Statement of purpose : Xiaodong Cai, Medical Doctor, Johns Hopkins University
Statement of purpose : Coly, International Law, A Top University
Statement of purpose : Lee,Electronics and Mechanics, A top Technology Institute
Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what taste you will get next. And so was my ambition for the future. From mathematician to engineer, from physicist to physician. But now, after years of thought and exploration, I am determined to devote my whole life to public health. Born into a family of an engineer and an accountant, I was driven by an inborn momentum for math and was No. 1 from primary school to college years, winning dozens of competitions and awards. The case is almost the same in physics. But before long I realized that math and physics were only tools that provided me with a sound platform for thinking and reasoning, which, critical to medical practice, ensured my excellence in the medical college later.
Due to my academic accomplishments and mastery of English language, I was chosen as one of the two exchange students at the Medical School of the University of California at San Francisco, for two months as a clerk in my seventh college year. What impressed me most was the abundance of medical resources and the advanced health care system, which I don't think China can achieve in the next ten years. This sharp contrast caused me to give up my dream of becoming a physician. I realized that I may offer my people more by researching in the public health area. As a developing country, China is in great need of health resources and most importantly, professionals who are able to accurately analyze health problems and efficiently exploit the existing limited resources, i.e., to design systems and implement equitable and cost-effective strategies for delivering health care and health promotion interventions. However, most public health professionals in China come from either successful physicians or surgeons that lack systematic health system management education or researchers that lack rounded clinical training. In my opinion, an integrated, multidisciplinary, and especially a participatory approach must be the framework of those who are committed to the improvement of a given population's health. Therefore I decided to study and work in the field of international health in your renowned department and institute, which is dedicated to extending better health to those less fortunate in the developing countries, providing innovative solutions to the management of health services and resources. To be specific, my research goals are burden disease evaluation, health information systems and health administration statistics.
With this ambition, I chose the following subject as the research project in my final year; disease burden evaluation, a comprehensive approach with family and social orientation. Based on DALY (Disability-Adjusted Life Year), my research emphasized the effect of disease on the family and society and combined the three sets to obtain a comprehensive evaluation of disease burden. Faced with all those scales and questionnaires in my research, I familiarized myself with SPSS, SAS, DisMod and other statistical packages, adding more to my statistical background established by the medical statistics and epidemiology courses in my college. Now I am fully prepared for advanced training in public health, which will make me a multidisciplinary talent that is qualified in both clinical medicine and public health.
I have a dream that one day I will be working as a public health professional in my countD; helping the people be free of diseases, with keen analyses, better strategies and efficient use of the limited resources, and above all, my heart and soul.
With China's impending entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO), I would like to undertake graduate studies in your reputable law school in the United States so that I can be better grounded in public law. This, I believe, will significantly boost me to the forefront in a profession that is starved of talents in China. Devoted and hard working, I am always the envy of my peers. In 1996, I graduated from high school into the one of most prestigious university in China, which is often dubbed one of the China's Ivy League Universities.
Seeking to ride the tide of the times in an era of reforms and opening-up, I chose International Law as my major. In preparing myself for advanced research, I obtained a solid background in both Chinese and International Law system. I have stayed among the top students in my class of sixty undergraduates. My numerous scholarships and honors also attested to my excellence and academic achievements. Every year I won the First Prize Scholarship of the school besides other highly competitive scholarships, which no one of my major has accomplished in the past.
To enhance my understanding of law, I have not only read extensively but also have taken every opportunity to challenge myself. After hard work in legal research, my diligence and patience paid off. Although undergraduates having publications are quite rare, some of my research papers were published in China's key legal journals. And I was invited to address one of my papers in the symposium held by the social development research center of the Chinese Academy of Social Science, which groups together the best and brightest in China's social scientific community.
But the greatest benefit I have achieved in the university is not awards and honors but a much-broadened vision. It becomes apparent to me that I should keep in touch with the real world and that we college students are molders of society's future. Guided by this understanding, I took every chance to go beyond my textbooks and wet my feet in several extracurricular activities. I have been the leader of the Student Union of our university and I particularly enjoyed this position as it made me more determined, organized and enthusiastic. I also worked part-time in a variety of places off-campus to feel the pulse of China's burgeoning market economy. In those jobs, I have earned all the money I needed to pay my tuition fees and maintenance. Balancing my leadership role, part-time job task with my course load was both challenging and rewarding.
My professional strength, however, go way beyond my excellent academic records. Between September 1999 and January 2000, I served the fall semester as a trainee in the district court to get familiar with the litigation procedure. During the internship, I practiced in a lot of trials of economic, commercial, intellectual properties and maritime law cases. At that time, I was very interested in a maritime law case involving $70,000,000 compensation for damages. With the permission of the collegiate bench trying this case, I wrote the trial report independently after the hearing. In the discussion, I did not hesitate to put forth my perspectives on the judgment and I won the unanimous agreement of all the judges in the bench. After that, I obtained many opportunities to get embedded application of what I have learned. This intern experience greatly enriched my knowledge of the actual circumstances that may rise or lend defense to claims, and such experience will surely prove highly useful in my future study.
The more I experienced, the more I felt that my training in China falls short of what I needed to effectively deal with my international counterparts in the course of my practice. This summer vacation I worked as an intern in the WG law firm whose strong international practice is anchored in the UK. Though the attorneys there had taught me much, I often found it difficult to be sure about the accurate expression of my report in legal English without comprehensive and advanced training. With China's expected entry into WTO, China is in great need of lawyers who excel in Chinese, foreign languages, International Economic Law and English. Therefore I am eager to undertake graduate studies in a qualified American law school.
The tremendous gap between the American laws and the Chinese laws calls for exactly the kind of expertise in public law. To a very large extent, Chinese laws are still few and far between and are no comparison to those of the US, either in sophistication or in numbers. Hence it is vital for China to learn and borrow from advanced legal regimes such as that of the US. To do so, China must have many of her law students trained in your country. Unfortunately, very few students come to the US to study law because most are deterred by the cost and application requirements of the law schools. I would like to receive the scholarship you offer and enroll in your program. I want to make contributions, particularly in relation to the country's International Economic Laws when I graduate and come back to China to be a lawyer or a public policy adviser. I believe the training in the US will help me realize my ambition to help bridge the gap and I will be able to reach my highest potential in legal studies.
For that, I would appreciate if you could consider my application favorably.
In the memories of my childhood, I always followed a web: the electrical power web.
My parents, electrical engineers in a power construction company, repeatedly moved from place to place. As they moved, they connected more and more wires, which stretched all over the country...and across my childhood imagination as well. So it was like coming home when I started my college education at the department of Electrical Engineering in (name) Industrial Institute. I had tremendous passion for figuring out the "web" - on paper and in my mind.
My college experience was very fulfilling. I strove to make the most of my educational development, constructing creative problem solving techniques in addition to absorbing knowledge. For example, using a new way of constructing a symmetry spherical function f(x, y, z) by putting three similar plane function g(x, y), g(y, z) and g(z, x), I once solved a very difficult spherical integral problem which no one else in the class could solve. Extending the content of superposition theorem, I developed my thinking of treating a short circuit as two superposed reversed voltage sources with equal amplitude and an open circuit as two superposed reversed current sources with equal amplitude. Then, by superimposing the same black box linear circuits with different sources, I used my own "theorem" to give a very simple solution to the problem. I even amazed the teacher.
In 1995, I entered the graduate program at University of (name) of China, the largest and the most comprehensive electronic and information technical university in China. Our laboratory of 3-millimeter wave technology is the best among Chinese universities. My research was part of the 3-millimeter wave radar telecommunication system. My focus was on millimeter waver power combination (a technology of increasing the transmitting power of the radar) upon the suggestion by Professor Tang, the first researcher to develop 3-millimeter wave resonant oscillator in China. With limited knowledge in this area, I started my exploration with the several 3-millimeter wave oscillators developed by our Lab. How about trying to connect different oscillators directly and making full use of common wave-guide, especially many wave-guide H-T junctions in our laboratory? I referred to various articles concerned with power combinations, including those in IEEE-MTT. No one had ever used that structure! I had a unique idea! When I presented my idea to Professor Tang, he said that was indeed what he wanted.
There were three major steps in my research. The first, the most important part, is the theoretical analysis of the structure. Then came the calculation. I needed to program a very large matrix, with each element a matrix as well. I had to be very careful to have a clear program chart in mind, and then carefully work on programming and debugging little by little. The last step was the experiment. Professor Tang taught me how to handle the different kinds of testing equipment. After many days and sleepless nights, so man), calculations, and so much programming and experimenting, I handed in the thesis on time. In retrospect, my workload was always heavy, but it was undoubtedly worth the time and effort.
After graduation, with a solid background in microwave and wireless technology, I joined (name) Group, one of the top five telecommunications R&D industries in China today. I was among the first eight employees of the two month old Division of Mobile Communications. I was also selected to attend the BSS engineer training offered by Motorola, an experience I will never forget. I was amazed to know that there were so many complicated technologies in mobile communications, such as Frequency Hopping, Burst Interleaving, Channel Encoding/Decoding, and the ability to transmit different messages different interfaces. Later, I was singled out to write a book for our new employees to introduce this fascinating technology. Displaying what I thought to be extraordinary passion and diligence, I finished the book myself in two weeks. The book was highly recommended by my managers and colleagues, who held that my explanation of the GSM system was even easier to understand than Motorola's training.
As a hardware engineer, I participated in the GSM engineering project. I even climbed up the antenna tower to install antennas. As a software engineer, I joined the project of developing CDMA module based on the SS7 system of JPM-I commercial mobile exchange system. With message configuration table and data description/control tools, I developed my own version of software to handle signaling messages flow through A and MAP interfaces. This work gave mc a deep understanding of the different interfaces and massages between different layers of OSI models in a mobile system. It also greatly improved my computer skills and strengthened my spirit of cooperation.
Later, I took part in other mobile communication system projects, such as BTS power supply and mobile antenna, and other SDH and LAN/WAN projects. All of them gave me a chance to gain a comprehensive and thorough understanding of the whole communication system.
With years of academic and working experience in the field of wireless communications, I understand my passion for this promising technology. I love this fascinating field. I believe I am a creative and quick learner in this technology. I am good at mathematics, circuits, programs, and applications. My next goal is to pursue my Ph.D. degree in my favorite area, wireless communications. From the electromagnetic transmission in physical laver to a calling establishment flow-chart in application layer, I feel I have prepared well enough, and have a broad enough knowledge of wireless communications to realize my goal.
I choose (university name) because the graduate programs and research projects offered by many academic units, including the Center for Wireless Telecommunications (one of the best wireless research centers in the States), are very in line with my interests. I am very interested in your current projects, such as the Wireless World Wide Web. This technology is still a future research area for many Chinese industries. I believe my study and research in (university name) would enable me to better serve our Chinese future mobile technology. I wish to be admitted to pursue my study and research as part of your excellent program. I believe I can be one of the best-qualified students in your program.
When I was a little boy, I always dreamed of building the same webs as my parents. But while they built a web that enables us to share energy, I wish to build another web -- a wireless web, an invisible web -- that lets all people around the world share information.
This is the future for which I strive: truly wireless communications.
