基本情况：张同学，北京邮电大学，电子工程，GPA 3.68，TOEFL 101，GRE 326 

录取学校：Columbia University M.S. in Electrical Engineering 

My pursuits of science, music, as well as sports have constantly brought fresh vitality to my life and motivated me to keep challenging myself, learning and growing from my failures. Teaming up with my friend to participate in singing contests held by our university taught me to step outside of myself, to indeed think, and work as a team, so that we could give full play to our strengths and accomplish our goals. Also, spending great effort on practicing aerobics and partaking in national competition with my teammates, I was keenly aware of and moved by the power of team work. More importantly, what I have learned from my interests has also guided me to insist in both independent and collaborative researches. 

In graduate study, I plan to focus my research on Signal and Information Processing. During my undergraduate study of Electrical Engineering at the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, I was exposed to Signal and Image Processing through courses like Signals and Systems and Principles of Communication. The course Digital Signal Processing was especially useful, as I learned what work was being done in Image De-noising and Binary Images Processing. Seeing how effectively image sharpness was transformed after the de-noising process by using a computer, CCS2.0, and a simulator based on DSP piqued my interest in pursuing this as my career, particularly when I discovered its extensive application in our daily life, like in fingerprint, face, barcode, and iris recognition. 

The M.S. in Electrical Engineering in your Department of Electrical Engineering can meet my interest in Signal and Information Processing. Professor Shih-Fu Chang’s research in multimedia search and retrieval, image and video analysis, signal processing and computer vision, are what I anticipate to pursue in my graduate study. Through making full use of your well-structured resources, I believe I will successfully complete my graduate study plan in your department. 

In graduate study of Signal and Information Processing, I hope to address questions like the Image Search. With the rapid development and increasingly wide application of technologies like multimedia, image information, and networks, the scale of image databases is also expanding. Thus, an urgent solution is needed for effective management of visual information. My research goal is to build my strength in search and be able to manage massive visual data swiftly and efficiently. From there, I would like to extend my research into the field of Computer Vision, which is correlated with Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition. Based on my current knowledge and research experience, I think the main three aspects that hinder the development of Computer Vision are limited computing capacity, undetermined cognitive theory, and a tradeoff between precise recognition and fuzzy features. I look forward to performing research on human neural networks and mastering more knowledge of Deep Learning to model high-level abstractions in Data, and then building a neural network that can learn and process data such as images, audio, and text, following the mechanism of human brain. 

As part of my preparation for graduate study, I have participated in a project on developing the Embedded Video Image Enhancement Platform in the Key Laboratory of Opto- Electronic Information Processing, Chinese Academy of Sciences, since October 2016. Throughout the study of Guided Image Filtering, the using of MATLAB to test my mastery of algorithms, as well as the input of codes into Digital Signal Processor, I have not only acquired a clearer and more direct perception of Image Processing, but also fostered a rigorous research attitude and boosted my confidence to perform more researches. Besides, through coursework the MCM/ICM competition, I have cultivated my logical thinking capability in mathematics. The 2016 MCM/ICM competition was especially valuable, as I led the team on a project to keep the temperature of water in tub as close as possible to its initial one over a given period of time. To test our assumptions and modeling, I taught myself to use the MATLAB Curve Fitting Tool, Plot function,and Regression function. Additional, in order to distinguish our model from others and also to better meet the demands of consumers, I added a priority of fuzzy control on the main topic.At last, our efforts paid off, with our paper being awarded the Honorable Mention. 

As an Electrical Engineering major, I also practiced and improved my programming skills through various research projects and contests. The most significant of these was the Students’ Scientific Research Innovation Project held by our university, with the goal of building a detection system for determining whether a ball had hit the line in ball games. As the project leader, I took charge of designing the single-chip microcomputer program and the signal detection of sensor. In order to enhance the precision of our detection system, we put our focus on the design of the sensors’ configuration and the topological structure of circuits; to actualize our goals, I taught myself to utilize the experiment board of single- chip microcomputer and KEIL to build projects. Through the project, I have formed my own way of mastering the knowledge of single-chip microcomputer program, and above all, learned to be persistent and patient when dealing with setbacks. 

A life full of vitality and vigor is my goal, and electrical engineering has provided me such an opportunity to date. Moving abroad, joining discussions and immersing myself in cutting-edge research results of Signal & Image Processing, whether in the classroom or at seminars with my peers and professors, will serve to expand my knowledge and brighten my life. Having heard about the excellence of American universities’ strong academic atmosphere and cultural diversified environment from my uncle, I cannot wait to see it for myself.