25 Feb Granting

Grant writing is one of the more difficult aspects of graduate school. Made all the worse by pressures of knowing that grant-ability is probably going to be more and more a piece of the hiring puzzle as funds for departments get thinner.  I had a chat with a colleague about this the other day. He’s a mild-mannered man – very studious and quiet, but also, extremely sharp! One of the more quietly studious minds i’ve met in this process.

We were chatting about what it takes to fill out grant applications. It’s a tough process – not only in trying to explain the research project and method(ology) in the right mix of theoretical chops and readability, but also in how to sell the self. I’ve noticed that our more entrepreneurial  types do well – the ones who have very strong sense of their own self worth. For those of us with more mild manners, the selling bit has been very difficult. I rather happily blame it on my upbringing – not begrudgingly…this self-selling thing is one of the uniquely American traits i’ve not quite got used to. But as academia becomes more cut-throat and jobs become scarcer, i imagine i may need to stop being so mild mannered.

So how do we learn to do this? When my grants go out, my chairs are always very hopeful – convinced that this is The One of Many that i’ll get. Not in a rah-rah kind of way – but in more in the frame of being convinced that i’ve finally nailed it – finally figured out the magic ticket.

In case you haven’t guessed – i received another rejection letter …no SSRC for this researcher. And no Wenner-Gren. But the Wenner-Gren has another round of applications in May. Still waiting to hear from NSF. At least i didn’t get bounced from the vetting stage. *phew*!