Personal History Statement / Yun-Nung Chen
http://VivianChen.idv.tw
When I was 10, I enjoyed painting so that I draw some comics and dreamed I am the leading role in them. After watching some science fiction movies, I was attracted by marvelous future technology; therefore, I started to make science fiction be the topic in my comics. Imagination about technology started to sprout in my mind.
With my family, I am never restricted to express my opinions, and my father also encourages me to cope with everything by not conventional but rational thinking. Thus, I possess unusual characteristics such as critical thinking and courage to challenge traditions. When I was little, I was usually fascinated with interesting mathematical and logical games such as brain storming. I entered Mathematics and Science Excellent Class in junior high school and was trained abilities, like thinking independently and doing some researches. I also participated in a lot of mathematical contests in Taiwan and science exhibitions and got good awards every time. Moreover, my
computer teacher sometimes taught us easy programming languages, and it allowed me to
understand the convenience computer provided. Therefore, I gradually became interested in being a researcher on computer science.
Fortunately, I was admitted to enter Mathematics and Science Excellent Class in the best high school in Taiwan. I started to learn programming language (C/C++) and established my personal website, and I also did in-depth research on the mathematical problems for my high school thesis because of the special class. I tried to analyze the figures and finally formulated them in some equations; then my thesis was awarded a remarkable honor. Hence, I wanted to be a researcher and hoped that I can make the world progress by my hard working, intelligence and creativity.
Furthermore, I joined aerobic dance club, in which I learned various types of dances, such as hip-hop and body combat, and I also served as publicist and communicated with members from other high schools. I recovered my energy after doing exercise so that I had more vigor to concentrate on my coursework. That’s why I always did my best to finish what I needed to do.
With my efforts, I successfully entered my first choice, Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at National Taiwan University, starting my information-based life.
When I was sophomore, I got the highest scores in some major courses, such as Algorithms, Probability, and Discrete Mathematics. My strong interest in computer science was ignited. Along with distinguished performance, I studied harder and then received my first Presidential Award in sophomore spring semester as the top 5% of the students in academics. From then, I was awarded with Presidential Award in each semester. It demonstrated my academic ability to be brilliant. In addition, I served as girls’ dancing representative many times, taught other female students to dance, and performed at the stage. Elected as valedictorian when senior, I represented all students in the department to express opinions about graduation, arranged the schedule of taking photos, and edited the class book. My leadership was gradually trained by these experiences, and I also
enjoyed serving other students and brought about a great deal of their smiling and happiness.
Moreover, I joined pop dance club to learn dancing and to do physical exercise. I believed that continuous exercise made me healthy and provided vitality to elevate my quality of learning.
Besides coursework, my friends and I formed a group to participate in the creativity contest, Yahoo! Open Hack Day. Most participants came from the companies, and our programming abilities would be inferior to theirs. Finally, we got the Connected Life Special Prize, because we successfully integrated the web information and mobile device to bring people convenience. Thus, I understood that although my programming ability is not the best, the most valuable capacity is my academic knowledge and creativity. I strongly believed that utilizing the knowledge, creativity and ability of implementation can elevate the quality of life and general convenience for the whole world, letting more people enjoy the benefits of technology.
Because of my academic achievements, I was granted to study in Graduate Institute of Computer Science and Information Engineering, and entered Digital Speech Processing
Laboratory to do research under supervision of Prof. Lin-Shan Lee. At the same time, I served as Multimedia President in pop dance club. I needed to design programs and posters, to establish websites, and to edit music and videos. I could display my creativity to design the posters or programs. Besides, I usually represented the club to perform in a lot of activities, such as high-tech exhibition in Taiwan. The performances provided me valuable experiences of communication with others. Furthermore, I was also elected as Graduate Student Representative, expressing students’
opinions to the institute and participating in some meetings. By some experiences of
communication with students and professor, I found that technology can solve a lot of problems that trouble people. Therefore, integration of my good communication skill and academic ability lead me to design a good approach to extract key term and met users’ needs in my research area.
The research was finally accepted and will be published as a full paper at Spoken Language Technology (SLT) 2010, fortunately awarded Student Best Paper Award. Thus, the distinction makes my resolution firmer; I thirst for being a PhD student and doing research to improve the world.
Going to graduate school and being a PhD student are necessary for me to pursue higher research. I already proved myself as a resolute and talented student, but I still need more training to become a better researcher. Your university provides the best teaching and research quality in the world, and is the perfect place for me to continue my studies. In addition to academics, I possess various experiences, such as dancing and performance, so that I can bring my classmates more diversity. I also possess good leadership and I can lead the group to finish a task more efficiently. With experiences of design, I can integrate stark machines and aesthetics to reach a new balance, stimulating more creativity. If accepted, I believe that I will be a strong PhD candidate and will be able to greatly contribute to the research and to flavor others’ lives at your esteemed university.
