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Prepping for NSF GRFP Applications
48 Plays2 months ago
In the Season 2 Finale, Jill sits down with Dr. Alena Alamgir, Director of Technical Communication for Materials Science at Georgia Tech. The two discuss preparing documentation and application materials for the highly competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program, or NSF GRFP.
Show Notes and Timestamps:
- 00:54 Intro and Welcome
- 01:33 The Basics: What is NSF GRFP?
- 04:07 How many years does the Fellowship fund?
- 04:59 Restraints on who can apply
- 05:59 Documentation and Composing Required Documents
- 13:48 Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts as Criteria in Practice
- 18:00 Practicing Framing Research Problems to Align with NSF Priorities
- 20:38 Questions for advisors before applying
- 22:14 Considering and soliciting recommendation letters
- 30:13 Preparing for Applicant Workshops and Primary Purpose of Workshop Attendance
- 36:05 How to get the most out of attending the workshops and actionable steps for applying
- 39:43 When the solicitation comes out and episode wrap up
A transcript of this episode is available here.
We will return for Season 3 of Communication Mechanics in the Fall of 2025.
Episode edited by Lee Hibbard.
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Transcript
Practical Communication Skills for Engineers
00:00:16
Speaker
and art of communication and engineering. Last season, we covered general topics that helped us examine why strong communication matters for engineers. This season, we're taking a deeper dive into practical topics such as writing best practices, visual communication blind spots, code commenting, and more, all tailored to help you navigate the unique challenges of engineering communication.
00:00:40
Speaker
Whether you're tuning in for the first time or are joining for another season, we're excited to have
00:00:54
Speaker
Welcome back
NSF GRFP Basics with Elena Alamgier
00:00:55
Speaker
to the podcast. This episode is about NSF GRFP applications. And today I'm joined by Elena Alamgier, who is the director for communication for material science here at Georgia Tech. Welcome.
00:01:09
Speaker
Thank you. Happy to be here. Yeah. Thank you so much for being a part of the podcast. I know that we've worked together before on some of these NSF workshops that we do usually in the fall. And the idea behind this episode was that we would discuss some of the things that students could do to be more prepared for those workshops in the fall.
00:01:33
Speaker
Let's start off with the basics. What is NSFGRFP? So NSFGRFP is a ah graduate fellowship, which means it's a fellowship that will pay you a stipend as well as cover your tuition in graduate school.
00:01:52
Speaker
and you can apply for it either as a graduating senior or as a first or second year graduate student. You can also apply for it in your gap year if you take a break between getting your undergraduate degree and starting graduate school.
Timing and Strategy for NSF GRFP Applications
00:02:12
Speaker
One thing that's really important to know is that theoretically you can apply for the fellowship any number of times as a undergraduate or in your gap year, but you can only apply once as a graduate student. And the reason that's important is that it means that you have to make, ideally in collaboration with your mentor, with your advisor,
00:02:38
Speaker
strategic decision as to when it makes sense for you to apply as a first year graduate student, which in practice means couple of months after you enter graduate school, or as a second year, so in your second year of graduate school.
00:02:54
Speaker
Right, because on the one hand, it'd be great to have that fellowship and be able just to spend that early time in your graduate school trajectory focusing.
00:03:04
Speaker
On the other hand, waiting could give you more details and more practice thinking and talking about your project. Right. So in cold, hopefully not cynical terms, but sort of practical terms, this is not true of everyone, which is why I say there are certainly people who are better of applying as soon as they get to graduate school.
00:03:24
Speaker
But for many people, you simply become a more competitive candidate in your second year because you had one year to accumulate research experience, you've had more time to think about the project that you're
Managing NSF GRFP Funding and Future Planning
00:03:38
Speaker
going to propose.
00:03:38
Speaker
So you have more experience under your belt as well as you might have won some prizes or some other recognition. But I do not want to make it sound like everyone should be applying in their second year. You know, sometimes people come and they're ready and they have lots of experience under their belt as well as lots of other accolades that make them very competitive in their first year as well. But the main thing I do want to emphasize is think about it carefully.
00:04:03
Speaker
Do not just go for one or the other automatically. I think another thing for people to consider, and this will be different for everyone based on their specific project, is how long is your PhD going to take given your project and how many years does this fellowship fund?
