Can you please lend a hand to my motivation letter?

Hello, guys! I am a bachelor student from China and recently I am writing a motivation letter to apply for master programmes in geography (especially those with a technological specialty in GIS, Remote Sensing, Geoinformatics, etc) in Europe.

I have read some guidance materials for letter's writing and try to avoid cliches as much as I can. Nevertheless, the letter still remains to be redundant and unnatural:(

I'd be very grateful if you could lend me a hand and revise my letter:)

Below is my motivation letter:

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Motivation letter
ABC University

Dear Sirs or Madams,

I am intensely interested in the Master of Science in Geography at ABC starting in September 2016. With this letter I would like to express my strong desire to become a student of the interuniversity programme.

Currently I am a bachelor student majoring in Resources Environment & Urban and Rural Planning Management at the School of Geography and Planning, BBC University, China. A critical reason for me to apply for geography study is undoubtedly my consuming interest in the subject, which originally derived from my personal travelling experience around China. From childhood to adulthood, I have explored half of my country, where a diversity of landscape, people, and culture leapt to my eyes and aroused a strong desire of further discovering the differences in various regions and the connections lurking between them. The decision that I chose a geography-related programme as my bachelor’s major has initially proved my determined motivation for geography study.

During bachelor studies, the courses relevant to geographical information processing technologies considerably captivated my mind, not only because these courses instil an abundant amount of geographical information in me, but also because the application of technologies fully and accurately presents the numerical and geometrical characteristics of geographical features, which enables complicated calculations, eg projection calculations, to be possible and convenient. On the course of “GIS and Remote Sensing (RS)”, the concept of “Smart City”, which is a combination between technologies and cities, caught my attention at the moment it heaved in my sight. The simple fact of the concept that it enables an entire city to improve its efficiency substantially turns out to be extremely attractive and inspiring. With a curious and passionate mind in geography and technologies, I was involved in a study tour to the Guangzhou Urban Planning & Design Survey Research Institute in 2014, where numerous planning works were displayed. A master plan they presented to us, for instance, was formulated in a very precise and scientific way after they applied GIS and RS technologies to assess and analyse the environmental performance of the city, which again excited my interest in geography.

Throughout college years, I have taken active participation in a variety of geography study projects. Presently, I am involved in an Innovative Project of my university focusing on the study of villages in Guangzhou. Getting attracted by the rapid development of electronic commerce (E-commerce) industry in China, our team decided to take the transformations of land use, population, industries, and people’s concept of the villages which are characterised by E-commerce as our preliminary research directions. With an economic geography mind and geographical technologies, I succeeded in representing the increase of buildings and the formation of the recently-built electronic commerce industrial chain. Apart from this, in 2014 I engaged in a project of urban investigation in Dongguan city, where an uncommon sight of enormous enterprises and newly-constructed centralized villagers’ apartments greeted our eyes. After interviews with locals, in-depth self-study, and careful consultation with directors, I finally came to a conclusion that as the capital aggregation increased, enterprises expanded at an unprecedented rate and occupied a huge amount of area, eventually bringing up the appearance of centralized housing, which also gained my teachers’ recognition. Admittedly, these academic projects are only elementary attempts to explore the society and remained to be improved with vigorous validation. The experience gained from and the intellectual ideas sparked by them, however, stimulated me to make greater efforts on this path.

Looking ahead, there is a limitless prospect for geography in the future, especially that which combines with geographical technologies. In recent times, what impressed me greatly was the concept of “infrastructure smartisation” proposed by Doctor Shinji Yamamura from Japan. By using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) including GIS and RS, information of various infrastructures can be integrated and processed simultaneously, resulting in a leap in efficiency and creating a more sustainable and humanized city. Though benefiting an entire city may seem a task too arduous for an ordinary individual to fulfil, analysing geographical information, conducting a project feasibility study, and formulating a reasonable plan can be accomplished by a geographer and makes significant contribution to society. As a matter of fact, the European Union has developed a range of programmes under “Europe’s Digital Agenda”, suggesting that a bright future awaiting geographers with technological skills. In my opinion, there is a clear vision that the future of our cities lies in geographical technologies, therefore I crave desperately for continuing my further study in this field.

Given that I have been a student of science since my secondary education, and I got excellent grades for mathematics courses (average GPA 4.7/5.0) during university, it is certain that I have acquired a sufficient scientific background. Although my geographical techniques are still at a primary level, with my scientific background, some basic research experience, and my tremendous enthusiasm and keen interest in geography, I am sure I have fully prepared for further study in geography. After reading through the information on your website, I find your Master’s Programme in Geography perfectly suits my demand of the advanced study on geography, because you not only offer multidisciplinary courses including qualitative and quantitative knowledge and research skills, but also provide field trips and internship which incorporates practice into theories. From my perspective, the programme equips its graduates with abundant geographical knowledge and sufficient technological skills, which is exactly what I want to achieve. I hope this letter has clearly expressed my motivation to your programme and I would be grateful if you look favourably on me. Thank you for your deliberation!

Sincerely Yours,
XXX

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Thanks very much for your reading and help:)