networks (3rd Edition), and Multimedia: Computing, Communication & Application. I was also much influenced by the scholarly articles in some leading academic journals: Rex Hartson’s User-Interface Management Control and Communication, Brad A. Myers’ Tools for Creating User Interfaces: An Introduction and Survey, and Mark Green’s A Survey of Three Dialogue Model. Out of my in-depth studies I developed a heightened awareness of the nature of GUI and came to understand the most fundamental principle in user-interface design—an appropriate separation between user interface and application semantics.

My fruitful Master’s program was characterized by a number of research achievements. My thesis, entitled Constraint-based Object-oriented Interactive Graphics Toolkit, focused on three major issues: how to provide a highly interactive user interfaces for applications, how to automatically maintain dynamic invariable relationships among the graphical objects on the screen or the main window by means of constraint-based mechanism, and how to apply them effectively in the interactive graphics system. My research was the first of its kind in China and it received sponsorship from National Natural Science Foundation. Research and Design for a User Interface Tool Environment is a research paper I published in the Journal of Northwest University (Natural Science Edition, vol. 27,111, 1997), which won second prize for Outstanding Papers of Graduate Students. As one of the main designers and developers, I participated in User Interface Tool Environment and Research for Visualization, a project which was awarded the first prize for Scientific & Technological Progress issued by Shuanxi Provincial Educational Commission. I believe those are sufficient to indicate my past research achievements and my future research potential.

Although I am fairly familiar with GSM, 3G network management technology and standards, I know that the application of computer software technology in network management covers a much more comprehensive range of knowledge in computer software, including object-oriented software engineering, distributed object computing technology, computer network and communication network technology, database, and operating systems like UNIX and Nt. They represent the some of the important challenges that a network manager must face. Although I have tried my uttermost efforts to keep myself in pace with the rapid developments in computer technology, I still feel it absolutely necessary for me to go back to university to receive advanced trainings and a systematic education. Out of such a consideration, I wish to apply for a Ph. D. program in computer technology, which will focus on software engineering, distributed object computing technology, network technology including wireless communication network technology.

It is beyond doubt that the United States plays a leading role in distributed computing technology and network technology. Similarly, the University of # # # occupies a most unparalleled position among American universities in those field. If admitted, I will integrate my past educations, research and work experiences with the advanced research facilities and fruitful teachings of senior professors that your esteemed university has to offer. I believe that such a fusion is bound to make my prospective degree program as fulfilling as it is successful.