Tag Archives: Fellowships

What It Means to Be a Senior

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You might have noticed that it’s getting a little tense around campus right now. Midterms have descended upon us and finals don’t seem far off either. On top of all that, it’s almost summer meaning it’s time for everyone to solidify internships, volunteer work, and summer jobs and seniors have to come to terms with the G word (Content warning: DETAILS YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW. SENIORS DO NOT CLICK THE LINK). While I know everyone is stressed, I’m going to be selfish and focus on the seniors, but hopefully everyone can learn a little something about what seniors are dealing with right now. It’s hard to understand until you’re in it, but I’ll do my best…

Countdowns and LastsI took what is probably going to be my last exam in college last week. We’ve completed our last spring break. We’re working on our last research papers. We’ve attended our last Wedding Party. We’re counting down until thesis is due (and hoping time will slow down), until we get a job (and hoping time will speed up and bring that offer sooner), until Senior Week (and hoping thesis will be done and jobs will be acquired by that point), and finally until Commencement. Even though we try not to think about these things, we still do. About 20 times a day, at least. So if your senior friend is staring off into space with a terrified look on her face, don’t ask what they’re thinking, it’s so hard to say out loud.

Plans (ahem… Plans to have plans… or Plans to make plans to have plans…)

Don’t ask what our plan is for after graduation. Yes, it is a better question than, “Do you have a job?” “Have you heard back from *Grad School Name Here*?” “So, you should hear back from Fulbright soon, right?” But asking about our “plans” is not much better, because our plans never really feel like enough. We plan to get jobs, go to grad school, or get a fellowship, but until we hear back, this plan feels really flimsy. We plan to live in the city of our choice, BUT THAT DEPENDS ON THE PREVIOUS PLAN DOESN’T IT?! We plan to stay in touch with all of our current friends, but when they aren’t 30 seconds away… what do we do then? Seriously. Someone tell me what to do about that.

Classes

Somehow, despite daily existential crises, we’re supposed to write papers, finish problem sets, do readings thoroughly, attend labs, and uphold our GPA while simultaneously dealing with everything you’ve read above. But if seniors are asking for extensions, they’re probably just being lazy… Let me tell you, senioritis is much more than not wanting to do work, it’s not having time to do work because of everything else we are expected to accomplish.

Life

Seniors have all of the above on their to do lists, but there’s one thing we desperately want to make a priority: our lives, not the future grown-up lives, not the past student lives, our current lives. We want to make the most of the time we have left with our friends, because after May 16th, we might not be in the same country, let alone the same state or city. We want to get two-hour dinners reminiscing about the fools we were first year. We want to sit out on Jaqua and admire that we might never live somewhere this beautiful again. We want to talk to our professors about more than the subjects they teach because this could be the last time we’re surrounded by so many intelligent people in all disciplines. We want to run to our mentors and ask, “WHAT HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN TO TEACH ME?! TEACH ME NOW BECAUSE YOU ONLY HAVE 6 WEEKS LEFT.” 6 weeks is nothing.

So go hug the seniors in your life, because they don’t know if you’ll be close enough to hug them after May 16th, take advantage of it now.

Taking a breath

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Hey all! Greetings from the sunny pastures on the other side of my fellowship applications. Absolute hand-wringing, nail-biting, panic-attack-inducing stress has given way to a blissed-out and placid sense of completion. I turned in both my Watson and Fulbright applications today, and though I don’t pretend to be an expert on either application – especially since I don’t know whether I’ll make it past the first round of selections for either one – I have some tips to help you all if you choose to undertake these in the future.

