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NSERC PGS D 2021-2022


MarleyBarley

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I just received my PGS-D award! Selection committee 187 (Cellular and Molecular Biology)

Some information about me:

  • 0 peer-reviewed contributions (literally not a single paper publication)
  • 14 non-peer-reviewed contributions (1 database, 1 neural decoding algorithm, 12 conferences mostly provincial and international with some local)
  • My project is really cool and highly inter-disciplinary and collaborative (broadly neuroscience but touches epigenetics, stem cell-related molecular and cellular neuroscience, electrophysiology, systems neuroscience, and computational neuroscience). My undergraduate and graduate level education all contributed a lot to my current project (undergrad in Physiology and Genetics with a strong focus in neurophysiology and stem cells, while also taking computer science courses throughout, neuroepigenetics lab research)
  • Won a prestigious national AI case competition in a field I was unfamiliar with 3 months prior to the competition (Natural language processing and sentiment detection in scientific language to classify and organize scientific articles)
  • I'm also highly involved in my community with a strong emphasis in scientific communication (science rendezvous, lets talk science, publish lay articles, teach high school students science, present at seniors home, podcasts)
  • Involved in research institute student body as well as graduate student society. Through this, I helped organize an institute-wide research retreat.
  • Developed an open access database and currently working on another one for scientific data from my lab.


You can get an award without publications!

Edited by kitrak
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1 hour ago, MegSz said:

I received my acceptance for the CGS-D yesterday! I had applied directly to NSERC in Ecology & Evolution, and my last name starts with S. I am also doing my doctorate in the US so I'll have to accept the PGS-D instead

Congratulations!

Do you mind giving a bit of background on your experience? I also applied directly to NSERC for Ecology & Evolution and was waitlisted. Wondering what goals I should be setting for myself in applying next year.  

Thank you :)

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3 minutes ago, Ne Ka said:

Anybody from your school heard back from admin? 

I haven't heard from them...I am not sure if i got one

I haven't heard personally that anyone at U of T was informed from the school. I honestly have not tried to ask them though. Figured they were busy enough. 

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31 minutes ago, CRay said:

Congratulations!

Do you mind giving a bit of background on your experience? I also applied directly to NSERC for Ecology & Evolution and was waitlisted. Wondering what goals I should be setting for myself in applying next year.  

Thank you :)

For sure! I had one first author pub at the time of applying, another first author ms submitted, and a second author ms submitted (first authors were my undergrad mentees). I had received a few small scholarships/award ($500-800) through local organizations like native plant societies. I had already completed at MSc, which definitely helps to line up the publications.

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Just now, MelanieW said:

I haven't heard personally that anyone at U of T was informed from the school. I honestly have not tried to ask them though. Figured they were busy enough. 

Same here for U waterloo. I never tried asking though. 

What's the first alphabet of your last name? Mine is K and I hope to get results today 

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Just now, Ne Ka said:

Same here for U waterloo. I never tried asking though. 

What's the first alphabet of your last name? Mine is K and I hope to get results today 

Mine is W! So close to the end of the line... but really hoping for results today! 

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26 minutes ago, jburnz said:

Still nothing yet! I emailed my grad admin (uOttawa) but was told they weren't at liberty to share the results before NSERC.

Interesting to see the different approaches the schools take on sharing the results. It definitely is frustrating and doesn't help with the anxiety.

Edited by ssethi25
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1 minute ago, ssethi25 said:

Interesting to see the different approaches of the schools take on sharing the results. It definitely is frustrating and doesn't help with the anxiety.

I 100% agree. Us students don't need more anxiety especially considering nearly the entire country is in some sort of lockdown :( 

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8 minutes ago, MegSz said:

For sure! I had one first author pub at the time of applying, another first author ms submitted, and a second author ms submitted (first authors were my undergrad mentees). I had received a few small scholarships/award ($500-800) through local organizations like native plant societies. I had already completed at MSc, which definitely helps to line up the publications.

Thanks for your response! 

At the time of applying I had three publications... two first author and one second author (also from an undergraduate mentee) as well as some scholarships from my university... Also finished my MSc and have been working for the last two years in my field and had some relevant non-peer reviewed publications from this experience as well.

I am anxious to get the rankings back because I just don't know what I am doing wrong...I think there are just too many awesome candidates out there!?

Edited by CRay
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2 minutes ago, CRay said:

Thanks for your response! 

At the time of applying I had three publications... two first author and one second author (also from an undergraduate mentee) as well as some scholarships from my university... Also finished my MSc and have been working for the last two years in my field and had some relevant non-peer reviewed publications from this experience. 

I am anxious to get the rankings back because I just don't know what I am doing wrong...I think there are just too many awesome candidates out there!?

Sounds like you are doing everything right! That makes me wonder how much weight the selection committee puts on experience and how much is put into the actual proposal content - i.e. what they consider exciting research.

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17 minutes ago, CRay said:

Thanks for your response! 

At the time of applying I had three publications... two first author and one second author (also from an undergraduate mentee) as well as some scholarships from my university... Also finished my MSc and have been working for the last two years in my field and had some relevant non-peer reviewed publications from this experience as well.

I am anxious to get the rankings back because I just don't know what I am doing wrong...I think there are just too many awesome candidates out there!?

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I feel like there's a component of luck involved in these scholarships so it's important to remember that you're not deserving or not qualified just because you weren't successful.

This method of thinking has definitely helped me to keep sane in such a competitive environment.

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2 minutes ago, ssethi25 said:

I don't think you're doing anything wrong. I feel like there's a component of luck involved in these scholarships so it's important to remember that you're not deserving or not qualified just because you weren't successful.

This method of thinking has definitely helped me to keep sane in such a competitive environment.

Thanks for this ? ...still going to be dissecting my proposal in my head until June 30th when we get the ranking back by I just might keep my sanity ?

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