Hello all,
I have a question regarding recommendation letters. I'm a second-year student and planning to have one rec letter from my advisor, and one rec letter from my unofficial co-advisor. For my third letter, I have two options: (1) my undergrad advisor, with whom I published a conference paper, although I haven't really spoken with her since last year's NSF GRFP deadline, and (2) a faculty in the CS department, who is the director of an outreach program for which I am the graduate student lead.
One of my reviewers last year complained about how I wasn't doing any outreach at the graduate level (although I was volunteering with two separate organizations and wrote two separate paragraphs about it...). I'm hoping that by asking "letter writer option (2)", I can make it absolutely clear that I both do outreach, and have a leadership role in these outreach organizations. However, the description of rec letters on the NSF website seems very research focused.
I'm wondering whether it is worth having a letter from my undergrad advisor as a second year grad student, or if it would be better to have a letter completely devoted to outreach/broader impacts.
What are your thoughts?