00:04:21
Speaker
The fellowship will fund three years of your PhD, which means that funding for the remaining two years, in in the case of STEM, it tends to be around five years for most people.
00:04:35
Speaker
will have to come from somewhere else. Normally, in material science here at Georgia Tech, it will be the advisor's responsibility to find the funding for you, and they do normally. But yes, if you were to win NSF GRFP, you will not have to worry, or your advisor will not have to worry about your funding for three years of those five. Right.
Eligibility and Application Requirements for NSF GRFP
00:04:58
Speaker
So you can apply during your undergraduate, during your gap year, and once during your Ph.D., either your first or your second year. What are some of the other restraints on who can apply?
00:05:11
Speaker
i know you have to be an American citizen, correct? Yes, that is a big one. You can also be a green card holder. There are some kind of niche constraints, but those tend to be individual, and those are best considered on an individual basis.
00:05:26
Speaker
so there's some information on the NSF GRFP website, so that should, of course, be our first stop. If your circumstances are truly unique and complex, then you probably want to give a call to the administrators of the program and figure that out. but The most fundamental constraints are your point in your academic career and your citizenship status.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yes, check out that website, make sure that you're eligible to apply, and then you can start thinking about the types of things that the application requires. As far as documentation goes, what you're turning in, what's required there, a CV for sure, right?
00:06:04
Speaker
I think so. From the point of view of someone who helps students prepare documents for this fellowship, they're the two key texts that I work on with our students, and that's their personal statement, which is three single-spaced pages, and a two-page research statement.
00:06:26
Speaker
One thing you need to know is that you need to comply with all the guidance that and NSF provides for this. So in other words, you cannot fool around with fonts or with font sizes. So even though this might sound like a trivial or kind of unimportant detail, it in fact is not because unless you comply, your application will not be accepted. I think the system, at this point, the system will actually not even let you through. So in the past, it might have let you submit and then it would have been discarded upon reading. But I think these days there is some automatic check that will simply not let
00:07:00
Speaker
you even submit. So again, so it's something super sophisticated, but it's something really important to keep in mind. So when they define what scope they're looking for in these documents, they're serious. They're serious about everything,
Preparing for NSF GRFP: Start Early and Engage
00:07:12
Speaker
yeah. yeah These are the documents that we work on in the fall workshops, the personal statement and the research statement.
00:07:19
Speaker
Well, so yes, but I will say that I urge the students in our school to start working on these things much earlier than in the fall. Right. It is possible to do it, you know, to just work on them in the fall, and you might be successful. I i have seen students like that, but generally speaking, you are much better off starting to work on these things much earlier. Right.
00:07:46
Speaker
There's a lot that goes into these documents. And if you wait until the fall to even start thinking about them, you're running a bit behind here. Because these applications ask you to do something that is is really hard, I think, at the PhD level, because you're doing something so specific and focused.
00:08:06
Speaker
And these applications are asking you to generalize what's important about these. And they ask you to do that in two categories. Can you talk about those categories? Right, so I think what you're getting at are the criteria that the National Science Foundation uses to assess these two documents that you submit.
Understanding NSF GRFP Evaluation Criteria
00:08:26
Speaker
By the way, these criteria are something that and NSF uses to assess all grant applications that it receives. So this is not something just specific to this graduate fellowship. The criteria are called intellectual merit and broader impacts.
00:08:44
Speaker
Now, the labels themselves are not terribly self-explanatory, although the intellectual merit might perhaps be clearer to people.
00:08:55
Speaker
So let's maybe let's start with that. and Maybe the first thing I want to say, though, is that these criteria, both of them, are applied to both the statements. In other words, both your personal statement as well as your research plan or research statement will be viewed through and evaluated through the prism of these two criteria. It seems as if the and NSF really likes having a holistic view of the applicant throughout all of these documents. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's a very good word to keep in mind, holistic, yes.
00:09:29
Speaker
That is absolutely what is at the core of NSF GRFP. So this may be little bit of a detour, but I think it's important it's an important thing to know, which is that NSF itself says that the funding for this program, when when when they do give you funding, when you are one of the awardees, what they're doing is they are not strictly speaking funding your project, the project that you propose.
00:09:55
Speaker
But the idea behind NSF-GRFP is that they are funding you because they made the assessment that you are a young researcher full of promise.
