Any help "fixing" the following cover letter, would be greatly appreciated. I plan to send it to a research institute in the US which has a few internship positions available for students worldwide. In their own words, the cover letter should include a statement
of my specific research interests, contact details and relevant coursework and
grades received. Having discussed it briefly with some of my professors i ended up with this:
"My contact details"
"Contact details of the institute's member responsible for the internship"
Date
Dear Dr. ***,
I am
writing in response to your posting for the *** Internship Program. I am
currently a final year Master’s student in *** at the University of ***,
and I would like to be considered for the internship position on the *** project. I am particularly interested in working on expanding the
simulation capability currently available within *** whose “evolution” I
have followed in the literature.
My academic background
includes the following relevant graduate courses:
- Computer Programming, a course referring to C++
programming – both object oriented and structured programming - in which I
received a grade of 9 (on a scale from 0 to 10).
- Advanced Software Engineering, a course on design patterns,
the Single responsibility principle and refactorings (ongoing).
- Advanced Artificial Intelligence, during which I was taught
Prolog, Constraint Programming, Constraint Logic Programming (using the
ECLiPSe platform), planning with constraints (including a project
concerning mixed initiative temporal planning with constraints), and
reasoning under uncertainty (MDPs, chapters 13 to 17 of the book
"Artificial Intelligence, A modern approach" by Stuart Russell
and Peter Norvig). I
received a grade of 9.
- Neural Networks and Evolutionary
Algorithms, dealing
with several neural network architectures as well as other machine
learning approaches, including the first five chapters of the book
"Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning" by Christopher M. Bishop
(ongoing).
Other relevant courses from my undergraduate
studies (also in ***) include:
- Artificial intelligence, which covered the first
twelve chapters of the AIMA textbook (including partial order planning). I received a grade of 10.
- Object oriented programming, a course on Java programming
and UML. I received a grade of 9.
This semester I will begin working
on my Master’s Thesis, the topic of which is "***. It involves simulating "...". In
the future, I plan to pursue a Ph.D. in ***, possibly by
extending my research in my diploma thesis.
It is my belief that I could
contribute effectively as a member of your program, which in turn would allow
me to continue to pursue my research interests and future academic career. I
consider this internship an ideal opportunity to obtain hands-on experience. Also,
it would greatly benefit me to collaborate with fellow interns and have as my
mentor Mr. ***.
I enclose a recent
curriculum vitae for your attention and I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you for your
consideration.
Sincerely,
"My name & surname"
--
My doubts are as to:
- Whether there are any grammar or syntactical errors
- Should the cover letter have information on where i found their program advertisement? For example "I am
writing in response to your posting for the *** Internship Program, of which
I learned through an email from the *** googlegroup."?
- The part "I am particularly interested in working on expanding the
simulation capability currently available within *** whose “evolution” I
have followed in the literature." in the first paragraph originally was "I would wish to be considered for the intership
position on the *** project, and if possible for the part of ***, of which I read and was particularly interested in, in
the paper “***” which was
presented in the *** Workshop on ***." Which version do you think is better?
- If i should include the sentence 'Also,
it would greatly benefit me to collaborate with fellow interns and have as my
mentor Mr. ***." or maybe it sounds "fake" (although it is in fact true!)
- In the original version of this cover letter, the last paragraph was
"Also, it would greatly
benefit me to have as my mentor Mr. ***, whose career in the *** and *** I think
of very highly, and collaborate with fellow interns, as until this time, I
haven’t had the opportunity to work in a multi-member research group. Finally,
travelling and actually staying in the United States has always been one
of my dreams, being an avid traveller, but unfortunately, I haven’t been able
to make this trip a reality due to its excessive cost." Was i right in replacing it? - Finally, should the courses' information also refer to the teacher who instructed me (especially since one of them has cooperated in the past with the internship's project mentor), or not?
Thank you in advance for any help given!