violachica Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 I applied under interdisciplinary, but not the Boren fellowship since I don't know what that is Did anyone else apply for NSF under "interdisciplinary"? Or also apply for the Boren Fellowship?
Krypton Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 (edited) I'm less tense about NSF and NDSEG not making clear when they'll release results and more tense that the DOE SCGF still hasn't made clear when they'll open the application (also delayed due to the budget). Just open it already or cancel the competition for this year! *sniffle* Edited March 29, 2011 by Krypton Krypton, dendarii917 and fluffy 3
mmk Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 I'm less tense about NSF and NDSEG not making clear when they'll release results and more tense that the DOE SCGF still hasn't made clear when they'll open the application (also delayed due to the budget). Just open it already or cancel the competition for this year! *sniffle* +1
dendarii917 Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 I'm less tense about NSF and NDSEG not making clear when they'll release results and more tense that the DOE SCGF still hasn't made clear when they'll open the application (also delayed due to the budget). Just open it already or cancel the competition for this year! *sniffle* THIS. Well, no, I'm tense about both, who am I kidding. But still. I'm with you on the SCGF annoyance.
dendarii917 Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 Alright, folks. Distract me from my agony about this. Let's talk about Broader Impacts. No one at my department has ever won one of these before, so there weren't too many resources for how to write the essays. I totally "get" Broader Impacts for the research proposal -- because it fits nicely with the NSF's general guidelines on Broader Impacts for grants and stuff too. But what sorts of things did you all put for Broader Impacts in your personal statement? It's so hard when you've been out of school for years. Any volunteer stuff I did as an undergrad was ages ago (and... there wasn't much of it since I planned to go into industry and didn't "need" it). Since then, I've been working a full time (and then some) engineering job, running a household, paying the mortgage, and raising a baby. You just don't end up the president of this club and that service society when you're trying to be a grownup, too, it seems. At least... I didn't.
crimsonengineer87 Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 Alright, folks. Distract me from my agony about this. Let's talk about Broader Impacts. No one at my department has ever won one of these before, so there weren't too many resources for how to write the essays. I totally "get" Broader Impacts for the research proposal -- because it fits nicely with the NSF's general guidelines on Broader Impacts for grants and stuff too. But what sorts of things did you all put for Broader Impacts in your personal statement? It's so hard when you've been out of school for years. Any volunteer stuff I did as an undergrad was ages ago (and... there wasn't much of it since I planned to go into industry and didn't "need" it). Since then, I've been working a full time (and then some) engineering job, running a household, paying the mortgage, and raising a baby. You just don't end up the president of this club and that service society when you're trying to be a grownup, too, it seems. At least... I didn't. I think that you running a household, paying the mortgage, raising a baby, and working on a graduate degree is amazing! For Broader Impacts, I don't think you need to simply list your officer positions and blah blah. I certainly didn't. If they wanted a re-hash for your resume/CV, then they would have asked for it. Plus, I'm assuming my letters of rec most likely addressed those. My field is civil engineering, however, I've done a lot of things outside engineering, like participated in our bookstore's corporate board, tutored at our multicultural center, blah blah. But I surrounded these things saying I'm trying to create an interdisciplinary understanding of the world ... which is needed for my research ... which involves integrated and interdisciplinary hydrologic modeling. So yeah. That's how I spun it. So I guess the broader impacts will be how it will bring together (or how I will bring together) research/faculty from different departments, schools, etc with my "interdisciplinary skills". But really, I think it just depends on who you get to read your PS. But I think you did fine. The fact you are going back to school is awesome and says a lot about you!
Eigen Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 My broader impacts focused on having several ethnic minority undergrads involved in my project, as well as an outreach program we're developing with a local high school to allow the students from there to come work in our lab over the summer/in afternoons during the year. Then of course, since I was proposing a design for chemotherapeutic drugs, there were the usual "benefit to society"/"benefit to basic science" goals. I went with my bosses advice, and actually added a specifically delineated section on the broader impacts of the work at the end of my proposal, instead of simply mentioning it as it came up within the course of the proposal itself.
acg Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 I went with my bosses advice, and actually added a specifically delineated section on the broader impacts of the work at the end of my proposal, instead of simply mentioning it as it came up within the course of the proposal itself. I did the same thing- the proposals that I've seen that were actually funded (from others in my department over the past few years) all had separate intellectual merit and broader impact sections so it was easier to read. I'm sure they fund ones that don't have the sections separated but it has to be explicit for your reviewer to judge.
tso123d Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 I did the same thing- the proposals that I've seen that were actually funded (from others in my department over the past few years) all had separate intellectual merit and broader impact sections so it was easier to read. I'm sure they fund ones that don't have the sections separated but it has to be explicit for your reviewer to judge. In fact I've seen others take this even (much) further. For instance some included the exact keywords found in the NSF guidelines and bolded or italicized those sentences. I thought that was a bit over the top, but those applicants were actually funded, so I don't know...
hello! :) Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 I did this too. I was told that one entire application only receives ~15 minutes of review time per panel member, so it's better to be clearer and more explicit. I did the same thing- the proposals that I've seen that were actually funded (from others in my department over the past few years) all had separate intellectual merit and broader impact sections so it was easier to read. I'm sure they fund ones that don't have the sections separated but it has to be explicit for your reviewer to judge.
meankney Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 I also separated out my broader impacts in my research plan and attempted to be really explicit elsewhere in my application materials when addressing them. I also made sure to include a figure in my research proposal showing the preliminary data I had collected. Someone at a workshop I attended who used to be a reviewer mentioned that reviewers are often much more excited to read proposals with figures/images for the simple reason that it breaks up the monotony of reading proposal after proposal with just text.
