Statement of purpose drafting

The statement of objectives should be 750-1000 words and completed according to the following instructions:

Please provide a statement explaining your reasons for wanting to do graduate work in Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. The statement should describe how you see, think, and feel about the world, as well as your professional objectives. You should set forth the issues or problems you want to address in the course of your studies and the environment in which you see yourself working professionally. As part of that endeavor, share your analysis or understanding of the challenges you are interested in working on. Be specific in articulating how graduate studies in DUSP would allow you to address those challenges and/or fulfill your professional objectives. Your honors, extracurricular activities, professional experiences, teaching, etc. need only be integrated into your statement to the extent that they relate to your proposed course of study at MIT and your professional aspirations.

Do not re-create your CV or resume.

Outline V2

Principles

built environment as interface to an integrated system (systems)

built environment as moral (impact)

built environment should be joyful, playful experiences (art)

What I care about

built environment as moral

health

sustainability

efficiency

built environment as joyful

third places

as interfaces

How I got here

Background as an engineer and places I’ve lived

Bull City Votes

Transition to urban planning work with BPAC

MIX

What I will do

MIT balances cutting edge with practical application

Actions

interdisciplinary, system view of built environment

Build cutting edge, playful spatial interfaces

Fabio Duarte,

James Scott

Violet Whitney

Use technology and data to deliver real value to cities and citizens

Senseable City Lab

James Scott

Analytical approach

Sarah Williams + dolmus

Inclusivity and diversity

blend generations, socio economic, etc

Entrepreneurship, research

MIX

Senseable City Lab

Kee Jang, Diego

Outline

Things to mention

CNU

walk audit

Intro

Built environment is an interface.

Goal and summary

Obsession with built environment

how you see, think, and feel about the world

Problems that I want to address

set forth the issues or problems you want to address in the course of your studies)

share your analysis or understanding of the challenges you are interested in working on)

reasons for wanting to do graduate work in Urban Studies and Planning at MIT

Be specific in articulating how graduate studies in DUSP would allow you to address those challenges and/or fulfill your professional objectives

Integrated systems

transportation and efficiency

MIT

The role of technology

MIT

understanding and facilitating joyful cities

MIT

Future work

professional objectives

the environment in which you see yourself working professionally

Be specific in articulating how graduate studies in DUSP would allow you to address those challenges and/or fulfill your professional objectives

Government

BPAC chair

Entrepreneurship

MIX

could be the basis of research

MIT

MITdesignX

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Summary

How I see the world
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What I care about

Obsessed with the impact of our surroundings on our health and happiness

(make sure you differentiate yourself, everyone will care about urban design)

(simplify to how I see, think, and feel, not too much about how I got there)

move “how I got here” to Extra Reflection

I have become obsessed with the impact of our surroundings on our health and happiness. Around others, I have to hold back from being the person who points out the inefficiencies of our surface parking lots, the importance of public transit frequencies, and the vital comfort of street trees. This obsession grew out of a few different realizations over the course of my life. Over my 9 years at Hive, I have realized how much human interfaces matter. Whether the goal is to optimize a user onboarding, or to

Through software I realized my passion for designing interfaces. I was always sitting with the design team, working with them to flesh out what the information architecture of our product is and how to best translate that architecture into a user interface that is simple, parseable, and makes the user happy.

It was only while living in San Francisco that I started to understand that my love of cities was something that was deeply connected to my love of interfaces. Unlike many others, I was never unhappy to go to the “touristy” areas of a city and simply walk around to experience the sights and sounds, and see the types of experiences people, usually whole families, were having.

disneyland mention?

It was also in San Francisco that I began to pay attention to the subtleties of good urban design: a coffee shop tucked away in an alley with overgrown plants, the comfort offered by lighting and street activity, the sightlines when you turn a street corner on your walk.

High impact areas, consider moving to Extra Reflection

As I began to consider the next phase of my career, I took time to examine my

mobility as efficiency and health

the inefficiency of cars, even autonomous ones

Systematic outlook

I want to solve

Bringing more joy to built environments

1

build joyful diverse third places

My goal is to understand, facilitate, and build more joyful urban spaces.

This goal encompasses concerns of environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and equitable accessibility. Importantly, my goal goes beyond those goals alone to being about moving our cities to a future where our built environment catalyzes our well-being and happiness.

This goal encompasses concerns of environmental sustainability, economic sustainability, and equitable accessibility. Those concerns are table stakes, and must be included in any serious attempt to make our cities better. My thesis is that those concerns are not enough, by themselves, to radically improve our cities. We can, and should, retrofit our cities to make them more equitable and sustainable, but we should also aim to move our cities forward to a future where our built environment catalyztres our well-being and happiness.

In so much of what I’ve seen at MIT, I’ve seen this blend of thinking radically and thinking practically.

Ensuring technology helps rather than hurts our cities

My background is in software, and I do believe technology can help our cities significantly. However, I am not an advocate for integrating technology for technology’s sake, and we must be deliberate and thoughtful about ensuring technology serves the goals we have for our societies and our cities. Anyone working closely with AI, like I have been, must understand this.

Bridge theory with action, mens et manus

Make change that is systematic and resilient

2

MIT looks at things systematically

Of all the institutions I’ve researched, MIT is the most interested in treating research areas not as standalone but as integrated systems across multiple disciplines. This is what attracted me to the System Design and Management program, and is what attracts me to doing learn and research more about city planning at MIT. The built environment of a city is not distinct from matters of policy, public health, transportation, economics, and technology. One can see this in the number of labs within the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and the number of other research centers that also work with cities (Transportation, Media Lab, Morningside). It is this integrative approach that first gave me the excitement to begin working

Working with government

Builds cities for everyone

elderly

children

low density

Future work
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entrepreneurship

mention MIX

MIT

government

Why MIT
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MIT bridges my love of built environment and using innovation

having spent a semester on campus already

professors

real estate technology hub

(mention dolmus)

civic design data lab?

Balancing innovation with practicality

Should not be restricted to how things are done today

But should push for impact now

Consider moving this to Extra Reflection

(Examples of initiatives I’ve championed, relate to work at MIT)

Fayetteville

US 70 East

N Roxboro