Writing a Statement of Purpose (SOP) is difficult. I am one that does not like to write about myself and probably several mental factors as to the reason why but haven’t explored that part of myself yet. Fortunately, I was able to write well enough, with some help, to get admitted into a PhD Pharmaceutical Sciences program. The process of getting to an SOP that I was happy with was painful. And the first place I started off was the internet. When rummaging around through the interwebs I wasn’t able to find as many SOP examples as I would have liked to see. And after some reflection, it did dawn on me that it might encourage plagiarism…
Although I would like to think more positively about the masses and would want to showcase my SOP to serve as an example of what worked for me as an educational purpose. Please be warned that whatever worked for me might not necessarily work for you so take it with a grain of salt and feel free to rip out chunks and add your own flavor on top (a lot of code is written that way).
After a plethora of edits from multiple folks (thank you again all who edited). I would like to proudly present my SOP, and I hope it helps with any of y’all applying to graduate school.
Prompt:
The essay should be between 300-500 words, address your academic and/or professional career goals, objectives in pursuing a graduate degree in pharmaceutical sciences, and indicate which research faculty and areas of research interest you. Please make sure your name is on your essay and upload as a supplemental item to the online application.Statement of Purpose
A past student once asked me how I secured a career as a scientist, and, more specifically, in informatics. In truth, much of my success is the consequence of researchers in my life providing opportunities for me to explore new ideas that address specific areas of need. Recognizing the impact of these opportunities on my own trajectory, I have launched a wealth of projects and I want to highlight two of my most recent accolades which most effectively demonstrate my capacity for leadership and research.I created LifeSciHack to offer similar possibilities for the next generation. LifeSciHack is an event that invites students, scientists, and engineers to come together and build projects which tackle the pain points of the life science industry. The event has already given many of my former students the chance to work on projects, gain network connections, and showcase themselves to potential employers. My goal was to propel Austin, Texas into a new life science collaborative future, and the event has already received significant buzz in early 2019 — winning the Mozilla Open Science Grant, featured on KXAN, and published in the Austin Business Journal. Later this year, LifeSciHack is headed to the Mozilla Festival hosted in London to lead the charge in Open Science. Hosting this event has been challenging to establish, but it demonstrates my leadership capabilities and what I can build when starting from zero.Not only do I want to help break down the barriers for young scientists, but also I want to innovate and pioneer new ideas for the scientific community. Recently, I launched the Cocktail Shaker project, which aims to rapidly build computational drug libraries. This was a problem I encountered in the past and I wanted to develop a solution to ease the process for any other researcher stuck in the same predicament. This project has been a culmination of my software engineering aptitude and chemical knowledge. Cocktail Shaker is currently in alpha release and in press for publication in the Journal of Open SourceSoftware. It is also being showcased at this year’s UGM RDKit Conference at the University of Hamburg. Cocktail Shaker not only proved to me that I can accomplish an extraordinarily ambitious task, it also helped me fine-tune my presentation skills to secure the support of other entities. In addition to being incredibly rewarding, this project has helped me understand how to effectively communicate and collaborate.I have a commitment to bringing innovation to the chemical/pharma industry and improving the efficacy of chemistry with the conviction that cheminformatics is the future. The University of ***** is a unique experience in which I hope to endeavor as they are at the forefront of pharmaceutical research. With the aid of the school of pharmacy, I believe we will be able to pioneer change into the world of chemistry and medicine.
