AWD 3302, Summer 2016

Project 3

Student id: m19

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Title: Project 3 Cover Letter

Author: Sydnee Mizuno

Date:

Dear Mr. Doe,

I am writing to apply for the electrical engineering position at iRobot that was posted on Northeastern University's co-op search site. I am currently a fourth-year student in electrical engineering, and I am very interested in gaining more experience with robotic systems. Given my previous experience and interest in this field, I think that I would be a good fit for this position.^[i.n.]

At my previous co-op with Corindus Vascular Robotics, I worked in the Research and Development lab on a medical robot that assisted with percutaneous coronary intervention procedures. Using C#, I wrote code for the state machine that controlled the embedded robotic system. I also programmed the robot's display and communication modules with Serious SHIPTide, and I extensively used CANCapture for debugging. To test the functionality of existing code, I also wrote unit tests with NUnit. In addition to writing code, I was involved with software verification testing. This included writing test protocols to meet various system requirements and using those protocols to physically test the robot. I also developed Windows applications to assist with automated reliability testing. Throughout this work, I collaborated closely with other members of the software team to meet our goals. This included participating in daily stand-up meetings to discuss completed tasks, items in progress, and future work. While on the software team, I also collaborated across disciplines to assist the mechanical and manufacturing teams.

In addition to my work experience, I have developed many technical and communication skills through my classes and labs at Northeastern. In my Electronics class, I worked with op-amps, diodes, BJTs, and MOSFETS ^[p.n.]. One of these projects was designing an audio amplifier for a microphone. In my Embedded Design class, I wrote C programs in Linux to run on an embedded processor. I also used Simulink to program a Zedboard's FPGA and control a robotic arm. I wrote technical reports detailing the projects in these classes, and I worked effectively with lab partners. While taking classes, I also worked in Northeastern's SMILE lab, which focuses on machine learning and computer vision. I collaborated with a team to gather images for a Kinship Recognition project. I met weekly with a PhD student and other undergraduates to discuss updates on the project.^[i.n.]

I think that with my strong interpersonal skills and past experience, I would integrate well within iRobot's innovative environment.^[i.n.] I would be excited to meet with you and discuss the position in more detail soon. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,
Sydnee Mizuno

Peer review

In this cover letter, Sydnee is wrting a cover letter for a coop position at iRobot

Overall, this cover letter seems well written and professional. You go through your different experiences that are relevant to the position and describe them clearly. However, one thing I would recommend is not to give as detailed of a job description here, since most of that will already be part of your resume. You could add a little more information about things that wouldn't be on your resume, such as soft skills you picked up over the course of your experiences. You do this pretty well at the end of the first "work" section, when you talk about how you collaborated with your team. You could add something of this to your "school" or last "work" section along those lines (Ex."I collaborated with a team of Phd students on a Kinship Recognition Project, and then helped present our findings to a group of professors"). I also saw you mentioned that you wanted the reviewer to look at the "school experience" and "compatibility sections". I feel like the compatibility section works pretty well, and if you rework the school experience section a little bit to include some more about you that the reader wouldn't find on your resume, it would be pretty solid.

Instructor Note

There is a lot going well here. You do a really nice job laying out your specific skills and experiences. I just think you need to spend some time making explicit connections to the position and company to which you are applying--this both makes the point that you are a good fit more explixit and, more importantly, demonstrates that you've done your due diligence in researching the company and position, demonstrating commitment.