UCLA, M.S.

in Computer Science, Fall 2019 My Name

Statement of Purpose
My research interests lay in Computer Systems and UCLA is my top choice. When
taking the Operating Systems course by Professor XXX at National Taiwan University (NTU), I was
fascinated by the harmony and comprehensiveness of Computer Systems. Their fantastic abilities to
coordinate components of computers under limited resources create masterpieces of computer science
time after time. Since then, I have devoted myself to the field of Computer Systems, including Op-
erating Systems and Embedded Systems. And I have submitted my first academic paper as the first
author in ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference, 2019. To strengthen my knowledge in computer
systems, I hope to pursue my Master’s degree at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Al-
though the admission to UCLA is very selective, I have strong qualifications with the following records:

Demonstrated my potential and gained the professor’s recognition. I started my research

with Professor XXX, who had made vital contributions in the field of Computer Systems. As an
ACM and IEEE fellow, Professor X has high expectations for his students. In his Operating Sys-
tems course, I completed a project about the process scheduling in Linux with the implementation of
different schedulers, including First-In-First-Out, weighted Round-Robin, and also customized policy
which gradually decreases the time slice for tasks. I also analyzed the pros and cons of each scheduler
with a detailed report. Through my outstanding performance in that course, I gained Professor X’s
recognition and joined his laboratory.

Well-trained to identify worthy topics and conduct solid research. Under Professor X’s
guidance, I learned how to systematically conduct research. In the beginning, I explored the knowledge
of computer systems that use non-volatile memory. After developing extensive knowledge, I found that
the reliability of 3D Phase Change Memory (PCM) Storage Systems is greatly suffered from the over-
heating problem that causes data corruption. Therefore, I designed an overheating-avoidance scheme
to prevent this problem. This scheme re-allocates data to appropriate storage layers and prevents fre-
quently writing data from accessing the high-temperature PCM layers. After graduating from NTU, I
cooperated with Dr. XXX as a research assistant at Academia Sinica to complete my research. From
the results of our experiments, we proved that our methods could remarkably improve the reliabil-
ity of 3D PCM storage systems, and then submitted our research results as “Overheating-Avoidance
Remapping Scheme for Reliability Enhancement of 3D PCM Storage Systems” in ACM/IEEE Design
Automation Conference (DAC 2019). This fascinating journey equips me with the capability to for-
mulate useful information, identify worthy topics and perform solid research.

Ability to solve problems efficiently and cooperate as an excellent team member. Be-
sides academics, I completed a software engineering internship at Synopsys Inc. My job was to design a
Vim plug-in to efficiently program with text editor Vim on products of Synopsys. It was a challenging
task because there was little information about Vimscript, the programming language of Vim, on the
Internet. Despite the difficulties, I finished the work with a three-quarter of the expected time. I came
up with a creative methodology based on the functions of Vimscript and efficiently finished the job
through teamwork with my colleagues. In addition, we presented our work to colleagues from branches
of other nations, including the USA, India, and Armenia, and many users adopted our work into their
systems in the end. During this internship, I learned the fundamentals of software engineering and
sharpened my teamwork skills.

With extraordinary faculty and complete system, UCLA has the best academic envi-
ronment. At UCLA, Professor Miodrag Potkonjak’s “Energy-efficient Fault Tolerance Approach for
the Internet of Things Applications” is very much related to my research since both our works involved
applying non-volatile memory to system devices and ensuring their reliability. Besides that, he also
UCLA, M.S. in Computer Science, Fall 2019 My Name

fascinates me by attaining energy-efficiency with an improved min-cut max-flow algorithm. I can’t

wait to join his course “CS259. Current Topics in Computer Science: System Design/Architecture”
to broaden my knowledge in system design and discuss my ideas with him. In addition, I’m obsessed
with Professor Peter Reiher’s project Conquest-2 because it simultaneously achieves performance and
energy-efficiency, which are usually conflicting goals, with a mechanism that cleverly stores most files
in RAM and provides separate data paths to memory and disk storage. With his specialty of systems,
I believe I can strengthen my understanding of operating systems in his “CS111. Operating Systems
Principles” course. Besides these two remarkable professors, there are also many exceptional scholars
in the Computer Science Department at UCLA have research interests in the systems field. Under the
academic advisor system and in the course “CS298. Research Seminar: Computer Science”, I will be
able to discuss my academic and career plans with these outstanding scholars. All these advantages
excite me and lead to me choosing UCLA as my first choice.

Being a developer of computer systems is my ultimate goal, and UCLA is an essential

milestone. With the development of non-volatile memory, computer systems have been better than
ever. But to completely unleash the power of non-volatile memory, many parts of the systems have to
be reconsidered. This trend and my interests in computer systems motivate me to become a developer
of computer systems. Throughout my studies at NTU, research at Academia Sinica, and internship
at Synopsys, I have developed a solid knowledge and research background in computer science. At
UCLA, I can have access to one of the best academic environments with comprehensive disciplines,
exceptional faculty, and notable alumni. All of them are necessary for achieving my goal. Thus, I
hope to join the big family of UCLA, contribute to enhancing the reputation of the Computer Science
Department, and become the alumnus that you will be proud of.