00:10:07
Speaker
and So they give you the funding because they believe that if you receive the funding, you will go on to have a successful scientific career. and So here is where the holistic criterion really comes in.
00:10:19
Speaker
right So they want what they want to ascertain is that you are indeed this promising young. Right. So through these these two documents, the personal statement and the research statement, you have to talk about both intellectual merit and broader impacts because they want to see you as a holistic researcher who has a kind of trajectory that they want to fund.
00:10:43
Speaker
That's right. ah Well, you don't have a trajectory at this point yet, so really but you have to convince them that you have what it takes to have that trajectory. But you might refer to some things in your past that show you the start of this and then your future plans that...
00:10:59
Speaker
maybe hopefully put toward a cohesive through line. Right, right. Yes. Yes. So in that sense, yes. So you are using your past experience as a way to argue or to convince the reviewers that you have what it takes. So using the past to vouch for the future in a way.
Communicating Complex Research Effectively
00:11:20
Speaker
yeah These are hard documents to write, and um that's really a big point of this episode is to help people in the planning processes because if you wait until the fall, it's a lot to digest, especially because and during the PhD, we're told to focus, focus, focus on your research goal. Just focus on that minute area where you're pushing theory or practice further.
00:11:45
Speaker
But in these documents, you really need to be thinking more laterally but yes although the research statement precisely because you are presenting presumably a research plan for the project on that you will use to get your phd will be focused however to get it to that point you need to know something about the broader area you will need to have done a lot of reading and thinking and talking with your advisor And the readers for these documents aren't necessarily experts in your subfield.
00:12:21
Speaker
Not all of them. So it depends partly on luck, but you you will get three reviewers and you might probably odds are good that one of them will be quite familiar with what you're writing about and two of them will not.
00:12:34
Speaker
And what that means from writing point of view is that you have to write in a way that ah shows the one person who knows or that subfield or that slice of research really well that you know it well enough.
00:12:51
Speaker
while it the text is accessible and understandable and makes sense to the to other reviewers who might be experts on other things. That's a hard lift.
Enhancing Broader Impacts Through Outreach
00:13:03
Speaker
That is a hard lift. and And that is why people like you and me are here to help you make that lift. Which actually kind of speaks to your other point about when to start working on these things and why it's not the best idea to start in the fall, which is that these documents, both of them, require iterations, require editing, require feedback, and that simply takes time.
00:13:29
Speaker
And I again think it goes to your point too that writing isn't the start of when you're working on this. Just thinking about it. Talking to your project, to other people who are outside of your field, that could still be considered working on this because you're practicing vocalizing why your project matters.
00:13:47
Speaker
Let's focus back in on those two criteria. Intellectual merit. What does this mean in practice? So this is something that's that has a lot of dimensions.
00:13:59
Speaker
Primarily, so the first kind of dimension along which to think about this is that there is a past component to intellectual merit, which is to say the things you have done, and there is a future component to it, which is to say the things that you promise or propose to do.
00:14:14
Speaker
Second dimension is the fact that it's a intellectual merit is a property of both you, the researcher, the person writing these statements, as well as of the project, the research project that you're proposing.
00:14:30
Speaker
And you have to convey all of these in each of the two statements. And broader impacts, what does this mean in practice? Okay, so broader impacts, I guess the easiest way to summarize it, it's the good stuff having to do with science that you do outside of the lab.
00:14:53
Speaker
Mainly having to do with things like the reception of science, the understanding of science by broader audiences or population. bringing into science other people. so it's, guess you can think about it as your activities having to do with service and leadership, but primarily in the realm of science. So it is it is science, but not necessarily in the lab, but more outside. so So things like mentoring or demos, demonstrations for children or other groups, etc.
00:15:29
Speaker
So thinking about like types of experience that either these applicants could cultivate if they're prepping very early or make sure that they put on their CVs and call attention to, these could be like leadership roles, but best if they're leadership roles that have something to do. with furthering science in the community. yeah It can also include things such as podcasting or other kind of popularization of science.
00:15:59
Speaker
Try to be, and I think to do this well, especially in terms of the past track record, right, so the past dimension of this particular criterion,
00:16:10
Speaker
This really does require starting early because there's not much you can do in terms of service or leadership or popularization of science if you start in September.
