At 20, of course, I still have much to learn. I am a Chinese woman who lives to learn, however, and it is my sheer zeal for study itself that is the greatest strength that I hope to bring to your program. Born and raised in China, I have always excelled at mathematics, scientific thinking in general, and economic issues. I especially love statistics because of its power to help us understand social and economic factors, issues, and challenges. I am especially interested in doing research in the areas of applied and financial statistics. My long term goal is to be successful as a researcher and/or consultant in the area of financial statistics, models, theory, and practical applications. It is my sincere hope to be accepted to your competitive program because of my keen desire to attend graduate school in the West. I feel strongly that this will optimally prepare me for working fluently in statistical models and programs that straddle the divisions between East and West. I spend much of my free time analyzing financial challenges, especially those that are most problematic for China, the Chinese economy, and the many challenges that we face as such a populous nation with such a rapidly growing economy. China is in desperate need of adequately trained statisticians that are sensitive to the needs of our society, especially statisticians that have state-of-the-art training in a program such as yours.

I am currently finishing my undergraduate studies at XXXX University as a Math major with a minor in economics. In addition to my studies, I have learned a great deal as a volunteer Team Leader for tutors in the area of Science. We go to public high schools and tutor students in math and nature science. In fact, I have a long history of volunteer work ever since my first year in high school, when I began organizing students to visit retired  teachers over the holidays, at least three times each year.

I also have professional experience; during the summer of 2010, working as a full time Assistant Analyst for the Tian Hong Corporation. I was responsible for the analysis of commercial documents, especially the data. I used Matlab, Mathematica, and R project to analysis and predict sales of different types of products, and profits as well as costs. I particularly enjoyed breaking down the statistics according to gender, age, and profession/employment: what kinds of clients prefer which kinds of cars, for example, or how different customers deal with coupons, helping us to better gauge how much inventory might be needed. I also used cost and benefit analysis to gauge the profitability of introducing new brands. Throughout the summer of 2011, I worked at XXXX Insurance Company crunching numbers to help us estimate the potential viability of new insurance plans that had been proposed. These internships have helped me to become a much more creative statistician with a more sophisticated understanding of how statistics are of fundamental importance to business development. I better appreciate the way in which data is the most convincing evidence; and I understand better how and why mistakes are often made and what can be done about it.

This semester, Fall 2011, I have been serving as a TA for Mathematics 218 (statistics). I grade quizzes, homework assignments, and examinations. I very much enjoy teaching students and work very hard to understand and help them with their specific weaknesses. I am a dedicated student and a very hard worker; and this is why I will be finishing my undergraduate studies this coming May, 2012, after only 3 years of study. I will go back to China after graduating so that I can serve my country at this critical juncture in history when it is experiencing such rapid development. I look forward to a long and productive career and hope to make numerous, important contributions to addressing the many problems that we have in our financial system. In particular, I hope to learn from the shining examples of Japan and Singapore, two countries that I have visited, with economic success stories from which I hope to continue to learn invaluable strategies.

I have studied many subjects: economics, finance, philosophy, sociology, physics, chemistry, biology. With each class, I have always paid special attention to the critical role played by statistics, reading additional articles about the statistics that are most relevant for each discipline. I have fallen in love with statistics because of the way that our discipline is able to make complex problems manageable, arriving quickly at the key information that is sought. By the time that I had finished 3 statistics classes, I found out that I could easily understand most of the statistical results, especially in economics, even using statistical models to do my own analysis to do analysis. For this reason, I am confident that I would be able to excel in your Master’s Program.

One reason why I do excel at statistics is because, since primary school, I have had a special affinity with nature science, winning many awards in this area. I was born into a middle class family and my parents paid for my tuition up until this point. Now, however, I am hoping to be able to pay for the rest of my education by continuing to serve as a Teaching Assistant in a Master’s Program. I am not the brightest student that will apply to your program, but I persevere, never making the same mistake twice. I also work harder than many other students, since my studies are my passion, I am not easily distracted.  I feel strongly that I am mature for my age as well. This may be due in part to the way that my family suffered as a result of China’s financial crisis in 2008. I still remember my mother constantly sitting in front of her desktop, watching graphs, reading articles, and sometimes gently sobbing. I felt that we were under attack from forces outside of our control and I dedicated myself at that time to do everything that I could to help by studying financial analysis and investment.

I have two undergraduate majors (Math and Economics) and one minor (Financial Economics). But I want very much to study statistics in graduate school because I see it as the foundation of all economics and finance models; and I want to dedicate my life to learning how to best apply these models to the real world. Earning a Master’s Degree in your renowned program will give me the best possible opportunity to learn what I want to learn and serve as a springboard to greater professional responsibilities. I assure you that I will give my all to my studies and any teaching/tutoring duties to which I might be assigned, especially for those who most need my assistance. We have one student, for example, who has some kind of emotion illness or disability and I have spent a lot of time with him helping him to stay up with the rest of the class. I always help the professor by cleaning the board and desk and I response to all student emails, promptly answering their questions over the weekend when the professor does not check his email. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your consideration of my application and taking me into consideration as a possible Teaching Assistant.