NSF EAPSI 2013

[sabamon]

No news here either. I do miss all the updates. How was your day?

Haha, it was great! It's just weird refreshing this page 15 times a day, I'm glad I'm not the only one out there who still is in a state of semi-uncertainty

Edited March 9, 2013 by sabamon

[Pauli]

My host advisor contacted me yesterday and said that the science division in his host country hasn't reached out and contacted him yet, so it looks like NSF side is still in the process of contacting the different research divisions around East Asia and Pacific.

[GarbageNerdUCF]

Haha, it was great! It's just weird refreshing this page 15 times a day, I'm glad I'm not the only one out there who still is in a state of semi-uncertainty

I'm there with you! 

[Pauli]

For new EAPSI fellows, I wanted to give some perspective of last year's coordination for the upcoming pre-orientation.  In 2012, the pre-orientation started on March 25, and fellows received an e-mail to start booking their flights about two weeks earlier on March 9.  Since the pre-orientation for 2013 is, I believe, on April 2, I think we should be hearing back about next week for purchasing our flights?

[GarbageNerdUCF]

Thank you!

[gzahn]

Yes, I too am starting to get very anxious about the DC orientation.   It is coming up very soon, and no information about flights, hotels, or anything......I am basically still waiting for them to tell me that they changed their minds......

[dcfryxell]

Yes, I too am starting to get very anxious about the DC orientation.   It is coming up very soon, and no information about flights, hotels, or anything......I am basically still waiting for them to tell me that they changed their minds......

haha seriously. this is killing me.

[GarbageNerdUCF]

Guess this is more positive news. I just received an email to register for Orientation and book flights to Washington, DC with SATO!

[Pauli]

Ditto on the e-mail.  One week sooner than last year too.

[dcfryxell]

ditto on the email as well. For NZ participants it says "we are still waiting on official approval from our foreign counterparts," but they're sending us to DC, so that is reassuring.

[Pauli]

For NZ participants it says "we are still waiting on official approval from our foreign counterparts,"

 

Yeah, this pending approval message is sent out to most, if not all, the host country participants.  They still need a couple of weeks to coordinate with the host countries' corresponding government research divisions.  IIRC, if they don't cancel your flight before your pre-orientation flight, then you're eventually officially approved during pre-orientation.

[ajcsh15]

Does anyone know what booking with SATO is like?  Can you pick the airport you are flying out/into or departure times?  Or do they just find the cheapest flight and say that's it?

Edited March 14, 2013 by ajcsh15

[Pauli]

Does anyone know what booking with SATO is like?  Can you pick the airport you are flying out/into or departure times?  Or do they just find the cheapest flight and say that's it?

 

I've booked through SATO more times than I liked, so I can offer some feedback.  My first piece of advice is to contact SATO pretty much ASAP.  For the EAPSI program specifically, you will provide your preferred departure location and time frame, and the SATO representative will locate times with the government-contracted airlines that matches your preferences.  It's pretty much like making arrangements with a travel agent, except the travel agent is specific to government-related travel.

 

The NSF people will reasonably expect that you depart in the general vicinity of your current university, so for example it's okay to depart from a non-hub airport if that non-hub airport is the closest to your university.  It should more or less be a reasonable location, so if a person attends college in, say, Georgia, and chooses a departure location from California, they're obviously not going to reimburse a vast majority of that cost.

 

The $700 should be able to cover costs for even the west coast people if they call immediately, since the rates will get jacked up the closer to deadline.  If it goes over, NSF should still be able to cover it with a sufficient reason on a case-by-case basis.

[Pauli]

If our flights are confirmed and we finally make it to D.C. on April 1st, we should totally have a GradCafe EAPSI fellows dinner meet-up on the first day of arrival.  I suspect that each host country program will branch out to do their own thing on the second day (e.g., the Japan program people went bar hopping, the New Zealand program people had dinner with the New Zealand ambassador, the Australia program people strangely went to TGI Friday's, the Taiwan program people had dinner with their EAPSI program alumnus), and everyone is checking out on the morning of the third day.