  1. Give yourself time. This is so easy to say, and so easy to ignore. I don’t even like writing it, because it sounds so condescending – of course you need to give yourself time, you’re thinking. Why are you even writing this, Rose? However, I know all too well the dangers of setting aside an entire evening – not to mention a regular date every evening – for writing, only to find that you productively procrastinate by doing everything but what you set out to accomplish. It’s one thing to have a night off – these are necessary and can be hugely recharging. It’s quite another to have a document full of ideas and the time to develop them into applications, only to think Well, I have a month. I’ll worry about this tomorrow. I don’t even know where to start. If I do this tomorrow/over the weekend/after talking to my (adviser/professor/friend). I got sucked into this spiral – waiting until a weekend I was on RA duty to write and subsequently not getting much done; waiting until I spoke with every professor I could think of, several times, about the nuances of the application; waiting until genius struck. In the end, you have to buckle down and write. The only way out is through, and at some point in the past little while I grasped that, sat down, and wrote out the worst, most disjointed text I’ve ever written. Draft gave way to draft, and I feel really good about what I turned in. Which brings me to my next point…
  2. Use the writing center!! It is incredible! I visited the WC as a first-year, bringing in my Writing 50 and Core papers, but didn’t realize that I could go to them for fellowship help as well. Many of the tutors have helped seniors – seniors who have gone on to receive the fellowships for which they applied – and are experts at clarifying and reorganizing ideas. Seriously, all – I went in with a disjointed outline and left an hour later with a clear game plan that became a compelling and (at least I think) unique statement of grant purpose.
  3. Use the resources available to you, but stop if they’re stressing you out. This is key if you’re like me and think you need to follow every opportunity offered you whenever one is presented. This meant I ran over to the library yesterday and searched through the binder containing Scripps students’ past Fulbright-winning applications. My research helped me focus my ideas, gave me a few ideas for how to make my essay stand out, and induced a massive panic attack that lasted the rest of the night and well into the morning. Whenever someone advises reading something and then forgetting about it, I (inwardly, hopefully) roll my eyes and scoff – forget about something so potentially helpful! Yeah right! After yesterday, though, I think I finally understand what’s meant by this advice. Use what you can to your advantage, to be sure. That’s why it’s there. But when it begins to stress you out – and it’s likely to do so – step back and remember how you felt before reading it. Hopefully you were confident about your proposal and sold on the ideas you wanted to convey. Remember that feeling. Remember that just because a winner opened their statement with a great question, or closed with the perfect life plan, or described their millions of years of teaching experience (English Teaching Assistant-specific here, sorry), doesn’t mean your application is weaker because you don’t do the same thing. Avail yourself of these opportunities, but only once you feel confident in what you yourself have written.
  4. Talk it out! Again, the easiest thing to say. Had I not gone to the writing center, though, I wouldn’t have thought to discuss some of the reasons that make me uniquely qualified for the fellowships for which I applied. I forget, sometimes, that not everyone grew up doing x, y, or z; that not everyone had the same experience abroad; that not everyone saw the letter ß in a music book and decided to learn a language because of it. What makes you weird? What makes you light up and bores your friends when you talk about it? Write about that, because your words will convey the passion you feel.

Signing off now so I can work out, do laundry, and all those other little things that fall by the wayside when I get stressed. Happy start of the week, and to all the seniors and post-grads who sent in their applications – great work!

 

Balancing Act

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Senior year hasn’t even begun and I’m already exhausted. I’m excited, to be sure, but I’m starting to realize that I’ll have to make use of every minute available to me. Gone are the days of between-class naps and binge-watching entire television seasons. Even 20 minutes is useful, and I’m going to have to understand, somehow, that I don’t have a minute to waste. When I’m not in class or doing RA duties I will be frantically applying to fellowships, trying to study for the GRE, writing thesis, and looking in to different grad school programs. I’m excited to take on these many tasks, but after a year spent abroad at universities with very different courseloads I’m not used to this amount of work. Hopefully once classes start I’ll be able to get back into the swing of things.

At this point, I’m so focused on the day-to-day — getting signatures for assorted forms, unpacking my mess of a storage cube (WHY did sophomore Rose hold on to so many unnecessary things?), trying to figure out when I’ll have time for a FitScripps class or two — that I haven’t given thought to the Bigger Things awaiting my attention. The other day at dinner I looked up the Fulbright deadlines and realized they’re in less than a month. My work style is very reliant on last-minute pressure, but I am not letting myself procrastinate on any fellowship apps. I want to give myself time to go to the Writing Center, let my ideas develop, and write an application I feel good about. Easier said than done, but hopefully now that I’ve written it here I’ll feel more accountable to myself and to you all.

Besides the Fulbright I’ll be applying to several other fellowships; a great gap-year program in my hometown of Seattle, Washington; a couple of jobs in the Seattle area; and an unspecified number of grad school programs. I also need to figure out when I can take the GRE and give myself time to study for that. Hopefully this leaves me with a little time to enjoy my last year on- (and off-) campus, because there’s a great deal of Southern California that I have yet to explore.

Because I love lists, and because I’m loving the idea of the community of readers holding me accountable – I don’t want to let you all down! – here are my goals for the week:

  1. Finish two veeerrryyy long-standing essays and send them in. (Germany, where I spent my spring semester, has a very different semester structure than American students are used to – it begins in April and ends in July. Term papers aren’t usually due until mid-September, and I returned to the States before turning in the final papers for two of my classes. I need to get them in, and receive a grade from the professor, before September 23rd so that I can send my updated transcript to Fulbright. Great motivation, huh?)
  2. Write up and send in an abstract for a presentation I’ll be doing at the end of the month. This shouldn’t take long, but it’s just one more thing to worry about.
  3. Actually make headway on my Watson and Fulbright apps. Yikes.

