Early this morning, the National Science Foundation notified applicants of the results of their Graduate Research Fellowship bid. I awoke this morning to an email in my inbox notifying me that, regrettably, the NSF will not be able to offer me an award this year, that I have been awarded (yet another) Honorable Mention (which is supposedly a "significant achievement".... right), and that reviewer's comments will be available in three business days. I will be interested to see what the reviewers had to say, and if there is anything that's actually constructive that I'll be able to use to improve my application for next year.
Yep, that's right. Next year. Since this is my first year of graduate school and I will have not yet completed a full twelve months of classes before the next GRF application season, I will have one last year to try... yet again. Next year will mark my FOURTH attempt.
I am so sick of applying for this thing. I really felt strongly about this year's application, and I thought I had a good shot. I suppose all I can do now is wait for the reviewer's comments to be released, hope there is something constructive I can apply to my research proposal, and try again next November.
Of course, chances are I'll end up rewriting the entire application with a different focus. Especially if I get some of these research ideas going. I have a feeling what I really need is a publication or two on my record, stronger letters of recommendation from current (as opposed to mostly past) advisers, and DATA from a pilot study to show that I'm really on to something and I'm worth the NSF's support.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Scramble Competition
I’m not sure if I ever mentioned this, but with my (rather large) cohort my adviser doubled the size of his lab. A decent proportion of my cohort consists of lab-mates, people joining the program in my adviser’s lab. I’m not sure how or why this happened, if Paul was looking to drastically expand the number of students he advises, or if more students accepted the offer of admission than he expected. Regardless, the lab is now twice the size that it was last year.
For the most part, this is neither a particularly good or bad thing. We all have more lab-mates with which to engage, but Paul’s time is more limited for each of us than it was before. The size of the lab hasn’t affected me so much as the people that joined—for the most part they’re great. Except for one person: Brandy. Brandy may very well be my polar opposite: extroverted, melodramatic, immature, and insecure. She runs hot and cold—one day she’ll be the happiest, sunniest person around, expounding on how much she loves life and loves the program and loves her classes and loves her friends, and the next she’ll be depressed and moping about how everyone she hangs out with is an asshole, she doesn’t think she belongs in grad school, she’s so busy, she won’t ever find a guy that loves her, she isn’t smart enough to be here, etc. It grates on me.
She’s a nice person, and can be funny, but she tries too hard, and her immaturity tends shine through. Another cohort mate and I were discussing this the other day, and decided that she’ll probably be a great person to hang out with… in five or six years. None of this would matter too much, were it not for one little problem: for some reason the grad program decided Brandy and I needed to be best friends.
We share an adviser, which means we share a lab, and lab-mates, and lab meetings. We also have very similar interests, which led my adviser to decide that we should take all the same classes. And we share an office. I can’t get away from her. Other people in the program have remarked on how she and I are “joined at the hip” and “do everything together.” There are running jokes in the department about limited funding and resources and that Paul will only be able to support and advise one of us, leading the other to drop out.
Um, no. We have the same classes, lab, and office. I literally cannot prevent us from going places together, but outside of campus we have no interaction. It shouldn’t bother me, but for some reason feeling as if the other people in the program always associate us with one another is bothersome.
It has been a little better this semester, since we’re TA’ing different classes (thank goodness), but the issues remain. I was thinking of asking to switch offices, but I really like our other office mate, and I don’t really want to cause any dissonance between Brandy and I. I don’t necessarily dislike her. I just don’t want to spend time with her.
Recently I’ve been working on research plans to do a pilot study in Remote Location this summer and fall. Brandy had only ever expressed interest in working on local, unrelated projects, until one day during lab meeting I brought up my most recent ideas.
“I want to do research in Remote Location, too!” she chimed in.
An older grad student in the lab, and one of my advocates/potential collaborators on this project asked her, “What would you be testing?”
“Well, I don’t know. How can you expect me to have questions if I’ve never been there? It would just be awesome, right? A summer in Remote Location? We could have a big summer lab research party and do fun research together! HeeHee!”
*sigh*
For the most part, this is neither a particularly good or bad thing. We all have more lab-mates with which to engage, but Paul’s time is more limited for each of us than it was before. The size of the lab hasn’t affected me so much as the people that joined—for the most part they’re great. Except for one person: Brandy. Brandy may very well be my polar opposite: extroverted, melodramatic, immature, and insecure. She runs hot and cold—one day she’ll be the happiest, sunniest person around, expounding on how much she loves life and loves the program and loves her classes and loves her friends, and the next she’ll be depressed and moping about how everyone she hangs out with is an asshole, she doesn’t think she belongs in grad school, she’s so busy, she won’t ever find a guy that loves her, she isn’t smart enough to be here, etc. It grates on me.
She’s a nice person, and can be funny, but she tries too hard, and her immaturity tends shine through. Another cohort mate and I were discussing this the other day, and decided that she’ll probably be a great person to hang out with… in five or six years. None of this would matter too much, were it not for one little problem: for some reason the grad program decided Brandy and I needed to be best friends.
We share an adviser, which means we share a lab, and lab-mates, and lab meetings. We also have very similar interests, which led my adviser to decide that we should take all the same classes. And we share an office. I can’t get away from her. Other people in the program have remarked on how she and I are “joined at the hip” and “do everything together.” There are running jokes in the department about limited funding and resources and that Paul will only be able to support and advise one of us, leading the other to drop out.
Um, no. We have the same classes, lab, and office. I literally cannot prevent us from going places together, but outside of campus we have no interaction. It shouldn’t bother me, but for some reason feeling as if the other people in the program always associate us with one another is bothersome.
It has been a little better this semester, since we’re TA’ing different classes (thank goodness), but the issues remain. I was thinking of asking to switch offices, but I really like our other office mate, and I don’t really want to cause any dissonance between Brandy and I. I don’t necessarily dislike her. I just don’t want to spend time with her.
Recently I’ve been working on research plans to do a pilot study in Remote Location this summer and fall. Brandy had only ever expressed interest in working on local, unrelated projects, until one day during lab meeting I brought up my most recent ideas.
“I want to do research in Remote Location, too!” she chimed in.
An older grad student in the lab, and one of my advocates/potential collaborators on this project asked her, “What would you be testing?”
“Well, I don’t know. How can you expect me to have questions if I’ve never been there? It would just be awesome, right? A summer in Remote Location? We could have a big summer lab research party and do fun research together! HeeHee!”
*sigh*
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