[gzahn]

Hm.  No email yet for me about DC.  Guess I will call Carter.

[Pauli]

As a heads-up to people that haven't booked through SATO yet, here's some things that people might find extremely helpful:

• Since they work on government travel, you might find it helpful to use the NATO Phonetic Alphabet table to spell out your full name and e-mail address to the SATO representative booking your flight over the phone to make the booking process faster and more seamless:
  • NATO Phonetic Alphabet: http://www.osric.com/chris/phonetic.html
• Additionally, since it's March and NSF hasn't had funding approved yet through the funding year, SATO can only book us with the more expensive refundable tickets.
• So I lied when I said that $700 should totally cover people now even over in the west coast.  I'm flying out from Texas with a connecting flight from a non-hub to a hub city, and my flight cost $697.60.  That's government contracting for you.  This might mean that the flights may be higher for people further out west, but this happens quite a bit with NSF travel, so go ahead and accept the flight and then send an immediate message to Elena updating her on the flight cost if it goes over $700.
• Since the SATO reps handle all sorts of travel and may not have received the memo of the EAPSI fellow travels yet, they will ask if you want to book a car and hotel.  Obviously say no, since you're expected to take a feeder shuttle from Dulles (IAD) to a connecting metro or directly to the metro from Reagan (DCA), and the program will be booking the hotel at the Hyatt for us.
• Be sure to remember your Located Number, since this number is needed to retrieve your itinerary if you need to make any changes.
   

 

Hm.  No email yet for me about DC.  Guess I will call Carter.

 

Hey gzahn, they're manually e-mailing all 200 people, so there's a chance that they're still making their rounds to people.

Edited March 14, 2013 by Pauli

[samtheman]

SATO was a little flexible in that they gave me a choice of times for flights. My flight was more than 700$ (flying from phoenix). I contacted Elena and she said it was no problem.

 

So it sounds like we have to wait another few weeks until we get official acceptance? This is driving me a little crazy. I have a nice internship offer as my backup plan, but it looks like I will have to turn down the internship offer before I hear official acceptance from the nsf. Any one know if the sequester will affect this program?

 

Also +1 for meeting up for dinner on the first night of orientation.

[dcfryxell]

Pauli - do you know how the hotel works? Shared rooms? are we just booked in a room by NSF with other fellows? thanks

[Pauli]

So it sounds like we have to wait another few weeks until we get official acceptance? This is driving me a little crazy. I have a nice internship offer as my backup plan, but it looks like I will have to turn down the internship offer before I hear official acceptance from the nsf. Any one know if the sequester will affect this program?

 

Pretty much.  Your best bet would be to ask your internship to possibly wait until the beginning of April.  I don't know if the sequester will affect the EAPSI program, but for a program that has been around for as long as EAPSI and spread out to many different partner organizations overseas, I speculate that they would give pretty decent advance notice if they were to shut down the EAPSI program for professional reasons.

 

Pauli - do you know how the hotel works? Shared rooms? are we just booked in a room by NSF with other fellows? thanks

 

Last year, fellows were booked into single rooms, where everyone had their own room to themselves.

[GarbageNerdUCF]

I'm interested in a group dinner on the 1st if I don't have dinner with my advisor. 

[Pauli]

It looks like they're giving us dinner vouchers for the first and second days of pre-orientation, but we can either ditch those for something outside the hotel or have a post-dinner bar outing.

[GarbageNerdUCF]

I'd be in for bar after dinner either way. 

[ajcsh15]

Great idea to get together for dinner/bar hopping on the 1st.  I am in. 

[GarbageNerdUCF]

Let's not forget our meeting starts at 8 am. 

[Pauli]

How are people's flight plans so far?  I'm arriving to D.C. at 12:10 pm from Reagan.