No PhD/dissertation awards to apply for, too egotistical to ask for one to be made?

[PsiGuy]

I am trying to graduate soon and would like to at least try to get some extra bits for the hard work I've put into my PhD.  Unfortunately, as far as I can find, there aren't any PhD or dissertation awards at my university (R1) that I can even apply for.  I've emailed someone at the grad school to see if I completely missed them but have not heard back yet.

 

So my question:  Is it possible to ask for a award to be made so that I can apply for it without it sounding horribly egotistical?

 

I know I am not the best student in the history of our school or probably department, likely far from that, but I feel and have gotten the impression that I've done some pretty good work and would like to at least try for an award.  Most of the taglines for the professors in my field I respect the most (and some grad students/postdocs) have one or several graduate level awards so I feel it would look not so good if I were to have none in my CV.  Our department is small (~30 grad students) and not too old so that might be why there isn't a department specific award.  On the university side, I've seen a handful of awards for the social sciences and humanities but none for the hard sciences...

 

Any advice on how to potentially approach this subject with someone, who would be the best person to approach, and if it would just end up making me look worse to try would be much appreciated.

[TakeruK]

If you ask your department or school to make an award so that you can apply for it, then that is very likely to not go well at all!!

 

If you think your school/department needs an award to recognize physics students and have a good reason (e.g. like you said, the social sciences have them but there aren't any for physics) then it might be worth bringing up to the department when they have feedback sessions between students and profs (usually separate sessions for undergrads and grads). But it would look extremely bad if you did this solely so you can apply for it and put it on your CV! Awards tend to require some kind of donor (even if it's a small award). So, I think the best way to go about getting an award like this is to get together all the other graduate students who feel the same way; hopefully you will have a majority in support. Then, you can approach the department together about potentially creating an award and volunteer to do the legwork to find a donor. Remember that awards are often endowed, so the award payment comes off of interest and usually the University or the Alumni Association has schemes in place for this to happen (Alumni associations tend to solicit donations/endowments from their successful alumni to fund new awards). If you find a donor willing to fund an award for PhD Physics dissertations (or maybe you want to generalise this to Science PhD dissertations) then you now have enough in place to have the department or graduate school seriously consider the award. Even if you don't want it to be a monetary award, then you still need people to agree to do the strenuous task of sitting down and reading every single dissertation. 

 

However, if you spearhead this award, it would probably take a lot of time and it would look bad on the award if you won it, in my opinion. This is something you would be doing as a service to the other students in your department/school. But if you accomplish something like this, that would be a great experience to have and also be good on a CV too.

 

Other thoughts on this award idea -- if you limit it to only Physics PhDs, then it might be way too small in scope. If you have 30 grad students, that's an average of 5-ish grad students graduating per year. The best dissertation out of 5 isn't necessarily something that merits an award! In Canada, the Canadian Astronomical Society, as a whole, selects one Astronomy related PhD thesis completed in Canada [in the past 2 years], to win their best dissertation award. The prize is something like $1000, funded travel to the conference location and a 1 hour long prize talk. There is an awards committee of profs across Canada that judge nominations for this prize.

 

I mention this because maybe this is the right way to get what you want. That is, apply to already existing awards outside of your university. Maybe something like the APS? Also, for smaller scale awards that look great on a CV, you can apply for things like "best student talk" or "best student poster" at many conferences. Sometimes you don't even apply for these, the conference will have committees that judge this. Other times, you can apply for a travel award to present your work at a conference, which are awarded based on some combination of how interesting your research is, how much you need the funding, and how good of a student you are (criteria/prestige varies greatly between awards)

[PsiGuy]

Yeah, I figured it wouldn't look so good.  I do also want it to exist to help out other students, but to be honest I don't know if I would have the time or "social prowess" to set it up and get a donor and all that administration stuff.  In some informal discussions I know there are a couple of other students that think we should have an award too so it might be possible to get a quorum and approach someone for an unfunded "acknowledgement".  Or maybe once (if?) I've made it as a well payed professor (ha!) or in the real world ;/.

 

The small external route is probably best, I'll keep looking for those.

[TakeruK]

Yeah, I figured it wouldn't look so good.  I do also want it to exist to help out other students, but to be honest I don't know if I would have the time or "social prowess" to set it up and get a donor and all that administration stuff.  In some informal discussions I know there are a couple of other students that think we should have an award too so it might be possible to get a quorum and approach someone for an unfunded "acknowledgement".  Or maybe once (if?) I've made it as a well payed professor (ha!) or in the real world ;/.

 

The small external route is probably best, I'll keep looking for those.

 

Actually, I think an award for "best student talk" at a nationwide conference is much "bigger" and more prestigious than "best dissertation from Department X at School Y in Year Z". 

[nnnnnnn]

Hey, I've thought something along similar lines before, so don't feel bad. I did something similar with an organization that I'm in (granted, we're an informal group) and I brought it up something like the following:

 

"Hey, I think we should make an award for ____ achievement. Our members can use this as practice for applying for other awards and we can give them feedback. Also, it gives our members a chance to have something to add to their resume, and we want to help our members do well."

 

Remember, when you help others look good, you look good yourself.

[nnnnnnn]

Actually, I think an award for "best student talk" at a nationwide conference is much "bigger" and more prestigious than "best dissertation from Department X at School Y in Year Z". 

 

Sure, but what if you don't get that? Any little thing helps IMO.

[juilletmercredi]

There are other ways to get awards aside from at your university.  Many professional organizations give awards recognizing student research; some give awards for best completed dissertation or dissertation proposal.  Look for both large and small professional orgs in your field and submit your work to be considered by them!

 

Also, if you are in the dissertation phase consider applying for a dissertation fellowship or small grant through the NSF.

 

A better approach with your department is to ask professors if they know of any funding or recognition sources to which you can apply.