00:16:21
Speaker
And we haven't said this yet, but normally the applications are due in the third week of October of every year. Right. So you want to show that you're not just ticking off the boxes, that you're serious about these things. So that takes time.
00:16:34
Speaker
So this is truly something maybe to start thinking about. Well, you know, you come in as a freshman. There's too many things to do. So probably not in your first semester, but maybe the summer after your first year in your sophomore year.
00:16:47
Speaker
at Georgia Tech here, we have quite a few different groups that you can get involved with that work with high school kids, even elementary school kids, or science fair, I think every spring. So there's, you just, if you're at Georgia Tech or wherever you are, but many large universities have already lots of initiatives going that That might be the easiest point of entry for someone if they want to expand their experience and in this area. It's just to look around for the existing initiatives and join them. And then maybe later on you can branch out on your own. You can have your own website or podcast or other things. Yeah, and the and NSF website is...
00:17:29
Speaker
a good resource for thinking about this too because they outline the things that they say that they care about and when they're looking at your application they're going to be thinking is this the kind of person who's going to produce the kind of work do the kind of initiatives that support what we care about that's right that's right so that's i guess a more general point to keep in mind for whenever you'll be applying for anything else just read what the funders say that they like and want and are interested in and start there How can applicants practice framing research problems to align with and NSF priorities?
00:18:08
Speaker
NSF has its priorities, but in terms of research, what makes GRFP very distinct from many other fellowship programs or grants is that the topic that you can propose is wide open.
00:18:24
Speaker
We already mentioned that the application deadline tends to be in the third week of October. but and NSF tends to release the call for applications usually towards the end of July.
00:18:36
Speaker
Even though the bulk of the call for applications tends to be the same from year to year, there often are some small changes in some parts. And those concern precisely these areas of increased interest. So a few years ago, for the first time, there was a mention of an increased interest in computational methods research.
00:19:01
Speaker
right, so do make sure that you read the solicitation as it comes out in July and see what's there. But again, that being said, if you are someone not doing computational research, that sort that absolutely does not mean you should not apply, because it's not that that's the only thing they sponsor. And in fact, I think there there is a sort of an effort on the part of and NSF to be, in fact, open to as wide range of research topics as possible. And so ultimately it really comes down to, are you able to convince them that you know enough about the project that you're proposing, that is enough science that would make it possible for you to carry out this project successfully, enough science that shows that what you're proposing is reasonable, that it is something that should be researched, et cetera. So I don't think... That it's feasible given your timeline. and That too. But I so i don't think you anyone should worry too much, like, is NSF going to like my particular project? like i i don't I think it's kind of ah so a mind game you don't need to play.
00:20:10
Speaker
ah You really should focus on just learning as much as possible as you can so that you can put together as strong a research proposal. Although it's kind of a mini-pro... You only get two pages, which is really, really tiny.
00:20:21
Speaker
But nonetheless, it belongs under the genre of research proposals, and you can only do those well if you've actually done the work of preparing for it by reading, you know doing your reading and consulting and getting getting advice from your advisor, mentor, etc.
00:20:38
Speaker
In collaborating and and talking with their network before we have these workshops in the fall, there are a couple of things that applicants should do.
Building a Strong Support Network for Applications
00:20:47
Speaker
Read the solicitation, number one, make sure that you're eligible to apply.
00:20:53
Speaker
It's really important too that you start talking with your advisor. What kinds of questions would you recommend applicants ask their advisor the summer before they want to apply? I think this will really revolve around, provided that the advisor is supportive, which I would imagine most would be, it would be you know trying to together come up with the project. Even though the important thing is it has to be your project. So one thing that it it should not come off as you're just doing the advisor's bidding, but at the same time, it is
00:21:25
Speaker
obvious that you need to have the advisor's input to draft this. So you need, I guess, commitment to you that they'll be able to help you, which they sometimes may not be because they might have other things going on.
00:21:36
Speaker
but But they probably are seminal also to simply formulating where the project, which is in some sense the hardest part of it, help you narrowing down to the research question.
00:21:48
Speaker
As budding academics, it's really great to have a senior academic there with you to define this is what a PhD level project looks like. This is the kind of scope that someone like the NSF is going to expect. Yeah.
