“Everyone thought you couldn't finish it, but you proved them wrong!” our supervisor said proudly after demonstrating the term project for his object-oriented programming language course. We chose to implement "Videoconferencing over a local network", while others thought it was an absurd choice for two first-year students. It was the strongest feeling of accomplishment I felt that day, which only comes from overcoming a challenge with diligence and hard work. I have relived the same feeling on numerous occasions throughout my academic and professional career, which justified my decision to pursue computer science as a career path. I am writing this essay to prove my suitability as a PhD student in Computer Science. I will try to describe my academic background, my professional experience, my research interests and finally my reasons for choosing to do a PhD in fields related to databases and data mining in the next paragraphs. Academic Background My undergraduate study at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, which is the most prestigious institution in the country, exposed me to all major areas of computer science. I learned about Structured Programming Language and Object Oriented Programming Language in my first year. These two courses together with the projects laid the foundation for future courses. Over the next few years I really enjoyed computer science courses such as discrete mathematics, data structure, algorithms, databases, software engineering, system analysis, and design. Most of these courses were designed with term projects that helped me better understand the theories as we put them into practice. I was the lead member of a team that designed and developed a web application…middle of the road…fits my work experience and research focus perfectly. I believe my experience with relational database design, data warehousing, OLAP, MDX queries, and related fields makes me an excellent candidate for research in this lab. I have observed that there is a significant amount of database research being done in the industry as well as in academia. I want to pursue my PhD in Computer Science and contribute to the community by teaching or working in the industry. I believe I have the determination and potential to thrive in this particular industry. I feel that graduate study at the University of Texas at Arlington will be the most logical extension of my academic pursuits and an important step toward achieving my goals. I would be grateful if I were given the opportunity to continue my graduate studies with financial assistance at your institution.