And the Award Goes to...

Well hello everyone and welcome back to the “Resilience in STEM” podcast. So I hope everyone has had a really good month of September. I had finished the majority of my midterms already. Most of my classes are senior-level classes and the good thing about that is I don’t have many exams. While a con is I don’t have many exams so they matter a lot. If I do bad it’s not that good. However, I did feel pretty confident coming out of it and if I did do bad it’s not the end of the world. Haven’t gotten the grade yet. So I’m saying I did well, but we shall see how this goes. It always works out though. 

 

Little life/graduate school update for me. Graduate applications are happening. I'm in the process of finishing up my personal statement and research statement. Now, I’m working on combining them into a “merged essay” because some programs ask for a merged research and personal statement. I don't exactly know why or why they have different essay names, but it depends on the program and what they want. The biggest advice I can give to you, outside of the stuff I previously said in other episodes, is to check your due dates. Not all programs have the same due date and some programs have rolling admissions. What that means is some of the programs can admit you or give you a decision earlier if you submit your application earlier. Whereas some programs start looking at all the applications after the deadline. So just make sure you check the due dates because they're not all the same. I know the majority of the deadlines are going to be December 1st for me, but they vary per school. So make sure you don’t miss that. 

 

Also, even though I’m not applying this is a reminder for you all. The National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program or NSF GRFP program deadlines are next week. So make sure you stay on top of the application. Depending on the type of discipline you’re applying in, the deadline is different. Not sure why, but make sure you stay on top of that. 

 

One cool thing that has happened so far is ABRCMS. This is the annual biomedical research conference for minoritized scientists. If you’ve heard of SACNAS it’s kind of similar. Essentially, this is an annual national biomedical research conference mainly guided by undergraduates and graduate students to present their research on a national scale. It’s a great way to help communicate your science, meet with other people, and if you go (most likely I’m not sure) to the graduate school fair you can get an application fee waiver for some of the schools. You’ll meet representatives from different graduate programs. So overall it’s a great opportunity if you do get accepted to present at the conference. I had the privilege of submitting an abstract and receiving a full travel award as well. It’ll cover my hotel, flight, and registration costs. All I have to do is show up and pay for a couple of meals, which is a pretty good deal and I’m excited for this opportunity. The applications typically open around July and August. It’s a great opportunity to apply and an amazing networking opportunity. 

 

I kind of mentioned a few awards in my update if you’ve noticed. This ties perfectly to this episode titled, “And the award goes to…” (very suspenseful). I wanted to talk about this because I’ve had the privilege to get a lot of awards in my time as an undergrad, but there are also things I’ve learned along the way for certain awards that I wish I had known earlier. Some of my friends have also wished they learned about these resources, applied to awards earlier, or were even eligible for certain awards. 

 

Here is a preface to my opinion on awards. There are a lot of award opportunities ranging from the national, state, and university level. But students don’t know where to find them.  It’s kind of funny because you can randomly find an award that you think you’re qualified for or you do some certain event and you win an award. Sometimes you don’t even know there’s an award so you don’t put as much effort into your application or performance. There are all types of awards everywhere and I feel if people knew about them: (1) people would get more awards and (2) it just overall helps student success in my opinion. 

 

So if you’re thinking, “I don’t see myself trying to get awards and it’s not my thing”. Here are some of the benefits. It serves as a resume boost. It can lead to bigger opportunities. So you could have the opportunity to win bigger awards, such as state or national awards. Another side is you can get internship opportunities because it shows you got a couple of awards for your work, strong academic performance, or skills obtained. The biggest benefit overall, in my opinion, is it teaches you how to write your story (an application), and it teaches you how to communicate a certain topic well to a more general audience (research, presentation, abstract, creative writing, thesis). 

 

Also, this episode is going to be more about the award application itself, but one hidden benefit is it teaches you how to accept rejection. I don’t negatively mean this, but sometimes we don’t get everything that we apply for, which is very normal and healthy. It also teaches you how to accept rejection and not take it too personally, which will help motivate you to apply for more things. Sometimes you may not get an award for several reasons and it teaches you how to (1) make a better application (2) how to deal with your emotions, and (3) how to become a more humble person. 

 

So I'm going to get into my experience with the awards I’ve gotten. I will preface that a lot of these awards are Texas A&M-based. So if you go to Texas A&M, this benefits you. But if you don’t maybe you can find something similar. I am still going to mention them because they can apply to more general audiences. 

 

Freshman year wasn’t too much, but I got accepted into two honors programs. This is pretty similar to more general audiences. This was mainly because I was still getting familiar with Texas A&M and getting my foot in the door. I am still involved in these two honor programs, which are University Honors and Engineering Honors. In addition to that, I got involved in undergraduate research. While that is a great resume boost, one of the biggest things I had, which was very beneficial, was having a great mentor who showed me university resources and how to look for award opportunities. She sometimes emailed me award opportunities or research events that had awards tied to them. So it’s really good to have your network so they can help you out and find opportunities for you. Also, it’s good to have a mentor who will look out for you once in a while. 