00:22:02
Speaker
And something that will make sense as dissertation project because that's what it ultimately is, right? Which is, again, why the input from the technical or the scientific input from the advisor is crucial.
00:22:14
Speaker
the summer before the fall that an applicant yeah might apply. What kinds of information do you think they should be gathering? And should they be working on documentation at this time as well? Documentation meaning?
00:22:25
Speaker
Obviously, CV updates, you know you want to make sure that's as up-to-date as possible. That's something that most applicants will have already have just by virtue of having applied to graduate school. But the two documents that we're going to want to be able to revise September. Of course. The sooner you start, the better.
00:22:42
Speaker
But there is one thing we haven't mentioned yet, and that is super crucial. They all letters of recommendation. That's right. And that might actually be the first thing you do once you commit to going through with applying. And that's simply because people need time. That is to say, in this case, your letter writers need time to write those letters. And they also need time to potentially say no, even though every no might no.
00:23:08
Speaker
It often doesn't feel good when we receive a no, but especially in the case of recommendation letters, you should be grateful whenever you hear a no, because what that person is telling you is they care about you and your career and progress enough that if they're aware that they cannot write you a strong letter, you're better off asking someone else.
00:23:30
Speaker
And so this is why, this is one reason why it's really important to start asking for letters of recommendations really, really, really early. Definitely, i would i mean i would say and definitely in summer or even you know earlier. Another thing i but we should probably mention here is that and NSF requires three letters of recommendation, but they give you five slots.
00:23:54
Speaker
meaning you can have as many as five recommenders, and they allow you to order the recommenders in the order of importance so that you would place your advisor, presumably slot number one, and so that is the letter that's going to be read first.
00:24:11
Speaker
And this is mainly important in the case where you have more than the three required letters, so that so you order the letters in the order of importance. ah Now, and NSF has this kind of funny language.
00:24:24
Speaker
I don't know if it's still there. It used to be there in the solicitation where they say, your application will not be read unless there are at least two letters. So it kind of sounds like as if two were enough, but two is not really enough. They really want three. But I guess they say, well, I suppose it's for the situation where you did approach or you lined up at least three people and one of them fell through.
00:24:48
Speaker
And so this brings about another important point why it is useful to have more than the three required, and that's because life is complicated for everyone, and it happened more often than you would think that a person, you know, who really, really might want to write you a letter, they simply end up not being able to do so at the last moment. And so if you have four people that you've asked, no problem, because then the fourth person will simply fill the slot. So Do make sure you have at the very least three people. If you can have more than three, that's even better.
00:25:22
Speaker
this Of course, everyone understands that no one can have five equally strong letters. And again, that's fine because you will order the letters in an order of importance. So it's okay if your fourth letter is not as strong as your first letter. That's completely expected.
00:25:36
Speaker
This reminds me of another really great reason that you have to read that solicitation is because when the letters are due, versus when your application is due is not always the same date. Yeah, yeah so so this is something again to check with the solicitation. I think there tends to be a difference of a week.
00:25:54
Speaker
It's one of the many details to pay attention to. Do you have any advice for students on how to identify and approach potential letter writers? Like, should they all be professors? They should all have a PhD.
00:26:05
Speaker
Okay. Which tends not to be a problem in STEM, but sometimes becomes a problem in some other more applied disciplines. The reason they should all have a PhD is because ultimately this is a graduate fellowship, and And so what they are doing in their letters is they are vetting you. They're saying that you have what it takes to be a successful and strong graduate student, PhD student. So presumably only ah person who themselves has a PhD is able to make that kind of a judgment.
00:26:36
Speaker
So what that means is that no, not all your letter writers need to be faculty. They might be working in industries. you know You might have had a co-op or an internship and you work with them, but they should have a PhD.
00:26:50
Speaker
and okay And they all need to be able to comment on both your intellectual merit and your broader impacts. So while there are sometimes, you know, in some other contexts, sometimes people try to strategize and have ah you know an advisor who only knows them in one capacity, which is, let's say, which would be, in in this case, let's say it would be ah your leadership capacity, but nothing having to do with science.
00:27:16
Speaker
That is not a person I would recommend you approach for a recommendation letter for this particular fellowship, because here you do want each of your letter writers to be able to assess both your merit criteria, which, as we already talked about, it appear in both your personal statement and your research statement.