For now, I’ll sign off and go breathe into a paper bag. Happy start to the school year, all!

 

 

 

Some Memes to Lighten the Mood

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Hello all! This week instead of getting into anything too heavy, I thought I’d get creative and make a memes for your enjoyment. Those of you who are Middle Eastern Studies majors, who applied to fellowships, or who are in a similar point in their career search will understand especially well. I’ll let the crying lady, successful kid, and grumpy cat do the talking.

Edward Said, who’s monumental work identifying and unpacking the concept of Orientalism, hugely important to Middle Eastern Studies among other disciplines, comes up again and again in essentially every class I take. You can’t get away from Said, and by sophomore year it had become a joke between my Middle Eastern Studies friends.

Anyone who used the Fulbright Embark Online Application has to understand grumpy cat’s frustration.

And anyone who’s ever had a resume understands how darn time consuming it is to get them formatted perfectly.

That’s all for now folks. I hope my memes made you smile! I’d love to see any of your memes related to the job/internship hunt or anything else. If you’ve never made one before, try it–it takes all of 30 seconds. Have a great week.

Fulbright Part 2: Working on the Application

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There’s a reason this post is not titled “How to Write the Perfect Fulbright Application.” I cannot tell you the secrets of THE perfect Fulbright app, because a successful application, I suspect, is less about being the Best. Applicant. Ever and more about making a convincing argument that you and your country of choice would make a productive partnership. Here are some ideas for how to craft your own best application.

• Spend time picking the right country for you. You can read about my country-choosing process here, or Adelina Solis ’11 perspective in this post.

We all came for different reasons… but no one came because they were already fluent in Bulgarian. Half our ETA cohort and our language teacher, Diana, in Beginning Bulgarian Language. Fulbright International Summer Institute, 2012.

• Don’t be afraid to take questions to the Fulbright Program Adviser or other staff on-campus. They are busy people, so respect their time and make sure your question hasn’t already been answered on the Fulbright or Scripps websites.

• The Off-Campus Study office keeps binders full of successful Fulbright applications. Do spend time reading them. I went back a couple of times. I found it helpful to take notes and write down ideas I had as I was reading. Take notice of what people list under publications, awards, abstract, and future career goals. No one will tell you how exactly to write these sections, but you may find ideas for what to include and how.

• If you’ve been abroad before, or have previous teaching experience, think about the moments that have stuck with you. Because Fulbright’s mission is to foster mutual understanding, moments that focus on cultural or interpersonal exchange may provide good anecdotal fodder for personal statements.

• If you have a side project, craft it to be mutually beneficial for your country and yourself. If I stayed inside writing science fiction all day, I wouldn’t be interacting much with the culture. With a travel writing focus, I practice my writing, interact with the country, and hopefully help others interact with Bulgaria as well. Other ETAs here plan to volunteer at orphanages, teach music to Roma kids, and practice cartography in their placement cities; use something you’re passionate about.

Cultural exchange can be as simple as teaching Bulgarians the “Wobble.” Fulbright International Summer Institute, 2012.

• Finish at least one draft of your personal statements and grant purpose in time to have the Writing Center take a look. Taking criticism can be hard, for these personal essays even more so than with academic essays (I cried, and I doubt I was the first to do so). The Writing Center staff is there to offer support and constructive feedback. Their ideas can lead to fruitful revision, but it means being vulnerable and open to suggestion.

• Be honest in your application essays. I mention it, because it’s important that you know your essays may be used not only to decide whether or not to award you the Fulbright, but may also determine (in the case of ETAs) where in the country you’ll be placed. It might be a matter of where your side-project (if you have one) will best be completed, or where your hobbies might be accomplished. My own essays mentioned Bulgaria’s natural beauty and my semester learning Balkan Dance. My placement is in Bulgaria’s most beautiful mountain range, and my predecessor took Bulgarian Dance classes at the community center. Coincidence? Nope.

• Make sure you can articulate to yourself WHY you want to do this, WHAT you’ll get out of it, HOW you’ll approach various aspects of the grant (language learning, culture shock, teaching), and ANY reservations you have. Figure out how to address these questions before talking to faculty recommenders, and certainly before your interview. If you’re confident in yourself, they will be confident in you too.

• If you need a neurotic online community, check out the Fulbright thread on the Grad Café forums. I appreciated knowing that the anxiety was not mine alone.

These are my tips for navigating the Fulbright application process. I’ll admit they are biased towards the ETA application, where I have experience. What suggestions would you add to this list?