JaneA

Agreed. Teaching takes a day to be in class and at least one more day to grade. That either means you're less in lab to work, get less work done, need longer to graduate, etc. Or that you have no off time to release frustrations of weekly grad student existential crises

I wonder how many emails from applicants they were getting about the release date that they actually had to post that announcement

CL001, I hadn't looked at NIH before. I work in collaboration with a hospital and when I mentioned to my collaborator there last summer that I want to apply to grants, he discouraged NIH at this point in my studies because he said you'd need half of your goals proved with preliminary data to even get considered for funding. So this is the first time I'm hearing about NIH F31. Yes I'm switching labs, and trying to coordinate both finishing what I can in my current lab and trying to find external funding with help from people from my committee. You know, people generally think committees are useless in grad school, but I'm really glad they exist. I'd be literally crying under a rock without mine. I'm waiting for nsf results to know if I'm eligible or not for something internal that's due later this summer. If I get the nsf, I would be ineligible. If I don't, the hustle starts again. And since I need to change labs, the proposal I'd been intending to submit for the summer deadline needs to be scrapped or at least changed significantly, since no one else in the department works with what I currently do.

I actually applied to the goldwater fellowship back in Undergrad and got honorable mention at the time, so this isn't my first time writing a proposal for a national fellowship. As a second year, this is kind of my last shot at funding this comprehensive for grad school, without having to TA. This is important for me because I found out in February that my PI is retiring this semester due to rapid deterioration of health. I won't have money this summer. So I actually need the money rather than it being just about prestige anymore. My field is pretty specialized, so I don't expect many reviewers to know about it or care about it. Even though I think it's important, I don't think others will because of unfamiliarity. I do appreciate you looking at the bright side, but I'm in an overall shitty position because of the impending retirement, so I can't really see the bright side in my case, especially if I get nothing again.

Usually it's tuesday or friday that they're updated. Probably by April 5th. Don't have too much hope honestly. Everyone said my application was great, but Idk...not sure it has enough impact for people to care about it. I haven't re-read it to stop myself from stressing myself before the results, but, in retrospect, there's probably too much jargon