olorwen
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Posts posted by olorwen
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Hi all, just a question about the broader impacts criteria. I think my research in itself has very clear broader impacts on society at large, and I can definitely relate my personal experiences to why I want to carry out research in this field.
On the other hand, I feel like my outreach activities are lacking. I've done STEM mentoring for fellow college students (holding office hours, meeting 1 on 1 with students to help them, etc.), but it seems everyone keeps talking about mentoring and outreach with respect to underrepresented minorities, which is definitely lacking on my resume. I volunteered as a tour guide and specifically gave tours to underprivileged students (aside from giving the a tour of the campus, sat on a Q&A panel about college life, encouraged the kids to get a college education, etc.), but it had nothing to do with STEM.
But I think my application shows that I am definitely committed to making my field accessible to those outside of it. My biggest achievement is authoring a tutorial on computational methods in my field (I'm a computational math and mech eng. major) that is focused solely towards scientists and engineers that have no prior knowledge in this field. One of the areas I've seen fellow classmates struggle immensely with is in the computational math courses required by all of the depts of engineering at my school. I've been getting feedback from many of my professors and classmates in writing it and it will be well over 100 pages in its final draft and includes codes and theory that will (I hope) help transition from theory to application. I've spent the past year working on this (it's not a thesis, just a personal project). Do you all think this would be suitable for the BI category? Trying my best to get involved in some meaningful outreach activities this summer as I'll be working on some interesting stuff with a national lab that frequently has outreach days for local schools
I do think this all is applicable for BI. The tutorial on computational methods would especially benefit the larger student community in science and engineering, and that certainly counts. And it's okay for outreach to have little to do with STEM, I think, too, since it's still outreach that you, a scientist, have done and speaks to your personal values. A lot has to do with how you write about it!
That said, I wrote a ton about outreach and especially outreach with respect to underrepresented groups, and the only BI that the reviewers mentioned was the stuff that was specifically research-related. And I was funded. So, your mileage may vary.
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I just got the award! I'm in Mechanical Engineering, and I'm another one of those people who got both the NSF GRFP and the NDSEG. I think I'll likely be accepting the NSF (the money is slightly better and I'm interested in NSF GROW), so hopefully I'll free up an NDSEG spot for someone else!
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Because I might as well share my obsessing over minor changes in the NDSEG site, I'll note that now, if you try to login to ndseg.asee.org/award, the error is now "Could not log in" rather than saying the username or password is incorrect, which is what it said yesterday. It remains exceedingly silly to read meaning into minor site changes, but I want to believe that this points to results happening soon!
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Hi all,
I was offered the award, and have found these forums helpful in putting together my application, so I wanted to share my results and some of what seemed to work for me (I'm in the field of Earth Sciences, applied in Geosciences - Climate and Large-Scale Atmospheric Dynamics)
It seems that strategy really pays off; from what I can tell, the difference between my HM last year and my award this year was specificity and style. Wander and I seem to have had a lot of crossover in our approaches.
For reference, I got E/E, E/E, VG/VG in Engineering - Mechanical.
Style
In both my research proposal and my personal statement, I had a clear, titled, bolded section about Broader Impacts, so no one could miss them. In the research proposal, I went one further, and broke up the rest into a general overview section and a specific research plan. I also bolded key phrases in my research proposal to highlight my research question and the specific steps I plan to take to address the question. And, I made space for a figure to show the proposed research apparatus, which is easiest to explain pictorially. Also, I think that figures stick with you better, making it more likely that your application will stand out amidst the sea of text that they have to read.
Specificity in Broader Impacts
For both Broader Impacts sections, I highlighted specific activities I have done and plan to do. In the research proposal, I mentioned specific outreach programs and made a case for why my research is well-suited to that kind of outreach. In the personal statement, I additionally highlighted active and/or leadership roles in the activities I considered Broader Impacts. It's really essential to be clear how much you have done and how important it is - you have to sell yourself (without exaggerating). If you tutored, how much did you tutor, and did you see positive effects for your students? If you made some sort of change in your community, what exactly did you do?
Specificity in Intellectual Merit
I think it's really important to be incredibly specific about your plan to complete your proposed research. Break it into logical steps, name specific technologies you plan to use. Say what you do with the results of your research, going forward. In your personal statement, make sure you state the point of every topic you write about. Can you point to the difference your research made? Is someone continuing your work? Did it get published? Did you learn something important that informed your later research or education choices?
Structure
I planned for the reviewers to be lazily skimming, so I made sure that, in both statements, you could understand the whole story if you only read the first and last sentences. This meant that, in the personal statement, my first sentences introduce whatever the paragraph is about, and the last sentences tell what came of whatever that paragraph was about. For example, when talking about past research, I introduced a research project by telling when it was and what its topic was, and I ended the paragraph by talking about the publication.
- Scat Detector, jcdes and DropTheBase
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OH MY GOD.
Offered award.
E/E E/E VG/VG
- PhDerp and academiaishorrible
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This is a pretty ridiculous question, but what part of the screen does the message show up on? I keep refreshing and having a moment of panic because I don't know which part I'm expecting to change. (I assume that this level of crazy is welcomed and accepted in this thread...)
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Does everybody see these when they log into fastlane, right click, and click "view page source (and CTRL-F for 'fellow')?"
<!-- <p class="leadtitle">Welcome Fellows</P> -->
<!-- Fellow Stats fixed 170px -->
<!-- END Fellow Stats -->
Mine does, too. Doubt it's anything. I don't really see why they'd change the comments in the html when they update the site.
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Did anyone else get an email from Microryza? They apparently grabbed my email address from the NSF GRFP list, and I'm betting I'm not the only one.
Also, does anyone have any experience with funding research through their site? Do you think it's worth the time it would require?
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Yeah, I got rejected as well. That's pretty lame.
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I applied this year, as well, and also haven't heard back. Good to know I'm not the only one, at least.
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Well, the NDSEG site says,
On average, 10% of reviewed applicants are selected to receive awards each year.
So it's (probably) at least higher than that.
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We should probably remember that the posters to this topic are self-selecting. I'd assume that more people who got a confusing email would post here, trying to discern what it means, than would people who got a clear-cut award or rejection. This may be wishful thinking, of course, as I'm just hoping that people who are "still being considered" are overrepresented in our sample.
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I'm mechanical engineering, and I got the "still being considered" email, too.
NSF GRFP 2014-2015
in The Bank
Posted
I did mention the outreach I did outside of science, as it contributed to the narrative theme of outreach and activism that I do. For instance, I mentioned my work creating safe spaces for LGBT peers in high school and undergrad, both outside of science, and then I talked about my LGBT advocacy work in the physics community. Oddly, my outreach work was mentioned in the reviews when I didn't win and it was not mentioned when I did win, so it's difficult to say what the effect was of keeping that in.
I'd recommend focusing on your academic outreach, but do (at least briefly) mention your non-academic outreach, as the NSF is specifically looking for diverse applicants, and your performance experience sticks out as interesting and diverse.