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Sample Statement of Purpose for Environmental Engineering
If life may be compared with a race without a definite destination,
every goal one has attained will only begin the pursuit of another. By
doing so, we enrich our own lives, and those of others.
However, as an engineer at thirty years of age, I need to do a little
persuasion to myself to start an academic life again. It might be a
process full of difficulty and challenges. But my character and my
past experience have convinced me that my life would be better with
these challenges than without.
During my undergraduate years I was a major in Food Engineering.
Though my grades were among the top ten percent, and I received a
scholarship two times, I did not have truly outstanding performance.
But besides some general knowledge, what I gained from my college
education was a major self-discovery----I was in fact not interested
in Food Science, but in Environmental Protection and Improvement.
With this self-discovery I entered the graduate program in Applied
Chemistry at Beijing Industrial and Commercial University. The
three-year period of my graduate study was like a race with time. To
me, the course work, however demanding, was the greatest source of
fun. I was deeply attracted to courses like Chemical Engineering and
Chemical Reaction Kinetics, because they provided powerful tools to
treat environmental problems. Because of my diligence and my love for
this subject of learning, I remained a student of top-ranking GPA in
the class, and won the Scholarship of the First Class for three
consecutive years. In my thesis"A Study of the Applications of
Titanium Dioxide as a Semiconductive Photochemical Catalyst in the
Degradation of Wastewater," I targeted the traditional separating
process in treating wastewater, which often resulted in secondary
pollution. As an alternative, I proposed a new method of treatment
without secondary pollution. After much library research, I decided to
use titanium dioxide as the semiconductive photochemical catalyst.
Titanium dioxide, however, needs be excited by near ultraviolet rays,
since its catalytic effects are quite low within the range of visible
light. To solve this problem, I applied special modifiers through
doping with iron, which significantly enhanced the catalytic effects
of titanium dioxide. The thesis was well received by experts in the
field.
After completing my Master's degree, I became an engineer in the
Institute of Environmental Protection of China Petrolchemicals Inc., a
position I have held up to the present time. In the past few years, I
have been involved in a number of major projects of wastewater
treatment. In 1999, I participated in a project designed to renovate
the biochemical devices of a wastewater treatment factory under a
chemical engineering company in Zhejiang Province. This project
enabled me to develop a deep and concrete understanding of the
industrial process of wastewater treatment. In this project, I
conducted in-depth analysis of the entire process of biochemical
treatment and, by introducing important modifications into the
existing system, I helped to significantly improve effect of water
treatment. From May to October 2000, I was responsible for the
debugging of the workshop that conducts biochemical treatment of the
epoxy propane wastewater for a chemical engineering plant in Nanjing
City. In November, I participated in another biochemical treatment
project of a chemical fiber factory. In this project, I encountered
many technical problems. With detailed research and extensive
consultation of technical literature, I finally discovered the optimum
solution to them. In November last year, I became the leader of a
research group on electrocatalysis and oxidation in treating
hard-to-separate sewage. My work in those and other projects has made
it possible for me to accumulate relatively rich experience in both
the theory and the technology of wastewater treatment. In May this
year, I was honored as one of the Four Outstanding Youths at the
Beijing Institute of Chemical Industry, which is affiliated to China
Petrolchemicals.
During all these years of work and research, I have become keenly
aware of the urgency of environmental issues, especially for a country
like China. Among all the issues, the wastewater problem might be the
worst. Partly because of the lack of adequate public attention and
appropriate government legislation and policy in the past decades,
wastewater treatment in China becomes far behind developed countries.
After all the first-hand work experience and library research on the
technical literature, I am convinced that studying in a graduate
degree program in an advanced country, such as the United States, will
be the best way for me to find the most effective way to treat
environmental issues, in China, and in the world.
Although I am already 30 years old, an age at which a man is expected
to have become well-established in his career, I have never felt so
young, because my sense of the purpose and meaning of my life has
become so much clearer than a few years ago. With a background of
formal education in Applied Chemistry and rich work experience behind
me, and, above all, with an unswerving dedication to Environmental
Science and Technology, I shall be able to compete effectively in a
graduate program of my chosen field abroad. I am, at this moment, very
anxious to enter this new phase of my life's journey.
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