00:27:35
Speaker
so When they are approaching these recommenders, you know they they get the, yes, I'd love to recommend you. What should they communicate to these recommenders about their goals with the GRFP?
00:27:49
Speaker
I think the best thing they can do is to share with the recommenders drafts, not necessarily the final versions, but the drafts of their statements because those will convey the goals and everything that the recommender needs. So know in addition to the other things that the recommender presumably knows from having worked with the applicant in a lab or cetera.
00:28:11
Speaker
Right. So there can be some alignment between what the recommenders say about you and what you're saying. There you absolutely must be an alignment. That is in fact the whole point ah of these letters. In a way actually you can think of or you should think of the application packet.
00:28:30
Speaker
as the different components fitting together sort of like puzzle pieces so that whatever you say about yourself in your personal statement should be confirmed by the advisor, by the letter writers in in their statement, as well as, you know, your CV should, again, fit with what you have in all the different... So it absolutely should be aligned.
00:28:52
Speaker
And i guess one last thing, which your advisors... Many of the advisors that you have will have had students applying for GRFP, so they know this already. But in case maybe you are asking someone who is in industry and might not be as experienced with this, the letter writers need to also explicitly use these terms, intellectual merit and broader impacts, in the letters they write for you.
00:29:16
Speaker
And so that is another reason why they need to see, again, not necessarily the final version, but drafts of your statements as they are drafting their letters of support for you.
The Role of Workshops and Personal Effort in Applications
00:29:26
Speaker
right It's almost as if these letters are the citations for what you say about yourself. Kind of. That's that's one function they serve. But another is, again, they also make meaning and they also provide context.
00:29:39
Speaker
So this might be especially important in cases where you have something that you need to explain or provide broader context for, let's say, if your GPA, which would be part of your intellectual marriage.
00:29:50
Speaker
dipped at some point and there is a real reason for that in you know that your advisor can speak to right so on the one hand you can think about it as sort of yes citation but also it's a different angle right it's a sort of the same thing might be talked about and interpreted and and the meaning can be drawn by you in one way and by your advisor in another way A lot of this episode has been talking to potential applicants about what they can do to prepare for these workshops that we really focus in on in the fall.
00:30:23
Speaker
And these are workshops. like and At times we do expect them to be working on their writing, but there are a couple of them. What are the primary purposes of attending these workshops?
00:30:35
Speaker
Part of the thing we do in the workshop is sort of what we covered here in this podcast, which is sort just give out the information. But the way I mainly think about my workshop is that that I help the students to understand how to frame, how to think about this whole project and enterprise.
00:30:56
Speaker
because that's not obvious from reading the solicitation. So you need to read the solicitation so that you know what to pay attention to, what details to attend to, but it will not really help you to understand what the thing is kind of about, which is what I tried to do there and what we, I think, did here.
00:31:16
Speaker
In these workshops, I think that we tend to focus a lot more on the specifics of these two documents and from our experience what we think the and NSF is probably looking for.
00:31:26
Speaker
So I try to drill down on each of these, which is why I do my workshop in two parts, one of them focusing on personal statements and one on research statements. And I include examples short excerpts from when they're meaningful from past applications, as well as sometimes evaluations or reviews that students have received from reviewers. So so when i whenever I work with a student, I ask them sort of as a favor in return, which is, i don't force them, but I say, well, if if you if you'd be so kind once you receive your reviews, because you will actually receive typed up reviews.
00:32:06
Speaker
if If you'd be okay with it, to share them with me, and I might obviously anonymously just pull out some sentences or or very short excerpts from the reviews, which I then share in the workshops with students. So again, to help them understand.
00:32:24
Speaker
understand how the reviewers will be reading the documents. Because ultimately every act of writing is, or a successful act of writing depends on the extent to which the writer is able to to put themselves in the place of the reader who will be reading the text.
00:32:40
Speaker
And so that's why i do these things. But I also would like to say and very much emphasize is that as much as I think our workshops and info sessions are super, super important and useful to students because they help them understand how to frame again and how to think about the effort,
00:32:59
Speaker
Most of the work is done in individual
Importance of Feedback and Revisions
00:33:03
Speaker
collaboration. That is to say, you draft, bring it to me, send it to me. I read it. I give you feedback. You revise, bring it back to me.
