A little fox playing music in desert

Statement of Purpose
I am seeking for my study for master degree in the field of Environmental Sciences, Policy and Management. As a student considering harmony as the basis of a wonderful world, my intense interest has focused on how to combine science, technology, economics and management as a whole to benefit environment, which earns more and more attention from people all over the world. I strongly believe MESPOM program is the right place for me to fulfill my goal and obtain broader and deeper knowledge and experience. Because of its vision to provide thorough, intense and exciting research training. Meanwhile, as a senior student majoring in Environmental Science and Engineering in Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), I have prepared myself well with a solid academic foundation, excellent language skills and communication abilities, and great potential for study and research in a graduate program in Europe.

My most obvious advantage in research is my spirit of innovation and creative skills, which play an important role in my undergraduate career and make me unique among my peers. I am used to racking my brains for creative solutions of the problems in my research, and launching them for discussions with my classmates and colleagues in the laboratory. Furthermore, this habit of creative thinking always benefits my enthusiasm of reading. In return, my large scale of reading helps me a lot in creative thinking. Through reading many relative papers and articles as well as participating in some research processes, I try to make an in-depth exploration in the area I’m interested in, rather than just earn a high score in the final exams. With a belief saying ‘Change is the only constant thing.’ I would like to try something new rather than just showing my agreement with others’ ideas. Owing to my efficient way of study, I have been one of the top students ranking at top 15% in my institute.

From March to October in 2005, as a sophomore, I participated in a PRP（Participation in Research Project) program of SJTU, with the title of Treatment of Initial Rainstorm-caused Runoff by Enhanced Ecological Technology. The non-point source pollution caused by land runoff has contributed nearly forty percent of water pollution nowadays, which is the main reason of eutrophication. Owing to the huge amount and discontinuity of the land runoff, it is prohibitive and inefficient to treat it in traditional sewage plants. In our project, we chose enhanced ecological technology to treat the initial runoff, mainly in the first ten or twenty minutes in the storm, which has a higher pollutants concentration than later time. A three-phase technics was applied in our experiment. The first is to collect the initial land runoff in a large basin. Then the water pass a zeolite bed before passing a absorbent bed occupied by fly ash. My focus was on reducing the concentration of nitrogen, phosphate, which cause eutrophication. It was found that natural zeolite and fly ash have good performances in removing NH3-N and PO43--P from polluted water. As an innovation, we made fly ash into granule shape to avoid mobility and self-concreting of fly ash in practical use. Finally, after the saturation of the absorbents, they were transported to farmland as fertilizer and for soil amendments. Through this program, I have learned how to solve problems and organize processes systematically in research when encountering a scientific problem. In this research, there are four students in our group. We showed perfect performance in collaboration and team work, and in some hard times I acted as a motivator to keep everyone in a good mood for our work..

Though I was enrolled in my university as an engineering student, I’ve got interested in Environmental Policy, Economics and Management and determined to make my own contribution in the field of Environmental Management because as my study goes deeper in the area of Environment Engineering, I found it impossible to make great progress in environment amendment only relying to the development of technologies. Surely it’s not the harmonious world I’m longing for only to use the excellent technologies for saving energy and eliminating pollutions. After a long time of deliberation, I fixed my career goal in Environmental Management obeying my enthusiasm in this area and wished to make progress involved in technology, policy and economics.

Several days ago, I took part in a project as part of my research for Bachelor thesis about Ecological Benefit of Greenland System in Pudong Developing Zone. Pudong Developing Zone is most famous in Shanghai for its fast development in recent twenty years and has become a window to show the prosperity and gloriousness of Shanghai. In this project organized by the government and my university, we did research on the structure and function of the greenbelts and greenlands in the city and give some suggestions for designing and constructing the greenland system to the government. It’s a systematical research and based on knowledge on several areas such as Environmental Science, Ecology, Policy and Management. At the beginning, I should have a quick understanding of the whole project and finish reading a number of related reports and papers. What surprises the postgraduate students in my group is that I finish it in one day and a half. Thanks to my quick learning skill, I earned the confidence of my professor and got involved in the research as soon as possible.

Frankly, as my bachelor background is science and engineering and I haven’t got enough experience in Environmental Policy and Management, I should take more efforts than others to get integrated knowledge and practise to use them practically. I have learned by myself Micro-and Macroeconomics and Management throughout my undergraduate study. Nowadays as a senior student I take the course about Environmental Economics and Management and with the help of my warm-hearted teachers I become more familiar to this area. I feel absolutely confident of my choice with my tenacity, quick learning ability and aspiration.

The inadequacy of the experience and training hinders me from bringing my imagination and creativity into full play. So I want to pursue my graduate study in Europe, where I have been dreaming to devote myself for a harmonious world and more developed relationship between European countries and my motherland. I believe that in MESPOM program I can get the most advanced knowledge and training in the area I love most and be involved in interesting and cutting-edge research. Meanwhile, the atmosphere that values cultural diversity, creative thought and academic freedom will surely benefit me a lot. I know the admission to your program is highly competitive, and as an undergraduate student, my knowledge and research experience may be quite limited, but with my broad background and keen interest in this field, it is my conviction that I can succeed in my graduate studies.

When Dr. Barry J.Marshall came to our university early this year during the celebration of the 110th anniversary of our university, he encouraged us to seek to cognize the world with our brilliant minds for right choices. Now I’ve made my choice and feel confident of its correctness. Years of undergraduate education and experience as president of our student union have made me qualified to face the challenges, both academically and otherwise. Moreover, during these three years, I have been trained to think about myself and plan what I should do. I have full confidence in my ability to gain great success in my career with the help of so many favorable conditions in MESPOM program.