In the following admission essay, I would like to be precise about my motivation for pursuing a Master’s degree at Duke University. Below, I provide background information, which may be of value to the admissions committee.
To begin with, I always had a passion for technology. In fact, I once had a witty business idea. It was bound to solve a problem that travellers encounter on a daily basis – language. Language is one of the most significant barriers when it comes to travel. It becomes especially tricky when traveling to exotic countries; yet, not only. In many European countries, especially if one travels to the periphery, people often do not speak English. Therefore, I came up with an idea of a device that would allow for simultaneous translation. This was part of one of our assignments in the Information Technology class; we were asked to devise a product that would help users in solving a specific problem. Unfortunately, the abovementioned idea was not brought to life, since the assignments entailed only presenting the idea in theory. At the time, I lacked knowledge about voice recognition, text-to-speech technology, as well as associated programming skills. Only recently has machine translation made progress with such products as Skype Interpretation, which thrilled me. At the same time, I could not help but think, “What if I had made it myself?” This thirst for knowledge and creative innovation in the sphere of technology drives me to pursue the MSc program in Interdisciplinary Data Science. I am convinced that this degree will allow me to gain the necessary skills for bringing my ideas to fruition.

During my Bachelor’s program, I majored in Business Administration. This was a valuable period in my life, since I learned numerous things in the realm of business. Most importantly, this experience taught me to make weighed decisions supported by data. In college, I engaged in an E-Commerce certificate program, wishing to gain some hands-on technical experience. During this program, I especially enjoyed the RFID Information Systems and E-Commerce Technology courses. After gaining more insight into RFID, I understood how it can be used to improve data collection processes. The second course taught me about statistical classification theories and decision tree classifiers. In one of the assignments, I applied my theoretic knowledge to a credit card user dataset, learning how to detect potential credit card frauds or anomalies.

Next, I would like to be more precise about my past professional experiences. Previously, I have worked as a content creator at the EMC Taipei Marketing firm. My job consisted of generating discussion threads and comments on different online platforms to improve SEO outcomes. It was a revelation that commenting and reviewing were money-generating tools. During this experience, I learned that people’s purchasing behaviors are better addressed via indirect marketing tools. Personalized digital advertisements are used to show the audience what it wants to see. As a result, consumers make their purchases based on crowd-sourced reviews. Furthermore, once I understood SEO algorithms, I realized that word-of-mouth marketing is the outcome of careful calculations and statistics. The recommendation system transforms consumers’ decision-making processes, boosts overall sales, and generates loyal consumers.

Importantly, my experiences in sales have helped me to shape my soft skills; in addition, I became even more interested in data science. During the four years of working in sales, not a single day went by without gaining some technical knowledge. For instance, I gained awareness of how to build a proof of concept for an enterprise’s IT environment and how to troubleshoot a server remotely. Some other essential skills that I mastered during my experience in sales dealt with communication; I learned to deliver bad news and to identify/resolve communication issues. A combination of analytical and communication skills allowed me to become the junior account manager. During this experience, I was able to secure a $7 million deal. Within this project, I applied cross-referencing and sales history analysis for evaluating competitors’ data. What is more, I put together a detailed proposal, which showed the client how we could save time and money. In my analysis, I relied on Microsoft Excel. Presently, I realize that with more knowledge about data processing I could have done an even better job.

During my third year at Supermicro, I was invited to participate in Program OpX, where I learned to improve internal operational processes in order to decrease company expenditures. This was a bigger challenge than expected, since we were dealing with twenty-four years of data and transactions. The task was further complicated due to inefficient data compilation and processing previously done by employees. These disorganized and manual systems had become too difficult and costly to manage. After further investigating the issue, we made a decision to create an auto-configurator. It was meant to reduce customers’ waiting time and save sales/product managers’ time. The difficulty was that Supermicro has over 300 product SKUs with thousands of combinations. After only three months, I could see that the new approach allowed us to make better decisions in product development and go-to-market strategies. This project strengthened my determination to become a data scientist.

Finally, signing up for the Data Analytics Immerse Boot Camp at the General Assembly was perhaps one of the best professional decisions that I ever made. The first independent project that I worked on explored whether Airbnb should invest in Amsterdam. I was provided with a huge dataset and had to generate a descriptive analysis using the EDA (Exploratory Data Analysis) method. In parallel, I ran several statistics via Excel and SQL in search for linear regressions and patterns to predict possible outcomes. This exploratory process taught me many new things about data analysis. As I gained new insights from the data, I experienced a great sense of achievement.

As you can see from each of the abovementioned experiences, IT and data science plays a key role in my professional life. Regardless of the spheres that I worked in – sales and marketing, business analysis, and product engineering – there was always some element of data science that I continuously explored. In fact, I am convinced that data science is one of the few disciplines that can be applied in any industry. The key reason why I selected the Duke MIDS program is that the curriculum perfectly meets my career goals; also, Duke University offers the perfect setting for gaining hands-on experience. In addition to python programming, I am deeply interested in such courses as Text Analysis, Computational Social Science, and Design and Analysis of Algorithm. My long-term goal is to use my technical knowledge to resolve social problems. In order to achieve this, I will need to acquire as many skills as I can in the field. Furthermore, I would like to learn more about managing an IT business, which is why Data to Decision and Data Storytelling courses sound highly compelling to me. During my graduate studies, I plan to work with Professor Egger who has extensive experience in creating innovative products and managing start-ups. One of my career goals is to build a FinTech product that will break through traditional barriers in the world of finance, creating pathways for safer online banking.

An in-depth education in data science will be one of the most important stepping-stones in my career life. I am deeply convinced that a degree from Duke University will provide me with solid knowledge and skills for reaching my goal: to become a leader in the field of global innovations.