00:33:12
Speaker
Or ideally, in the best cases, we work in a sort of a triangle where it's me, the student, and their advisor, and we are sharing the document. So that's sort of, to me, where the bulk of the work is done in that direction.
00:33:27
Speaker
I've attended your workshops, and I think for me, when the most striking realization happened was when you showed a before and after her revision. Because you put the before one up there, and now someone with a PhD is like, okay, that sounds like a PhD writing to other PhDs, very specialized, this is what I'm doing, and obviously... you know it's important for these like highly specialized reasons. It's like, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
00:33:54
Speaker
And then you're like, this is not what we want to do. And you put up the revised version and it's, I can see why the first version makes sense to students, but once you see the revised version, it's a completely different world. Yeah, it's my favorite part of the workshop too.
00:34:09
Speaker
and So this is, yeah, talking about a research statement. So, and in some ways maybe that is, well, i not not that I necessarily need to advertise, but that is showing students why they need to work with, I mean, whether that is me or someone else.
00:34:24
Speaker
does that Again, the magic happens in revisions and that no matter how smart you are, which you know everyone who has worked with me on these is extremely smart and accomplished, and but you know writing is hard and thinking is hard and it happens through revisions. Right. When we're so in our own silos about why how to talk about this kind of research or why this kind of research matters, it can be really difficult to break back out of that to talk to a wider audience, which is one of the reasons why I really like our COE-wide workshop that we do. I think we'd usually do this a week before the deadline.
00:35:01
Speaker
A little bit more. I think we try for like three weeks. Okay, yeah. Because in this workshop, we bring together applicants from all over the College of Engineering, all different kinds of engineers, and have them work together. That's really an ideal audience.
00:35:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. That's right. So it will be the your research yeah i mean you entire package, but including your research statement, it will be read by potentially people adjacent to you know in in their focus to students.
00:35:29
Speaker
the project that you're proposing. And so it's it's not that you're writing for a non-technical audience. You're writing for very much for a technical audience. like's say But you're writing for a non-specialist technical audience.
00:35:44
Speaker
And so again, We could have whole other podcast you know talking about you know rhetorical tools or whatever other various very technical means that you use to accomplish this task, but ultimately you know it comes down and it you know when to sort of the very practical revision revisions. yeah What can students do to prepare to really make the most out of these workshop experiences?
00:36:09
Speaker
I think one, you know, ten them make sure you review your CV before you get there. Start thinking about your experiences and how you might talk about these experiences. Remind yourself about, you know, why you wanted to volunteer to do these things or apply for certain awards.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. what are the actionable steps people can take? i mean, you can start, as we've talked about, as soon as your sophomore a year when it comes to designing the kinds of experiences you want to be able to talk about.
Leveraging Past Applications and Personal Growth
00:36:42
Speaker
actionable steps, so start thinking about it. Do things, do things that you enjoy, meaning join organizations, join labs, join research projects. Try to accumulate you know research experience.
00:36:55
Speaker
Sometimes people worry, I've worked on three research research projects, but each was different. Is this a problem? or on On the other hand, sometimes people say, For three years, i I worked in the same lab, same type of work, but now I am proposing something different. Is that a problem? None of that is a problem. you can There are different paths that you can take, and they're all useful.
00:37:13
Speaker
What matters, however, is how you think about each of these paths, and you share that thinking with your reviewers in your statements. It's all about the framing. It's all about the framing, yeah. Spending the time to think about...
00:37:26
Speaker
oh, I had all of these very different lab experiences, you can still frame that as a very important yeah you know trajectory that you had that brought you to be the kind of researcher you are now. Right. so but Because again, what you are showcasing is you're basic you're showcasing how your brain works.
00:37:42
Speaker
That's ultimately what you're doing. But there's another actionable step, although it's a tricky one, but I'm going to mention it. There is a website. I think the guy's name is Peter Lang, although I'm not 100% sure about the first name. I think his last name is Lang. He has a website where he invited people who have won NSFJ RFPs or received honorable mentions to submit their materials as a way to help other you know the people who will come after them.
00:38:12
Speaker
You can easily find it if you Google. I think it's useful to go ahead and read through a few of these. and Here's quite a few, here's several dozens, ah from different disciplines and from people in different statuses, that is from undergraduates through graduate students winning these awards.
