基本情况：陈同学，中国石油大学（华东），资源勘查工，GPA3.8，IELTS 7.0，GRE 323 

录取学校：University of Southern California MS in Petroleum Engineering 

Ever since my childhood years, I have developed strong interests to explore into the unknown world. Driven by such curiosity, I insisted on my exploration and in the process, gradually realized that geological science and petroleum engineering are subjects that fit perfectly with my personal interests. I hope to develop insightful understanding of these two areas because I was aware that the knowledge is power, these researches are meaningful as they help people to address some problems faced by all human beings, such as global warming, and allows us to make better use of our world. At China University of Petroleum, I majored in its nationally renowned Resource Exploration Engineering program. The rigorous training at our school enabled me to develop insights into many areas, such as geology, petroleum engineering, geophysics, just to name a few. As I explored deeper into these subjects, I found myself deeply attracted by their glamour and demonstrated a stronger desire to know more about them. Therefore, I decided to continue my studies in this area in the MS in Petroleum Engineering Program of USC. 

I am attracted by the program because first of all, USC is a top-notch school in this area. I have learned about Dr. Kristian jessen’s outstanding work in numerical simulation, geological CO2 storage and EOR; Dr. Iraj Ershaghi’s achievement on naturally fractured reservoirs and Dr. Behnam Jafarpour’s great work in subsurface modeling, using mathematical and physical knowledge to solve problems. The school has also provided abundant student organizations in which I could enrich my campus life. I want to jointhe Petroleum Graduate Student Association to connect with more talents in this area. After completing the master program, I hope to continue with my PhD study at your school, during which period I hope to perform researches independently and publish research papers on esteemed journals. In the long run, I seek to join a research institution to concentrate on geoscience and petroleum engineering, and sincerely aspire to make my own contributions to this industry. 

Research Interests 

If accepted by your esteemed program, my specific research interest will be focused on the field of reservoir engineering. While studying in Australia, I participated in a project about the carbon capture and storage. This experience enabled me to get in touch with the latest advancement in the geological CO2 storage. Via core flooding and autoclave reaction and CT scanning, I have gained deeper understanding of the reaction mechanism of carbon dioxide and rock. Besides, by conducting numerical simulation, I have learned further about this kind of reaction. Though this kind of research has made huge progress, we also have some puzzling problems not being solved, such as the safety issue like the possible leakage and earthquake. This research experience aroused my interests in carbon capture and storage, as well as other sectors concerning reservoir engineering. So, in my future study, I hope to concentrate on this field. 

Academic Preparation 

I am confident in my capacity of being an excellent student for your program. At China University of Petroleum, I demonstrated strong learning capacity and ranked second place in the whole grade. I also paid special attention to improving my computer skills, and up till now, I have been an excellent master of data processing software and programming software, such as MATLAB and C Language, and was able to operate different software about geological mapping, basin modeling and numerical simulation. 

Besides, I displayed my superior research capacity by participating in multiple projects, in which I played important roles. I altogether participated in the Geological Fieldwork Practices for twice, during which I benefited a lot from the in-depth conservations with experienced working staff and gained better understanding of various geological structures. All these practices were supervised by Prof. Song Quanyou and Xu Fangjian, from whom I improved a lot both academically and professionally 

At Curtin University in Australia, in addition to the carbon capture and storage project, I also worked on another project about the relation between rock permeability and compressibility. We did a lot of measurement and calculation. Though we have encountered a lot of difficulties, thanks to the solid mathematics and computer modeling foundation skills, I successfully established the theory model and tested it with experimental data. Through this project, I learned a lot about the measurement skills on porosity and permeability. 

Completed the Australia Program, I came back to China and continued my graduate study, I took part in another project funded by the 11th Five-Year Plan of National Nature Science to work on the fracture-filled carbonate reservoir in Tahe Oilfield. A project about the petroleum system. In the preliminary session, I read a lot of research articles in this field and get familiar with the research methods. We established the fractured-filled reservoir models and used seismic, logging and geochemical data to verify our model. This research achieved remarkable success later on. We can predict the fractures in the carbonate rock quite precisely and it works well in the production. 

If admitted by your school, I hope to share my personal educational background in both China and Australia and my abundant research experiences with my classmates. Learning together with the world’s most intellectual minds and exchanging ideas with them would definitely benefit me in a variety of ways. Meanwhile, it is expected that by learning in your university I will possess a unique opportunity to be fully immersed in fabulous ideologies and cultures from all over the world, consciously take the essences and discard the dregs while colliding sparks of knowledge with other students. Contributing to geological science will make my life meaningful and rewarding, and this goal can only be achieved with the support of your education.