NSF’s Graduate Research Fellowships are highly competitive–but really choice–opportunities to live “off the grid” of teaching assistantships, research assistantships, and burger-flipping in your first years of grad school. They are also relatively easy to apply for, involving a short research description, personal essay, CV, transcripts, and letters of recommendation. They are sometimes overlooked. We don’t overlook them here on GTDA, and will have more to say about them over the coming month.
The one challenge to someone who is just settling in is that these “NSF Pre-Docs” ask you to make a coherent, compelling case as to what research and outreach you want to do even as you are just learning where everything is on campus. So take a look at the official announcement and the far less bureaucratically horrifying NSF GRFP webpage and begin daydreaming about your own GRFP application. The deadlines, as you see below, are just around the corner.
Full Proposal Deadline Date: November 14, 2011
Engineering: November 15, 2011
Mathematical Sciences; Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering; Chemistry; Physics and Astronomy; Materials Research: November 16, 2011
Social Sciences; Psychology; Geosciences; STEM Education and Learning: November 18, 2011
Life Sciences: November 18, 2011
Survive and Thrive in Grad School 