(IN EDITING PHASE)

Why should I read this?

Over the last 2-3 years, I reviewed a lot of SOP’s on the FB group and had the privilege to be
part of PhD admissions committee of an ivy league university. I wanted to take a moment to
combine all my insights in one place.

Note:
● The term HCI refers to UX, UI, other courses which are focussed in this particular area.

DO’s
● The goal of the SOP is to connect your interest within HCI to the work / courses /
experience you have in the past. This is the most important part of the SOP. People
who shift from the different fields (like Mechanical engineering, Architecture, Journalism
etc.). How (?): Find a specific area within HCI which really matters to you. Use it as a
problem statement / motivation for your work in HCI. If you are pursuing PhD, you need
to find a more focussed and mature problem.
Good Example: Trisha is doing her bachelors in education and deeply cares about
improving literacy levels for primary students. She should then connect how she would
try solve the problem of literacy by designing educational technologies for specific
scenarios in primary schools (It is important that your problem statement is specific and
not vague).
Even though she has no experience in HCI, her specialization in education field can
better inform how she wants to utilize HCI degree to reach there. This is highly
appreciated by the evaluators.

● Always use simple language and minimal technical jargon and acronyms (like User
Experience instead of UX). The first round of review (specially for MS) may be done by
general committee people might not even know what HCI stands for.

● When explaining your projects, start with an overall direction of these projects and then
explain briefly what those projects are.
Bad example: After my sophomore year, I interned at the XYZ with Prof. ABC. In two
months, I constructed an XXXX setup which reduced its original cost by XX%. Later, I
worked on XXX concept. I developed an algorithm that increased XXXXXX by 12% and
mitigated XXXX to primary users. This research was presented at XXXX in Chennai,
India.
Even though, the above example is technically sound, reading listing of multiple projects
like these makes it really difficult to follow if it is not followed by few sentences on top
 explaining the overview and rationale for taking up projects in a particular field. Instead,
take one or two examples and go deep and describe those projects well.

DONT’s

● Do not write long sentences to explain your ideas / explanations

● Do not write about extracurriculars unless and until (a) they are some way related to the
theme of SOP or (b) they are really really significant! (unless they are national prizes,
usually they are not)
Bad example: