Is this a good personal statement for a Masters?
Hey,
I am applying for a software project management masters and This is my personal statement. It’s 600 words so thanks to anyone who takes the time to read it and comment.
Dear Sir / Madam,
My name is Joe Bloggs, I am a Bsc. Commercial Software Development graduate currently residing in Dublin and working for an exciting social network aggregating software company. I wish to continue my studies to Masters level to further my career to becoming a project manager for my company. The company is rapidly expanding and I would like to have the tools needed to be an integral part of the companies future success.
Distance learning is an obvious choice for me to complete a Masters. I would like to continue to be based in Dublin improving my work experience and applying what I am learning to my work as i learn it. In my studying I am completley self motivated, target driven and do not need to be in a taught environment. I often learn about new technologies and methodologies through reading online journals and blogs and whenever possible, apply what I learn to my work. I find the best way for me to learn is through visual displays – I generally think in pictures. I find flow charts, presentations and diagrams etc. the best way for me to learn. When I don’t fully understand a topic I am not afraid to ask questions and research on the internet as well as academic libraries.
I currently work as a lead QA engineer on a well known product delivered to a large German based European telco. This work, which I have been performing for 18 months now, has exposed me to many areas of project management and work. I have constant deadlines and milestones which need to be met and am required to assess risks almost on a daily basis. I have been involved in each phase of the project from right at the beginning and partake in tasks such as requirements gathering and analysis. Because I work for an agile software company, I constantly have to deal with changing requirements and often liase with the customer regarding these and provide estimations of man days required and effort. I have been completely geared towards learning to change plans to suit changing needs. After this, The plan is executed and I am the person in charge of ensuring continuous QA and finally signing off on the product for delivery.
I am very interested in project management, I have recently joined the PMI Ireland chapter and attended a HRM evening in the University of Limerick in Ireland which I found to be very interesting and made it clear to me that I would like to work in the project management field. My lifelong interest in software / computing led to me choosing this course which I hopefully will be accepted to study. A particular interest of mine is the agile software development methodology and I would like to see how the agile philosophies can be applied to project management as in the past I know that usual management frameworks and the agile methodology have not worked especially well together.
The Software Project Management course in Aberdeen University seems to be perfect for me. It is geared toward project management in the software sector. It will not require me to leave my job in a company that I am committed to and it is flexible enough for working professionals like myself to undertake without changing my lifestyle too much such as moving to another city. I have not found anything that I think looks this intertesting locally.
Please find attached with this application my professional references and supporting documents. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.
Kind Regards,
P.S Please disregard any spelling mistakes, the final draft will be checked for this