I am Mohammad Ziauddin, applying for the Master’s program in Management Science and Engineering at

Stanford University, and in the next couple of pages I have attempted to describe my academic background
and how my interest in the MS&E program was sparked.

Since the 7th grade when science was properly introduced for the first time in school I have been fascinated
by its accuracy and universal validity, and as I was introduced to concepts which explained everyday
phenomenon I was hooked for life. In particular, I developed a strong inclination for maths and physics
which persisted throughout my school years and I always surpassed expectations in these 2 subjects, I also
found I could tackle complex, unorthodox problems in maths and physics with great ease. It was a well
known fact that the best institutes in India suited to those with an inclination for the natural sciences, were
the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT’s) and thus I focused my energies on gaining admission to one of the
IIT’s. As I prepared for the IIT-Joint Entrance Examination, widely regarded as the toughest entrance
examination in the world with an acceptance rate of 1%, I explored Physics, Chemistry and Maths in great
conceptual depth and attempted extremely challenging problems. I ended up in the top 0.3 % of candidates in
my year and chose Aerospace Engineering at IIT Bombay.

In first year at IITB we were taught some basic courses in Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Computer
Programming. We also had an introductory course to economics which covered all the basics of economics
like demand, supply, cash flow , economies of scale, fiscal policies, the practicality and preciseness of
economics had me hooked immediately, it was fascinating how the tools of mathematics could be used to
model economic systems ranging from corporations to countries and the entire global economy. Second,
third years revolved around fluid Mechanics, structures, thermodynamics and control theory. While I did not
have too much interest in fluid mechanics or structures, Systems and control theory was my favorite among
these courses as it had the power of direct application to real systems and could convert any complicated
physical system into a set of equations capturing the entire dynamics accurately. At this same time around
end of 2nd year I developed a fond interest in computer science and decided to explore this area, I read the
prescribed books for the CSE undergrads here in Algorithms, Automata theory, discrete Maths, Networks.

I had in my second year started reading the Economic Times every day and was quite enthralled by the
workings of the markets, especially all the action that seemed to happen with stocks and options. Certain
quantitative concepts there prompted me to strengthen some more basic Maths and I studied Linear
Programming, Probability, Statistics from Kreyszig’s Engineering Mathematics on my own. This was to
complement our prescribed syllabus in Maths which had been quite exhaustive such that by the end of
second year we had covered Real analysis, Vector calculus, Linear algebra, Ordinary and partial differential
equations, Complex analysis, Numerical Methods, and while some of these courses were very demanding
and held along with students who had greater exposure to mathematics I still nevertheless learnt a lot. I have
also chosen an elective course on Probabilistic models for the upcoming final semester which covers
stochastic processes, Markov chains, Poisson processes and queueing theory.

By the end of second year I had realized that I was much more driven by applications of analytical tools in
practical situations, especially in a managerial setting than theoretical studies. To explore this area further I
chose an elective on Air Transportation, which gave tremendous insight to the operations of Airlines and Air
Traffic Management. Early on in the course I gave a presentation on travel demand modeling where I learnt
various techniques to estimate market size for Air travel in a region. As part of this course we later undertook
a project to design an Airship based transportation network for Uttarakhand, a hilly region in India to solve
the transportation problems there. As part of this project it was required to identify the most important
commercial, tourist locations, choose the appropriate transport vehicle (Airship/helicopter), propose routes
and schedules keeping in mind weather conditions, number of vehicles to be purchased and number of trips
to be made based on expected market size using the estimation strategies I had learnt in the course of
preparing my presentation, and perform a complete cost benefit analysis, suggest a pricing strategy. Working
in a team of 4 we were able to develop an optimal routing and scheduling system and justify the initial
investment which we demonstrated would achieve a breakeven in about 10 years, whereas the average life of
an airship is around 18 years. This report was greatly appreciated and resulted in the award of a 9 grade in
the course. This project taught me the immense potential for applying analytical tools in a managerial setting.
I also did my junior thesis on Express cargo Airlines Network Scheduling and Optimization as I could put
my knowledge of algorithm design to excellent use here and analyzed various scheduling algorithms:
heuristic, time space modeling etc. Finally a case study was performed on a cargo career and the algorithms
were compared in terms of computational speed and the most suitable one identified. Issues such as
tractability and accuracy of solution were examined.

My summer internship after 3rd year was with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Lucknow, which is the largest
Aircraft manufacturing Company in India with an annual turnover of over 2 billion USD. I opted to work in
the production control division where I learnt the layout of the manufacturing process, the detailed
production scheduling procedures and testing protocol and inventory scheduling. Based on my analysis I
suggested changes in the scheduling process for gyroscope manufacturing which could improve production
efficiency by upto 20%. These suggestions were greatly appreciated by the senior managers.

In my final year, I chose a course on modeling of dynamic systems which covered state space methods,
discrete methods, controllability and observability, estimation of states and models of various physical
systems. The most fascinating part of this course was the modeling of diverse systems such as renewable
resource systems, blood sugar levels and nuclear reactors. How such complex systems could be broken down
into a simple set of equations helped me appreciate the immense potential of mathematical modeling and I
realized that the same tools could be applied to analyze the dynamic economic/industrial processes.

I chose to pursue my final year project on sliding control of Mini Aerial Vehicles under Prof Bandyopadhyay
and Prof Arya. The first phase of this project involved gaining a thorough understanding of the basics of
Variable structure control systems and approaches for their implementation including Continuous time
feedback, observer based control, Multirate output feedback methods. I also ran 6 DOF simulations of UAV
models to familiarize with evaluation of various control schemes in terms of reliability and robustness.
Development of a control algorithm is to be followed by simulation of proposed control systems on
AEROSIM and realistic modeling of disturbances using the Dryden model. I chose to pursue this project
because the practicality of robust control appealed to me and I was aware of the numerous applications of
optimal control theory in management science and wanted some basic exposure to applied control theory.

Having gained from the exposure to the 2 projects on IEOR mentioned above and the summer internship in
Production control I have decided to pursue a master’s in Management science and Engineering as I think
this is where I can put my quantitative background to excellent use in solving relevant real life problems.
Given the reputation of Stanford and the excellent entrepreneurial atmosphere at Stanford it is the most
obvious choice for me, as after gaining a few years of industry experience, I intend to start a chain of schools
for exceptionally talented children in India to nurture their skills in diverse areas, which is something that
India unlike the US has a complete lack of, and I am hopeful that the Stanford experience will give me
excellent insight on how to execute such a plan. I think that my strong analytical background from the many
mathematics and core engineering courses that I have done at IIT make me perfectly suited for the Master’s
in MS&E program at Stanford and I am confident that I will be able to do full justice to the academic rigor
demanded by the program. I wish to pursue this degree at Stanford to equip myself with the skill and
necessary experience in applying analytical methods to the analysis of Managerial and Operations research
problems as well as gain a thorough background in these areas which I hope will enable me to take up a
challenging job as a consultant or a techno-manager before pursuing my entrepreneurial venture.