monomomentous

Hello! I am very grateful for this topic thread. I have been getting pretty serious about my application for the GFRP and am looking for some advice on the personal and relevant background section. A bit about my predicament: I did a lot of exploring in my undergraduate career, moving from an interest in counseling psych through law and clinical psych to human factors and human-computer interaction. My current essay pretty deeply describes the research experiences I have had, and the rather unfortunate time I had as a career counselor at the school's counseling center, which is sensitive. I was effectively fired from that job after I couldn't appear open enough in my interactions with clients, couldn't get myself out of bed to be on time for 8am shifts after working at a paying job late into the night before, and tried to help a friend who wasn't eligible for our services. There is a host of personal adversity issues which led to all of this, which I mention. I try to not focus much on that, since I don't want to seem like I am trying to displace blame. I failed. I wasn't accustomed to failing, but I faced it directly here. I changed and went on to have 3 very good and long-term research experiences, but I abandoned a field I was already questioning. I am a little worried about including this, but I think it is an important part of who I am. I have a good relationship with the prof who coordinated the experience, and he will be writing a letter. In addition to that sticky situation, I have come to the realization that I have very little actual detail about my "broader impacts." I am currently speaking about all of my research experiences, but I am now wondering if I should drop one of them (or at least condense) in favor of detail about how I have given back to my community. These detailings of my research experience essentially serve as the stepping stones in my path to my current interests, so I don't want to cut too much of that from my essay. I have been finding a lot of good resources around the web, but I wanted a little help getting insight on my nuanced situation. Thank you in advance!