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I'm writing my statement of purpose for computer science master's program.

Can I refer to the concept of a movie that I have watched and kept me wondering and aroused my curiosity? I'm talking about Steven Spielberg's masterpiece, “Artificial Intelligence”. It really had a key role in motivating me to continue for postgraduate studies and research in the field.

Thank you in advance.

Amir Mahdi Nassiri
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1 Answers1

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You "can" do what you want in a Statement of Purpose, but if you hope that this remark will inspire the committee, or show how inspired you are, it will likely miss the mark.

Generally, I have the impression that you may misunderstand what the Statement of Purpose is for - but you are not alone. From browsing Academia.SE, it is clear that the SOP is easily the most misunderstood part of the application package. I encourage you to browse through the questions here related to SOPs, and gauge how senior professors feel about it. Particularly, look at this excellent resource.

To summarize:

See it as a freeform document where you can document anything that is easy to miss in your CV or letters, or which may need further explanation. Do not see it as a place to sketch your "journey so far", discuss your lifelong dream to become a scientist, or explain how you feel the strong urge to change the world. See it from the perspective of a critical reviewer of your application and what they look for. Will them knowing how a Spielberg movie motivated you to pursue AI make you more likely to succeed in grad school? It's highly unlikely, so why would they care? Better to spend the short attention span that every application gets on what relevant previous research experience you had.

xLeitix
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  • Thanks for the great link. I was wondering how to create an interesting introduction paragraph, instead of being boring and start right to the point. Am I willing to do it wrong? – Amir Mahdi Nassiri Dec 08 '17 at 17:27
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    @AmirMahdiNassiri Let me tell you a secret as somebody who recently looked at 250 PhD applications: it's not relevant if you write something "interesting" at the beginning. Nobody reads your statement carefully end-to-end, they glance over it for something that catches their eye. What fluffy text you write as first paragraph won't matter, people won't read it but instead browse the statement for hard information about you. – xLeitix Dec 08 '17 at 17:44
  • :D I really appreciate the true insight! So is it OK to start right away to the hard information? Do you suggest to bold out these kind of information? – Amir Mahdi Nassiri Dec 08 '17 at 17:48
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    The part where I agree is that nobody would read 250 applications end-to-end. But after filtering out the 245 less interesting ones, the 5 ones that remain may demand a closer look. There I'm not so sure if a short inspirational statement will universally come off as of the mark, provided that the hard facts are there as well. After all, some well-regarded researchers have such statements on their websites, too. – lighthouse keeper Dec 08 '17 at 23:01