STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

of Md Golam Jakaria (Ph.D. Applicant for Fall 2017)

I was born in a remote village where electricity was a magic to people. Despite of having my
early academic life in such remote village where people are not very ambitious regarding
education, I always had deep thirst for knowledge. To quench my thirst, my parents supported
me and I was able to get myself admitted into Jhenaidah Cadet College, one of the best
institutions for secondary school education under supervision of Bangladesh Armed Forces.
After achieving outstanding results in my school and higher secondary public exams, I got
boosted up for the dream to be with the most innovative personalities of the world. To achieve
this goal, I got myself admitted into the Department of Chemical Engineering of Bangladesh
University of Engineering & Technology (BUET), the best engineering university of Bangladesh
competing with 15000 top high school graduates of our country for roughly 900 positions
available in the university that year.

The love and devotion for knowledge made my aim to be a researcher to meet my thirst for
knowledge. In other word, my purpose in applying for graduate study in Chemical Engineering
in the University of Rhode Island is to become a professional researcher and educator in these
fields. I believe that I need more academic preparation beyond my undergraduate education in
order to make a meaningful contribution to my society. Energy is still a luxury for my remote
village and I want to develop something that may help the world to get rid of this energy crisis.
My main motivation for applying to the University of Rhode Island is the extremely
distinguished faculty, a milieu replete with academic activity, and a graduate program which
blends high quality course work and research facilities.

During my undergraduate study, faculty members in our department were very helpful and truly
devoted. They provided the students with the very basic training in topics mostly relevant to the
fundamentals of chemical engineering which introduced me to various theoretical concepts and
applied methods which are widely used in the academia as well as in the industry. Till the senior
year of my study everything was theoretical and to me every subject was independent. I used to
find very little relation among heat transfer, mass transfer, transport phenomena,
thermodynamics. But when I started my Thesis project under Dr. Kazi Bayzid Kabir, Assistant
Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and
Technology I could relate lots of things that were confusing to me. For example while working
in energy section, how the knowledge of mass transfer is going to help me. Now I understand
that mass transfer and transport phenomena has a great impact in this section.

My Thesis project was on “Characterizations of Boropukuria’s Coal, Toxicity and Understand

its Impact on Environment and Health”. In the beginning of my research I tried to know whether
this Coal can be supportive to the upcoming energy crisis. For this I determined various calorific
values using Bomb Calorimeter and the result was positive. Then I focused on the reality,
whether I can really use Coal as alternative source of energy or not. Recently you may have
heard of an uprising against Coal based power plant in our country. General people are thinking
that this power plant may be harmful for our ecosystem and destroy the largest Mangrove forest
of the world. Whereas the government is quite confident that they have taken enough safety
measures so that the ecosystem will not be disturbed. Considering these situations I measured the
detrimental contents of Coal (Mercury,Sulfur,Arsenic,Chloride) and compared it with the
available Codes and Standards. So far the outcome is positive. Currently I am working on the
leaching properties of coal. If I am going to use coal then I need to store, transport and at the
same time wash it before using. This test will let us know whether it will be harmful to our
environment or not. While working on this project I really felt that I am doing something that
may help our society and I loved it. Now I want to continue this work on a greater scale and I
would love to accept far greater challenges.

Beside academic activities I was involved in various extracurricular activities. From my

childhood I was very passionate about sports. I was engaged with every possible sport available.
I participated in Inter University Cricket, Football and Hockey tournament arranged during my
student life. Among all the students there were six students who participated both in Cricket,
Football and Hockey in Inter University level. And I was one of them. In my senior year I felt
the same thing about research like I feel about sports. It never failed to amuse me. From my
engagement with various sports and research I realized one thing that your dedication, interest
and love for something can take you to the peak of the success.

After completion of my undergraduate program, I would like to continue my research and pursue
my career in teaching. I have lots of things to learn and it feels great when I think myself helping
others in academic activities. During my college and university life, I have always helped my
friends and juniors. It is not because they came for help but because I enjoyed while I helped
them. To complete my dream I guess being in the teaching section should be the best possible
solution. And for this I think University of Rhode Island is the right place for me.

As my country has given me a lot, I am in debt to her and it is time to payback. I believe that I
got the potential to contribute to the society in a great way. It would be a great privilege to be
able to secure admission to graduate program in your reputed university. I hope to attain my goal
with University of Rhode Island that will help me to acquire the versatility I need to reach my
full potential as an engineer and assist me to make significant contribution to my country.