我申请美国学校的个人陈述(SOP for OSU)

“Hi Jason. I've just had the pleasure of reading your SOP with care -- it is really excellent, a wise choice of approach and tone. You've done a superb job of communicating your experience, your talents and accomplishments, and your personal point of view. I think this is really a winner. I can't imagine but that an admissions committee would be very favorably impressed. I think this SOP will help you stand out from the group of other applicants.

I have made some suggestions with regard to wording here and there. Nothing, I hope, that changes in any way your intent. Your English command is native-like, and you have a real feel for the rhythm of written English, something that not even all native speakers possess.”

     当然这只是美国人很一贯的鼓励。 我今天还是把这篇SOP贴出来，希望能给还没有头绪的学弟学妹一点点参考。

                             Statement of Purpose

I believe that a fundamental aspect of undergraduate education is learning the art of making important choices. No matter how hard one’s growing pains might be, mastering this art is at the heart of every student's success. So starting from my second year in college, I've been struggling to make such choices and to make them intelligently. Saying goodbye to the frivolity of freshman year and beginning to really study, for instance, has been one. For my entire sophomore year I dived into textbooks such as Electric Machinery, Analog Electronics and Control Theory, and had most of my weekends spent at the library, which, as it turned out, gradually became a pleasure and a reward in itself. I think my interest in Electrical Engineering developed back then. 

The most important transition I underwent, however, was during my third year in college, when I was able to be a member in the Power Electronics Analysis & Control Lab in my department. There I began to gain hands-on experience with my major. Actually at that time I had not taken the Power Electronics course yet, and I was assigned a job to test the IGBT driving circuits used in APF and STATCOM. With knowledge only in Analog Electronics, I had to learn everything from scratch. I read books about PCB, consulted graduate students, and figured out the exact function of every circuit module. Every time I detected a malfunction of a certain part of the circuits, I would try to analyze it independently and then test it to find out whether it was because of false welding, or the breakup of components for thermal problems, or so forth. Although it seemed simple, this work provided me a taste of the feeling of research—trouble shooting.

Towards the end of my junior year and continuing into the summer of 2009, I switched my research focus on active power filters. I participated in a project aiming at adopting APF in three-phase four-wire systems. Besides playing a key role in building the related simulation model, I focused my effort on detection and compensation of the neutral harmonic current and read a number of journal articles. Knowing that the conventional zigzag transformers can be bulky and have overloading concerns, our project group proposed a new neutral line APF system that utilizes only a single-phase inverter and connects to the three-phase four-wire system through three single-phase transformers. As a result of this research, I co-authored an oral presentation entitled “A Novel and Small-Capacity Neutral Line Active Power Filter in Three-Phase Four-Wire System,” which was shown at the 8th International Conference on Power Electronics and Drive Systems. While working at the lab, I audited two graduate courses—Modern Power Electronics and AC Drives, Harmonic Mitigation and Reactive Power Compensation. Together with the graduate and Ph.D students in my lab, I grow and learn in each course I take, each seminar I attend, and each presentation I give. Meanwhile, working with them has made me keenly aware that although my GPA for the past three years ranks me in the top 1% of my department, my research experience is not rich enough, and I constantly find in myself a desire to learn, a desire to improve on weakness, and a desire to succeed. It was this thought that has driven me to make yet another important choice in my life—to further my study in the U.S.

My immediate degree objective is a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, with concentration in power electronics. For the past summer I did substantial background reading as well as utilizing course websites for notes and references to scientific literature in this area, and I found myself interested in various aspects of power electronics, particularly its application to utility systems, such as variable speed drives and distributed generation. Of all the programs that I have researched, the Ohio State University’s Power and Energy Program is the best fit for my goals: I want to play a role in inventing and advancing the next generation of power electronics and its   applications. Several months ago, I had the chance to listen to Professor Longya Xu’s lecture here in Wuhan University about the doubly excited brushless reluctance machine (DEBRM) and its application to wind power generation systems. Enlightening and exciting, this speech inspires me to dig deeper into this field. Professor Longya Xu’s groundbreaking research on DEBRM and other achievements that he and his Power Electronics & Electrical Machines (PEEM)Group have made are what make his team so respectable and invigorating. It will be, therefore, a truly great privilege for me to join this group and to have Professor Longya Xu as my advisor.

We have been talking about energy for decades. But there is no longer a disagreement over whether renewable energy will reshape people's lives in the 21st century—it's happening. And there is no longer a question about whether power electronics technology will be part of that reshaping force—it will. The question is, who and what groupings of intelligent researchers will make breakthroughs in this field that is going to shape what the world is like tomorrow? I hope that answer to include me. Therefore my career goal is very simple: after completing my doctoral work, I will seek employment as a professor. Because as a professor I would not have to sacrifice my research interests to cater to the monetary compensation readily available in industry,and I can focus on and commit to the continuous development in my chosen field. In the meantime, my undergraduate TA experience has convinced me that few of my personal joys could compete with the delight of helping to unlock the potential of students, empowering them to take control of their lives.

I am confident that I will be able to make a significant contribution to the Power and Energy Program at The Ohio State University, and I hope I will have the opportunity to do so. Please let me know if I can provide additional information to help you evaluate my application.