Advice from the Archives Series Note: Occasionally, we dig into the archives to uncover a post we feel holds relevant and timely information worthy of a repost. If you are interested in learning more about research grants and fellowships to support your graduate study, be sure to visit the GradFund Knowledgebase. A lot of funding for humanities graduate […]
Advice
Advice
Expansion and Enrichment – Funders and Your Network
Photo by Dina Lydia on Unsplash One of the most important professional development activities in academia is networking – building professional relationships within and without one’s chosen field. This includes academic collaborations and institutional contacts for the purpose of research and administrative purposes. To the various funders of external grants and fellowships, these contacts and […]
Asserting Your Narratives – A Defense of Narcissus
We’ve discussed how the personal statements matter as much as the research statements for STEM applicants. But we haven’t really discuss what to include or how to approach your various narratives. From a content perspective, narratives are an exercise in self-reflection and projection. If you were looking into the proverbial pool at your own academic and professional […]
Smithsonian Big Ten Academic Alliance Fellowship
The Smithsonian has dozens of fellowships and internships available for graduate students. GradFund has posted many popular ones previously, from research in art and visual culture, to aviation and space history, and even horticulture. All Smithsonian Fellowships are open to US citizens and non-US citizens, and each award has different deadlines throughout the year. Give yourself […]
Writing Grant Proposals When Your Research Project Has Changed
Suggestions on writing strong funding applications often emphasize the significance of starting out early. This, in general, is great advice. By making a head start on your applications, you will not only have time to develop your project, but also to get feedback from multiple readers to make your application stronger. But what happens when […]
Integrating External Funding Applications into Your Graduate Career
When a student starts a program of graduate study, they usually have a general sense of what their life will look like for the following couple of years. In most cases, this happens through a timeline, generally set by the program, that is broken down by semester or year: courses to complete, qualifying exams to pass, […]
Revise and Resubmit: Demonstrating Intellectual Growth in Funding Applications
Making a second attempt at a funding competition can seem daunting, especially if you have recently learned that your application was unsuccessful. In my first post on revising and submitting an unsuccessful grant or fellowship application, I addressed the steps applicants should take after receiving a rejection letter and before starting a second attempt. In […]
Applying for External Funding as a Master’s Student
One of the most common feelings that master’s students express is frustration with not having enough grant opportunities to support their graduate education. Indeed, there are less external funding opportunities for master’s students than there are for those pursuing a Ph.D., and that number may be reduced depending on your discipline. However, there are over […]
STEM Proposals: Is the Science Sufficient?
As engineers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians, or computer scientists, we have a propensity to get caught up in our work. Because Science! When our work is rejected or criticized, we ask questions about how we can improve it. I write from experience as I type this: sometimes the critique is about the scientist as much as it […]
Why should I come to GradFund? (Roundup Post)
When faced with the task of applying for external funding many of us do not know how or where to start. Fortunately for graduate students at Rutgers, the university has provided you with an office within the School of Graduate Studies whose task is to provide our students with guidance about how and what to […]