Pauli

A research fellowship always means fully funded. Fully funded does not always mean a research fellowship. There are other ways to be fully funded, such as a teaching fellowship (i.e., being a TA) or working under a professor or lab director in a funded project (i.e., being an RA). What separates a research fellowship from other fully funded opportunities is that you work with a professor, while other fully funded opportunities means working for a professor or department. In other words, research fellowships give you independence to work exclusively on a research project of your choosing in collaboration with your advisor, as opposed to working on a research project that is of your advisor's choosing.

I guess the reason was because the program fit my research interests, locations, and cost of living, and felt comfortable with admittance due to my reference letters (the reference letters were professors in my undergrad that knew the professors well in the grad school), so I applied to that one in particular. But in addition, I was comfortable with my backup plan in the event that I was rejected, which was to go to industry for a couple years to boost my experience.

The "undeserved demographic" comment seemed a bit humorous. Being a member of an underrepresented demographic is one of the optional components, but they are given higher priority for the fellowship. Applicants not a member of an underrepresented demographic are also eligible. Applications for all three (Predoctoral, Dissertation, and Postdoctoral) should be open now.

I only applied to one grad school when I was looking for grad school programs.

Yes.

eliz_3: 2012 was Taiwan, 2013 was Singapore. I messaged you the contents as well a couple days ago. catface: I was not country-specific for Taiwan, since less people applied to that host country and I believe the committee focused more on the strength of the research proposal. For Singapore, I was very country-specific since Singapore is one of the more competitive host countries due to its attractiveness as a country with native English fluency (the other being Australia and New Zealand). According to previous EAPSI fellows, if you write a research proposal for those competitive countries that could possibly be done in the other host countries, you will almost be guaranteed to be rejected, especially for Australia and New Zealand, since that's just how competitive those host countries in particular are. For NSF EAPSI, it's totally not a numbers game, but on how strong the potential collaboration is. I think your application looks much stronger if you only list 1 country, since the committee will think you're more serious about the first-choice than another applicant who lists three. That is, listing only one country makes it look like you're much more invested in research abroad in that country and not going there simply because you just wanted to go to Asia/Pacific. From speaking with the other fellows, I didn't really know anyone accepted who listed more than 1. I think listing more than one applies to people who have strong collaborators in multiple countries and may have encountered issues with securing hosting with the top-choice after acceptance. But if you do decide to list more than one potential host country, then I think communications with the alternative choices have to be just as strong as the first-choice.

Yeah, I was in the program in 2012 and 2013. The list of participating institutions can be found in the country program handbooks, but I think those docs are inaccessible until the sites are back online. But almost all major research institutions for that country will definitely be participating. In the mean time, your best bet would be to contact the potential host's department to inquire. If they've previously hosted EAPSI fellows, then they should still be a participating institution. You could also contact the potential host country's NSF-equivalent to inquire, since the EAPSI program is a collaboration between NSF for us and the corresponding research science division for the host country (e.g., NRF for Singapore, NSC for Taiwan).

There's already an existing NSF EAPSI 2014 thread. You should post there instead of creating an isolated thread.

It's because the question is so vague. Those fields are very diverse. You'll need to be way more specific, and it also depends on whether you're going for Master's or PhD.

Nope, wouldn't be worth mentioning explicitly since MOOCs are still not certified, unlike formal university courses. If you learned any skills from those MOOCs, you could list those learned skills under its appropriate section.

Pretty sure GT is a top 10 CS program. Your intel is pretty bad.

Depends on the field.

It really depends on the department. The competitiveness may be more balanced by factors such as departments having more faculty for larger disciplines and the greater number of conferences and journals associated with those disciplines.

Because it's not a sexy-sounding field. People often migrate to sexier disciplines like AI, HCI, graphics, robotics, etc.

Without listing the research area, you won't get a reliable response.

I've seen quite a number of undergrads, including those in my lab, whom transitioned from undergrad to grad, but these students either excelled in undergrad and/or had prior undergraduate research with profs in the department.

Ah yes, it's that time of year again....

The thread is back! And I totally agree, gzahn. It would make a nice little mini-conference. We should suggest that to Dr. Kimsey and Elena! BTW, a general 2013 EAPSI Facebook group started by one of the fellows: https://www.facebook.com/groups/159401120886878/ I wasn't that interested in joining at first, but then I realized that it would be a great way to exchange tips for inter-host country travel to visit other fellows, and would also make a great alternative place to discuss final report matters (which I wished we had in last year's program).

Hey EAPSI fellows, for those who haven't exchanged cell numbers with me and wanted to meet up in D.C. for Day 1, go ahead and PM me so that we can exchange info. See you all in D.C. later today!

ajcsh15, yep. The metro station (National Airport station) is directly connected to Reagan Airport, and the current Starbucks meet-up is located inside the airport close to the metro station entrance. It can be found more or less easily on the 2nd floor (where the metro station entrance is) across from the American Airlines check-in counter and in the vicinity of the TGI Friday's (that one is hard to miss). Pic for reference!

guttata, PM me so I can send you my accepted 2012 and 2013 app materials.

Good question, ajcsh15. I have a suggested schedule below. 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM japple and Pauli arriving to airport and chilling out at Starbucks near American Airlines check-in counter and National Airport metro station. Since japple arrives before Pauli, Pauli will call japple once he arrives. 12:30 PM - 3:00 PM Pauli will discuss EAPSI Singapore stuff and might stick around a bit at Starbucks or other nearby places in the terminal (e.g., TGI Friday's). japple is free to stick around or head to the hotel early, but Pauli will be around for the remaining mid-afternoon arrivals of the other EAPSI fellows. 3:00 PM - 3:30 PM GarbageNerdUCF, gzahn, ajcsh15, and Eastern_wind will be arriving during the 2:00 pm hour block for possible meet-up with at least Pauli at the airport Starbucks or similar location. Then we will all take the metro train together from the airport to the hotel. Pauli will call the 2:00 PM hour block arrivals (if they already PM'd me their cell number) shortly after they land and will also call japple if she decided to head back to the hotel early. 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM Afternoon arrivals will check-in at the hotel. Most likely will be crowded as a bunch of people will be arriving around that time, with early arrivals having already lingered around the hotel. Ah well, that's life. Guess we'll just wait in line behind them. 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM Drop off luggage in our hotel rooms and then meet back in the lobby for possible plans as a group or break off into individual activities. Ideas include chatting at Starbucks, hanging out at Kelly's (a dive bar), grabbing a small late lunch in the area (and then eating dinner later at like 7:00 pm or 7:30 pm), cherry blossoms sightseeing, riding the metro to more interesting areas of D.C., and so on. Will call pig to see if he finished his city tour, and will call dcfryxell and CountingSeeds shortly after their flights arrive. 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM Group dinner at the hotel restaurant. We'll talk about our war stories from the forum and logistics stuff for the pre-orientation and upcoming summer fellowship. 8:00 PM+ Possible after-dinner plans. TBD during dinner. If you don't have my number yet, PM me for cell number exchange. Yay!

dcfryxell, your title will be finalized at the pre-orientation. We will have a group-wide activity where we will all tweak our titles, and then we will re-submit our finalized titles to the coordinators after our pre-orientation.

Eastern_wind, my labmate was in the NZ program last year and is back in NZ now. PM me if you'd like to bug her about her experience.

Ugh, you try-hard.