The summer before my first year in graduate school seems like an eternity ago. I remember reading an e-mail from my graduate program director stating that the incoming Ph.D. students would be participating in a mentoring program through a program called GradFund. Dozens of questions swirled in my head. Hadn’t my graduate program told me […]
Advice
Advice
How to Juggle Writing Several Fellowship Applications at Once
So you’re eligible for multiple fellowships that are due only a few weeks apart… gotta love application season. You really want to get funding for next year, so you don’t just want to apply for one fellowship opportunity. How do you juggle applying for different fellowships from different funders with different goals? It’s challenging, but […]
Projecting into the Future: How to Plan for the Next Phase of Research
Hello GradFund Conversations readers! Planning for the future is one of the most crucial yet often overlooked or misunderstood aspects of applying for and obtaining funding. Maybe you are planning your dissertation proposal and would like some money to do the work you are proposing. You may just need to shift into a new phase […]
Finalizing a Draft Proposal
When do you know when you’re done editing? For some, edits can be difficult. For others, it can seem like the work of editing is never done. Either way, below are some tips you can use to help figure out when a draft is done. Get Your Advisor’s Thoughts – For important and large-scale grants it can be […]
Requesting and Receiving Letters of Recomendation
The best way to make sure you have a good letter when it comes time to submit a proposal is to develop a consistent and professional relationship with your advisor and other faculty members in your area over the long term. This includes class participation and being an active member of your program. You will […]
Soliciting Feedback for Your External Funding Applications
In the process of developing grant and fellowship applications, one of the things that has held me back from soliciting feedback on my proposals was the thought that I needed to submit excellent first drafts. Producing flawless (and fully completed!) first drafts was a daunting task, so I usually postponed writing and didn’t ask for […]
First Steps in Revising
One of the most important practices in good grant writing is editing. A first draft is very rarely perfect, and the best writers spend time editing and re-writing their work. Even if you come from a discipline where writing is not a primary focus, you can use the below tips to help you to figure […]
Six Years, Four Points: Advice on Grant Writing
As soon as I got to graduate school, I began to feel the pressure to get external funding for my research. When I started my program, however, finding, deciding to apply, and then putting together an application seemed like an arduous, complex, and unnecessary process to me. In my first year, I remember having a conversation […]
Is Archival Research Right for Me?
Archival Research in the Humanities Series Note: A lot of funding for humanities graduate work is tied to travel for research, so pursuing archival research can open up opportunities to apply for funding to support pre-dissertation and dissertation research. And, of course, archival research can lead you to deepen and expand your project in meaningful […]
Applying for Grants and Fellowships as an International Student – Part Two
Series note: The following post is the second installment in the Applying for Grants and Fellowships as an International Student series. Click here to read Part One. Confronted with the challenging situation of having limited external funding options to support their graduate career and research, international students often come to believe in certain myths that hold them […]