The decision to pursue a Masters in Engineering Management did not happen suddenly. Over the past 5 years, several aspects of my studies and work have fueled my passion and interest in the field. I generally enjoyed my engineering education and did quite well. However, I particularly excelled in courses that covered management, communications, and the humanities. The following graph shows the big picture. After my university studies, I decided to acquire management skills, but I didn't want to lose my technological edge as I loved both disciplines. I have received offers from Accenture (Fortune 500) and Wipro (top 4 IT companies in India) in my campus itself (offer letters attached). However, since both were purely technical jobs, I refused and continued my studies in techno-management. I took a certificate program in Business Analytics and Optimization (http://insofe.edu.in/init/default/cee_program_features), which combined business, mathematics and data science and fueled my interest in further exploring the business world with engineering tools. I currently work for a start-up (Acme Analytics) where I deal with social media marketing and business analytics. I chose this job even though the company is the smallest among all the offers I received, since I can report directly to the CEO of the company. I can talk about a couple of projects that showcase my business and technical skills in solving real-world problems. Bond Price Prediction: Using artificial neural networks, I am currently working on developing a predictive model to predict the price of bonds that helps hedge fund managers trade in real time. Details of the project and also other similar projects in the field of analytics (target marketing and stock value forecasting) that I have worked on ar...... half of the document ......and  The MBA is about the general administration of a business while my passion lies in the specific execution of large-scale technology projects. I believe MS at the University of Southern California suits me perfectly because of the exciting curriculum. I have already been introduced to some topics from some courses like ISE 530 (Introduction to Operations Research) and ISE 527 (Quality Management for Engineers) during my certificate program and it would be quite exciting to study them at a much more in-depth level. I found Dr. Settles' research on engineering management and quality management and Dr. Winterfeldt's research on decision analysis and risk analysis very interesting and corresponding to my interests. My educational background, work experience and personality that I have built through other activities give me the confidence that I can excel in the graduate program.