How is my statement of purpose? Please take a look and give me your feedback, Please help me:

I'm applying at Concordia University in Actuarial Science program. There are two important reasons for that.

The first reason is that without seeing what liabilities may lay ahead, it is difficult to propose a plan of action that is safe and optimal. I love the fact that mathematics is not just a mere subject but can accurately describe physical phenomena in the universe to let us invent such thing as electronic devices. I'm very interested in using a mathematical model such as multivariate statistical analysis to recognize and control risks. I have been studying topics in mathematical modelling since a project where I used a neural network and became fascinated by the principle behind it. I learn SAS on my own in my free time and participate in hackathons on the topics of learning and classifying. I believe my undergraduate knowledge is best used to lean or to make a breakthrough in the field.

The second reason that I choose this program is for the top-ranked jobs with a high salary that I can choose from after graduation. I understand that this is a challenging program and studying this will set me on a journey to develop and polish my creative and critical thinking. Therefore, it is a fulfilling activity as I will be delighted with myself when I complete a task or assignment! After my degree, I will try to get a job in the variety of job opportunities that I can choose from such as financial analyst, business analyst or risk analyst and many more not directly related but required the skills of an actuary.

Given that I have a broad knowledge of mathematics, my choice is not limited to only the actuarial science program. I could try other fields in mathematics such as combinatorics or group theory. I wrote these two fields because I'm interested in them or I have done readings or participated in research in the post-undergraduate curriculum in those fields. Indeed, In term of research experience, in Summer 2018, I was extremely fortunate to be guided by, professor Dani Wise, in writing a program, with a team of 4, in python to model CW-complexes given their group presentation. Our team would go on and compute properties of the fundamental groups and the features of the complexes, such as Nielsen reducibility, trivial-second homology no positive sectional curvature(Although not finish implemented) and many potentially helpful properties. We then made a database of those examples using SQLite. We were studying a property called no positive immersion, and we wanted to see which set of features of the fundamental group of those complexes best characterize no positive immersion. I lack foundations for proving theorems or to come up with ideas, but I still got many opportunities to participate and asked questions about the subject. I got to see how my teammates reason about the possible relations between the properties of mathematical objects. Also, how they try to develop tools to prove their conjectures including given definitions to characterize new concepts. Although the program that I'm applying to is a course based program and I don't have to be involved with professional research because of this. I'm still much more prepared now than before to do better research.

I was again very fortunate to take a guided independent study course on orderable groups with professor Mikael Pichot as a follow-up from the research experience that I had during the summer, to learn more about groups. Here, my primary reference is the Book entitled "Ordered group and Topology" by Adam Clay and Dale Rolfsen. I also looked at several papers about orderable groups, one of which I'm still trying to understand: "On the dynamics of the orderable group, by Andres Navas." There, he talks about techniques to prove the space of orderings of a free group is a Cantor set, and that the space of ordering of a left orderable group is either finite or uncountable. Moreover, applying those techniques to study braid groups. I learned about various tools that were developed by mathematicians to study orderable groups like the Conradian ordering, Archimedean ordering, convex subgroups, Holder 's theorem, the structure and properties of the space of ordering of orderable groups as topology and many more intriguing relations between groups and topology. I also learned about some unsolved problems in the topic like the zero divisor conjecture. I saw some specific examples of orderable groups such as the knot groups. It'd be good to have a deep understanding of those topics and applied those concepts to a particular class of groups to find new results. Indeed, if I would end up in the Group theory branch instead, this could also be an outcome of completing my master degree

I hope, with the graduate program that I choose, that I will become first, an even more mature mathematician and be able to apply and relate concepts in different fields to effectively analyze and solve a real-life problem and second, a person of solid judgement and organizational skills. Concordia University has a popular actuarial program in Quebec and possibly worldwide. It is well known for its co-op programs that help student better transition to work. It has a lot of academic/business connections worldwide, and by joining it, I will be able to enlarge my job opportunities to an international scope.

I can see that it took me a while to finish my undergraduate and you'd be curious to know why? Part of the reason for that is because I was working 7-8 hours per day for a couple of years as a cashier while I was studying in the early stage of a college/undergraduate student. Moreover, as the first stage of life of a university student in pure science is the period where many times should be devoted to building a solid foundation to transition into mathematical and computer science maturity properly. For this reason, I could say I matured slower than the other. My grades were not good, but they are not bad overall. My extracurricular works should be taking just as crucial as my grades as I gained tremendous study experience and team working experience because of them. For examples, my tutoring experiences gave me the opportunity to see how people relate and solve a problem using different techniques. I learned from them many tricks that I would never be able to come up by myself, and they helped me to recognize patterns and similarities between fields that I never knew even when I use them. Indeed, I have become more mature mathematically and as a student from those experiences.

Finally, Having been an accomplished martial artist for years, the reward for dedication is not a mystery to me. Even though Maths can be incredibly frustrating and at times impossible, I wish to give it my utmost commitment; it is an ever-expanding subject in which my enjoyment will never cease to diminish

closed as off-topic by Buffy, Azor Ahai, cag51, corey979, scaaahu Feb 1 at 5:04



  • 2
    We don't really do writing help, but from a brief glance: CONCISION! Fewer words, more facts! (meaning density, not necessarily length) Good luck. – cag51 Jan 31 at 21:07
  1. Be much more concise.

  2. Put the "so what" at the very front. A mini-outline of the paras to follow. So we can scan/skim and know where we are going versus reading a narrative.

  3. Several of your paragraphs are too long and should be cut into 2-3 paras.

[This is basic writing advice for any memorandum, in any context. Not just academic statements of purpose.]
