husky

So my story is odd. I applied for a 6 month stay in Norway and was supposed to leave in June of this year. However, I got my acceptance so late (less than a month before my travel date), I had to delay my trip. Ultimately, I decided to shorten it to 3 months since I needed to be back before the end of the year. But keep in mind that depending on where you go, there are minimum limits. I think Austria has a 6 month minimum stay requirement. I chose 6 months initially because that's about how long it takes for me to complete a typical project and write a good paper. So most likely, since this is now a 3 month stay, I will probably submit a conference paper instead of a journal article. Basically, what you want to do there will determine how long you stay. That was the plan. But I moved my travel to the following September. I don't think the following summer would have worked for me. You have to complete your stay by the August the following year. So I guess if you have a 2 month stay you could go the following June/July. But for a longer stay, that would not work. Separate stays are allowed, I believe. You just have explain in your proposal why you need to do that. I almost applied to Switzerland. :-) I heard that they accepted all their applicants for 2012/2013, but for 2013/2014 there was an unusually large and unexpected number of applicants to Switzerland and the country had not allocated enough funds to accommodate them. So the acceptance was really low (like 30% if I'm not mistaken). It's my understanding that there are not many students that take advantage of this opportunity - far less than the 400 student maximum. The vast majority of students that are not accepted are because they did not complete the application correctly. In general, the acceptance rate is high and Switzerland last year was a fluke. The proposal won't be any more difficult that the one you wrote for the GRFP. But there are instructions on what to include in the application (and the proposal). My advice is to read the instructions carefully. (broader impact and intellectual merit still need to be in there!) Good luck to all! Ahlmahz

Well, seeing that we've all been getting responses trickling in at different times, apparently each country has its own timeline. For me, since I heard back so late in May, it is not possible for me to meet my June travel date. Fortunately, it's not a problem for me to leave later. I wish I could tell you what happens if you are accepted Kasiv, but I'm still confused myself. In my acceptance letter from NSF, I was instructed to contact my host country's research council and when I did, they said I would be getting an email with further instructions soon...I still haven't got the email. So I think we have to just accept that it will be a slow process. For those of you who have not heard anything at all by May 31st, I would contact Rick. We should all hear at least something by the end of the month... Good luck to you all and positive thoughts your way!

I finally got my letter yesterday. Yay! I was starting to feel left out. Congrats everyone!

I'm pretty sure when Rick came out to our campus he said that the travel allowance is disbursed through your university before you leave and in one lump sum... But that was a while ago, I could be mistaken.

Good to know. Thanks. I'll just keep holding my breath til mid-May, then start emailing people.

Closetgeek, where did you get unofficial word from? Rick? Your host?

That gives me hope.

Mine still says "awaiting nsf approval". Closetgeek, which country did you apply to? I applied to Norway. Congrats to those with news!!!

I was super busy from Jan to the beginning of this month. So these past few months have flown by. But now that things have settle down, this wait is making me nuts. But if I'm not mistaken, at this point, the applications are in the host counties' hands now.

I was thinking the same thing about Sunday/Monday. I got what may be just a false alarm earlier this week. I got an email from NSF with "NSF GRFP Admin Approved Change Request" in the subject line. I still have no idea why they sent that. Maybe it's related to declaring my annual status which I've done recently. I don't even want to ask. Still waiting...

Not yet. I was expecting an answer sometime in April, though. It's still "early", I guess.

At my university, an RA contract is 0.5FTE and therefore requires 20 hours per week. As long as you can guarantee to spend that time on research, nothing else you matters. Your work boss can't tell you what to do when you leave work. Why should you allow your advisor to dictate what you do when you leave campus? All you have to do is assure the new advisor that you have and will continue to spend the the required amount of time required in your contractor research.

Try local utilities. They often have internships and co-ops. Also, I'm not sure if you are willing to leave Canada, but U.S. National labs (Sandia,PNNL, Los Alamos, Lawrence Berekely, etc.) have lots of power engineering opportunities for students of all levels. There is also Alstom Grid in Washington State. Good Luck.

In my experience, the best way to network is at professional events. I'm a graduate student, so for me, that means at conferences. I'm not sure about your field, but if you can attend professional meetings or conferences that's a great way to network! It might require travel, though. But it can certainly be a good investment. If you are a student and the event is on campus, that is just GOLD!

I love PhD comics, and yes...it is pretty darn accurate for me. By the way, I'm a fifth year Phd student in electrical engineering and I find more to relate to in the comics each year. But yes, there's way more to grad life than just the frustrations...