My fellow grad cafe visitors. We are here today to honor hope. We wait with anxious anticipation for a simple email that could make all the difference. It could mean funded research, acceptance into grad school, or not dropping out of grad school. It could mean simple validation.
We are hopeful because we think we have a chance at receiving a fellowship; if we did not think so, we would not have applied. We are hopeful because we successfully whittled down our past accomplishments and future goals to 4 total pages. We are hopeful for a GRFP because we still can be. We can picture ourselves receiving that email and staring in blissful disbelief. We can hear ourselves calling our parents to tell them with pride and excitement.
Given past notification times and dates, we may receive news in a few hours or a week. I challenge you now not to spend these moments commiserating and kvetching but celebrating. Maybe you have research plans to discover new applications of block copolymers, to combat human trafficking, or to evaluate the feasibility of carbon sequestration. Celebrate your research and its positive societal impacts, and embrace whatever hope you have for the future. Acknowledge that the future holds new challenges, rewards, and disappointments.
No one on this board is going to tell you if you received a fellowship. An email read at 10 am is going to convey the same information that it did at 1 am. Disappointment sucks, but hope.... that rocks. So celebrate.
