NSF GRF: My self-imposed homework

For the past four days I’ve done little more than sleep, eat, and do homework. Yep, self-imposed homework. I’ve spent hours in front of the computer reading pdfs about fruit bats, figs, sampling techniques, germination trials, community structure, seed dispersal, statistical analyses, and African forest dynamics. I’ve labored over words to describe my motivation for pursuing graduate study and incredibly short page limits for describing my plan of research. I haven’t even been out tracking Bernie since Friday night. I passed up sparkler bombs and other flammable festivities on Guy Fawkes Day (remember remember the 5th of November). All that missed fun because I decided to apply for a Graduate Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation (NSF). These NSF fellowships are extremely competitive. They award about 1000 fellowships (across all scientific disciplines) annually to graduate students beginning their study. The fellowship provides a stipend of $30,000 for three years plus a $1000 travel award to be used for international research. This is a big deal for a graduate student because it means that you have more flexibility to pursue your own research.

I suppose at this point I should mention (in case I haven’t already) that I’m planning to begin graduate school in August 2007 for a Ph.D. in ecology. Don’t ask me where yet; I’m still applying.

A few weeks ago I realized that the NSF fellowship, financially at least, is an even bigger deal than the Watson Fellowship. Still, I’m not nearly as emotionally invested in this as I was in the Watson. I spent months developing my Watson proposal and I only had one shot. The advantage of this is that I can apply again next year. So if nothing else, this application process has been a valuable learning experience and I’ll be better prepared for next year’s application.

Many thanks to my mom, Matt, and Nicki for your diligent editing and helpful suggestions. Thank you also to Sarah, Coco, and Seth for emailing me pdfs of the articles I needed! And, if you’re reading the blog, thank you in advance to T’ai, Bill, and Cameron for writing my letters of recommendation.

So, now that that’s off my plate I can be fully stressed out about the election results…

Carrie