00:38:30
Speaker
So go ahead and read through a few you know from your particular discipline. However, however, do not try to copy what you see. ah There isn't one, i mean, there are some formal requirements, some things that you need to do, but I think it's a mistake to sort of just try to think that there there is one surefire way of writing this and then you'll get it.
00:38:53
Speaker
But again, it it is useful as a way of gaining familiarity sort of with the genre, provided that you keep reminding yourself, I'm not copying what they're doing, I'm just trying to sort of see what people have done.
00:39:05
Speaker
Although you will see certain regularities. I mean, he's had this site open for quite a while, so actually you'll see quite you know that people used to write differently some years ago than they do now. There have always there there have also been some changes from and NSF in terms of guidance, etc.
00:39:20
Speaker
Anyway, it's I think it's worthwhile doing as long as you remember that you're not trying to copy anyone. And I don't mean copy in terms of scientific content. I mean in terms of like, oh, they wrote about themselves this way, so I'm going to write about myself the same way. No, you won't because you are not them.
00:39:35
Speaker
Right, you've had different experiences. Yes, and you want to show how your brain works, not how this other person's brain works, right? When does the solicitation come out? Does it come out the spring or the summer? It comes somewhere in July. There is not one exact date, but like start looking for it around July 20th or something like that.
00:39:54
Speaker
And it's fine, you don't need to like you know read it the moment it it's posted. You have enough time. And before it comes out, the previous year's solicitation will be on the web. So just go ahead and read that now.
00:40:07
Speaker
The next year's one will not be fundamentally different. and Like I mentioned earlier, there might be some small changes. But if you read this year's, which is to say last year's solicitation now, you will Have most of the information that you need okay? Yeah thinking about just like a checklist if this episode is coming out in Let's say April and you're you think that okay? I'm gonna I'm gonna do it this year You can go ahead and read last year's solicitation make sure that you're eligible yes talk with your advisor see if you know you have their support if they think that you already have a pretty well-defined project
00:40:44
Speaker
and start getting your letter recommenders in early yes yes that's what i would say and so your advisor so if you're an undergraduate student what we are talking about is you need to be in april of this year 2025 you should be a junior not a senior or or if you're a senior then you're right you will have a different advisor because you'll be in graduate school or you're in ah in your gap year then it becomes a little bit more complex but So when we talk about undergraduate students applying as seniors, again, because the deadline is in October, and if you are listening to this in April, then you would be a junior. So those are all steps that you can take in the spring.
00:41:20
Speaker
In the summer, you can start working on these documents. Read the new solicitation once it comes out so that you're prepared for the workshops in the fall. If you have them in the fall, I have workshops in spring as well. i mean Just start writing as soon as you can start writing. There is no such thing as, I guess there might be too early. I mean, don't start writing in your in your sophomore year. But if you're applying in the fall, if you're listening to this in April, slowly, slowly start writing. There's no, certainly by summer you should have a, I mean, ideally, in in in my world, ideally you have a first draft in, you know, so in June, July. Right, and...
00:41:58
Speaker
Thank you so much for being here and for talking about
Reflecting on Communication and Inviting Feedback
00:42:01
Speaker
this with me. And i before we close, i just wanted to circle back on this is highly competitive application, and most people don't get it.
00:42:11
Speaker
But to reflect on what you said earlier, While this is a big ask and it is an undertaking, should you decide to do it, it is still really beneficial for your own self-growth as a researcher? Yes, absolutely.
00:42:25
Speaker
Absolutely. All right, thank you so much. You're most welcome. It was a pleasure.
00:42:31
Speaker
That's a wrap on Season 2, Communication Mechanics, a podcast for engineers. Over the past episodes, we've explored the many ways that communication shapes engineering. Our goal this season was to dive deeper into the practical skills that help engineers become stronger communicators.
00:42:47
Speaker
And we hope these conversations have given you insights that you can apply in your own work. A huge thank you to all our guests who shared their expertise and to you, our audience, for joining us on this journey.
00:42:58
Speaker
If you enjoyed this season, we'd love to hear from you. Let us know what topics resonated most and if there's something you'd love to hear an episode on in the future. Stay up to date on what's happening in the web communication program through our webpage, ne.gatech.edu backslash web. That's W-E-B-B.
00:43:19
Speaker
We'll be back in the fall for season three. Thanks for listening.