Low GPA? You still can apply for a top-notch graduate school (OMSCS)
Summary
I applied and got accepted into the Spring 2019 matriculation of GeorgiaTech’s OMSCS, the #8 computer science program worldwide. I believe that my admission essays played the biggest role in my application, given that I don’t have a strong academic background (GPA 2.77/4.0 from a no name university in Egypt).
General advice
- Put some decent time and effort in writing your essays (25 hrs in my case).
- Get yourself a copy of Graduate Admissions Essays by Donald Asher. It’s a comprehensive guide to writing an impressive admissions essay. A kindle version would suffice ($15).
- First draft: Write down anything that you think would help. It doesn’t have to be organized and structured, and don’t pay attention to the word/character limit, we’ll fix this later.
- Second draft: Organize your first draft in structured and well-connected paragraphs. Write an awesome introduction paragraph, you need to get the reader’s attention.
- Focus on your strengths. Whether its your professional experience or maybe a research background, just build your application around it.
- Justify your low GPA.
- Seek help. Ask a couple of your friends to edit/proofread your second draft.
- Final draft: Reorganize your second draft in a more meaningful way if possible. Cut down to the limit.
- Ask fellow OMSCS students on Reddit to review your essays (r/OMSCS).
- You might pay for a professional proofreading service. Analyze.AcademicHelp will review your 2-pages essay in 3 days for $9.
Now to the essays …
Essay 1: Statement of Purpose
Please give a Statement of Purpose detailing your academic and research goals as well as career plans. Include your reasons for choosing the College of Computing as opposed to other programs and/or other universities. Your space is limited to 4000 characters.
On Friday, August 30, 2013 − two years after the Egyptian Revolution − we were almost 1000 persons in a peaceful protest against the military coup. After one hour of marching through the streets, the security forces, consisting of three armored vehicles and hundreds of soldiers armed with tear gas and assault rifles, decided to intervene. I heard the first gun shot − the sound of an AK-47 bullet is just like if one hundred thunder strikes happened at the same moment − and I thought it was me. Instead, the bullet broke through the chest of my friend, who was standing less than one meter away from me. He lost his life in a matter of seconds. At this exact moment, I knew what my life goal was. Between 2011 and 2013, almost 3000 Egyptians, including four of my friends, lost their lives in the revolution. I decided to dedicate my life to saving other people’s lives.
I read many reports about the different reasons for worldwide deaths. In 2013, almost 11000 Egyptians lost their lives due to traffic accidents. This number is 1.25 million worldwide. Reports show that autonomous vehicles could reduce this mortality rate by 90% which translates into saving people’s lives. Today, when people ask me about my work in the automotive industry, I usually take my mobile phone out of my pocket and show them the YouTube footage on the Volvo trucks emergency braking system. A 40-second video where a Volvo truck is about to hit a small child in a European highway, but at the right moment, the automatic braking system stopped the vehicle within a couple of centimeters of hitting the child. This is the exact system for which I helped to develop the software. This is how I am achieving my life’s goal through autonomous driving.
I am aware that the autonomous driving field is extremely demanding given that the technology continuously evolves. That is why I joined Robert Bosch GmbH in June 2018. Working for the largest Tier-1 supplier in the world puts me in the heart of the automotive industry. To prepare myself to be a key player in the autonomous field, I strove to find a program that will provide me a competitive advantage. The main reason I have decided to pursue the OMSCS program is the “Computational Perception and Robotics” specialization it offers, which compiles the core knowledge of the autonomous driving field. Moreover, Computer Science at GeorgiaTech is ranked #8 worldwide. Such an academic credit will help me achieve my after-graduation plans.
I have always been interested in the open source movement. Although there are many open source autonomous software frameworks, Apollo Autoware for instance, there is no open source hardware out there. Hackers can develop different software components, but they are forced to validate their work either on a test set or on a simulator. My approach is to develop a low cost hardware platform with a basic ROS environment that facilitates testing different functionalities. Such approach can only be achieved if I grasp a solid understanding of the SW stack. So far, I have published on my GitHub a basic SW package, based on ROS, which I can further develop with the skills I gain from the OMSCS program.
On the professional side, I am planning to join BMW Group Autonomous Driving Campus in Munich. BMW team is one of the most creative and results-oriented teams in the industry. Their work on computer vision and environment perception is truly original. I would like to be a part of this success story, and I am confident that I have the technical experience required. After graduation, I would also have the required computer science knowledge for which these kinds of international teams seek.
All in all, I am very much excited about starting the program in the next spring semester. I look forward to meeting with the admissions committee to discuss the program further, and I greatly appreciate their consideration of my application.
Essay 2: The Background Essay
Please describe your background (academic and extracurricular) and experience, including research, teaching, industry, and other relevant information. Your space is limited to 2000 characters.
In 2009, I joined the Higher Technological Institute in Egypt to pursue a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering. In 2014, I joined a research task force at Zewail City of Science and Technology to design a micro-converter for electric vehicles. In 2015, we had completed the mathematical model and the basic software architecture. After this project, I realized that software is the core creative aspect that will help me develop cutting edge autonomous driving technology.
In January 2017, after finishing my military service, I joined Avelabs as an Embedded Software Engineer. I worked on driving assistance systems with key players in the automotive industry. My scope of work included software components development for Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS).
In April 2017, I took Professor Andrew Ng’s Machine Learning course. In October 2017, I joined Udacity Self-Driving Nanodegree. Dedicating 20 hours of weekly effort into completing the program, I graduated with 14 projects published on my Github account, covering deep learning, computer vision, environment perception and vehicle control.
In June 2018, I joined Bosch in Germany. Moving to Germany was a step toward getting closer to the latest technological advancements in the industry. I am now working with Daimler to develop an ADAS domain control ECU.
To prepare for the OMSCS program, I am currently studying Discrete Mathematics from Coursera in addition to an Algorithms Specialization from Stanford University.
Regarding my undergraduate performance, after the Egyptian revolution in 2011, just like so many of my peers, I became very active in society. This divided my focus between my academic studies and the change our generation was seeking. However, I do not view my undergraduate performance as an accurate representation of my engineering abilities. My completion of the Self Driving Nanodegree provided by Udacity while maintaining a full time job is a better reflection of my potential.
Mohamed Ameen is an Egyptian Software Engineer based in Germany. Interested in AI and robotics. Writing about technology and science.