Eigen Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 I did the figure thing as well- mostly just because explaining the conformational shifts I was talking about without a figure would have been nearly impossible given the page limit. I did an introduction (about a page), then I broke down into three specific aims, each with their defined research goals and specific methodology, as well as a time scale. And then I ended with a review of the broader impacts of the grant. I discussed my initial results in each of the "specific aims" sections. I know my boss usually does the bold/italicized thing for NIH/NSF grants, but it seemed a bit over the top to me.
gnetophyte Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 Yeah, my advisor told me I should specifically address the broader impacts in a separate section. Since both reviewers dinged me for broader impacts last year, I tried to really drive it home this time. I was rotating in a biofuels lab, so I talked about that, and my interest in popular science writing.
uksawfly Posted March 29, 2011 Posted March 29, 2011 i also made a specific part addressing broader impacts in my research proposal, mostly focusing on how my research animal (sawflies) are charasmatic animals that could be used well in a classroom to teach aspects of natural selection...yadda yadda. I have a background in education (change of career kind of thing in the middle of college), so I focused a lot on bringing undergraduates (from all walks of life) into my lab, going to classrooms, etc. As for the bold/italicized thing, I agree that it seems a little over the top...but who knows what gives people the advantage!
khasiv Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 (edited) In my research statement, my broader impacts section covered the cross-cultural work I've done (speakers of multiple languages, corpora of multiple languages), the variety of sources I use (highly generalizable) and my intentions to publish and present my current research at international conferences as well as disseminate the data on the internet (although admittedly some of this you can chalk up to the GNU public license, which is a lovely thing). In my PS, I addressed the cultural and economic backgrounds of the undergrads I supervise, the cross-disciplinary research group I am a member of, and my intentions to involve more women (esp. undergrads) in my field of specialization (which is notoriously male). My research is inherently disciplinary though I didn't apply as such, but I stressed my project goals as being cross-disciplinary and generalizable to effectively every existing language (seriously...). I also talked about putting all my data online and using the data as a tool for education (say, in courses) and training (to train previously mentioned hypothetical female undergrads who want to learn how to analyze large datasets of words). I'm also one of those obnoxious people who bolded and italicized all of the catch phrases they list in their guidelines, because winning proposals did that but I didn't want to have goddamn bullet points. If I'd wanted bullet points I'd have given them an outline of my life story. Edited March 30, 2011 by khasiv
olive81 Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 I can't believe no one has posted in over 12 hours... repatriate and glowpear 1 1
glowpear Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 I can't believe no one has posted in over 12 hours... haha. hopefully it's the calm before the storm (...of acceptance emails for everybody!) but while we're putting our info out there -- i'm a first-time applicant, last-time eligible in Communications. Excited to hear but trying not to hold my breath, since a whopping 2 awards were handed out in this field last year.
uksawfly Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 I can't believe no one has posted in over 12 hours... I predict this forum will explode with posts on Friday, since then it will officially be "any day now." A fact that I am desperately trying to ignore...
meankney Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 I predict this forum will explode with posts on Friday, since then it will officially be "any day now." A fact that I am desperately trying to ignore... I think last year we all agreed last year that they usually hand out the awards on Fridays (can't remember if that actually ended up being true) so it will probably get really busy on Friday and then die down until next Thursday or Friday.
olive81 Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 Last year award notifications were sent out on a Tuesday (April 6).
dendarii917 Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 I predict this forum will explode with posts on Friday, since then it will officially be "any day now." A fact that I am desperately trying to ignore... I know I'm being ridiculously optimistic, but I think it's already "any day now", if budget issues aren't going to matter. In 2007 and 2008, it was in March: the 24th and 31st. In 2009 it was late, April 10th - but this was the year they had to figure out how to handle the stimulus stalled in Congress, wasn't it? I can see then needing extra time to figure out how to handle announcing in 2 waves. Last year was Tuesday, April 6, but the panels were delayed that year due to weather. Soooo... I think if the lack of a federal budget doesn't delay them (sigh), we're already in "could be any day" mode. whalo22, repatriate and Cicero 3
meankney Posted March 30, 2011 Posted March 30, 2011 (edited) Last year award notifications were sent out on a Tuesday (April 6). Well then I'm just totally confused! Edited March 30, 2011 by meb15
Bruin123 Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 (edited) Perhaps we should start a betting pool on when/what time it will be? (Winner gets some mad props from everyone else). I say Monday, April 4, 4:25 AM EST. Note: At this point I see 20 other people watching this thread in angst. Surely NSF can put us out of our misery soon? Edited March 31, 2011 by Durf
mmk Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 (edited) Tuesday, April 5, 9:30 AM EST Frankly, I'd like to see them announce this Friday, being April Fool's day and all...oh, to add insult to injury! Edited March 31, 2011 by mmk
crimsonengineer87 Posted March 31, 2011 Posted March 31, 2011 Tuesday, April 5, 9:30 AM EST Frankly, I'd like to see them announce this Friday... Friday, April 8, 12 pm PST. It seems so close ... yet so far ...
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