 

Sophomore year is when I got more awards overall because I had more research experience and was more well-established in the university. I got poster awards. I got the Dean Excellence Award. This is given to the top two freshmen and sophomores in each college who show their promise for future leadership and potential. They look at your research experience, extracurricular experience, community engagement, and current honors/awards you have. I also applied to national fellowships. I’m not going to get in too heavy with this. I did apply but did not get it. I explain this process in more detail in a previous episode. I also got accepted into a few research experiences for undergraduates, which I got into more in a previous episode I covered in the summer. I also abstained from a grant from the College of Science to fund the individual research project I was starting at the time. 

 

Junior year was pretty similar to sophomore. So it also looked like getting poster presentation awards, applying to national fellowships, and more awards overall. The only difference it there was more and it was on a larger scale, such as getting a couple of national poster awards from a symposium at Harvard Medical School. I got into another REU at UC Berkeley. So there was a lot of stuff happening. 

 

Senior year, I got into ABRCMS, which is a pretty good accomplishment (I haven’t put that on my CV, but maybe should). I have been getting featured in departmental social media posts for my research. I got into a recruitment event at the University of Pennsylvania called DEEPenn in STEM. I believe I did talk about this in a previous episode. I’m filming this at the University of Pennsylvania because I’m at an event right now and it’s nighttime. 

 

So that’s my experience with the awards I’ve gotten. It’s been a gradual process over time on how I’ve gotten these awards. The biggest thing I’ve been able to benefit from all of this is having a great mentor to show me these opportunities, how to effectively google, and using my network to help me find opportunities. 

 

One of the biggest questions is how do you find award opportunities or how do you even start this process? I’m not going to get into the questions of how to apply for awards because awards range from a wide variety of things. They can be from getting a scholarship out of nowhere, from your research, from writing or submitting an application for a certain award. It ranges from a lot of things and I think I shouldn’t give a very general introduction because it’ll end up being inaccurate at that point. I feel it’s better to show you how to find award opportunities at your institution or wherever. I can provide the links to what I have applied for. 

 

To learn how to find award opportunities:

1. Check your emails: This will come from either your department or research lab. Your advisor may send out emails about certain award opportunities, scholarships, or internships coming up. This is all something to take into consideration when reading those emails with tons of updates. Usually, they will send this information with ample time in advance so you have time to perfect an application. If they don’t, maybe just put it in their emails that you’re looking for award opportunities so they might let you know about the opportunities a little more ahead of time. 

2. Look into your Honors office: For Texas A&M this is called LAUNCH. A decent amount of these awards came from the LAUNCH office, such as the Dean's Excellence Award I won sophomore and junior years and national fellowships. 

3. Google: Lovely resource. There are conferences everywhere for undergraduates to present. The biggest thing you can do is Google stuff. I found ABRCMS through my REU, but I did hear about it earlier online and through word of mouth. You can find whatever you are looking for by searching “undergraduate award in XXX”, “undergraduate conference in XXXX” or “poster presentation opportunities”. 

4. For REU’s specifically, it’s the NSF REU website. This is a database for all research experiences for undergraduates funded by the NSF. It includes research opportunities for all disciplines from institutions all around the country. I’m not going to talk about it too much since I mentioned it in a previous episode. 

5. Look at your university/department website: They usually publish awards or opportunities you could be interested in applying for. Specifically for poster awards or research-based awards, sometimes your department or college may have a symposium or a presentation opportunity. I strongly encourage you to do that so you can get your name out there, you can learn how to effectively communicate your research, and you may win another award/cash prize. 

 

The last piece of advice is don’t be afraid to try and fail. Looking back, had I not had the courage to apply for a lot of things I would not be the position I am today. In a lot of internships or awards, I kind of felt underqualified (I feel everyone feels like that), but it doesn’t hurt to try. Sometimes coming in with no expectations might feel a lot better. It’s also okay to not get an award or not do as well as you expected. It just teaches you how to do better and how to accept it emotionally. If I ever want to go to graduate school or medical school, I realize that what I have done so far is also mentally preparing me for rejection. I know I will get some rejections from graduate school. Not because I’m a bad candidate, but the programs I am applying for are very competitive and I have to be a little realistic. I feel it’s very natural to not get into every single program you apply to (if you do it’s a little unrealistic and unheard of). But I feel I’ve had the experience of not getting things and learning to accept not winning. Having this experience has made me a lot more prepared for the application process and dealing with future rejections. 

 

One more piece of advice is to be humble. If you do ever win an award, please don’t brag about it. In addition to being humble, share your resources. Share where you found the award. Share the link and application so more people you know who are also qualified can also apply for these awards and give them the same opportunities as you. Maybe you heard about an award from your friend and you received it. So this allows you to share that experience you had with someone else. Just spread the word and let more people know about these opportunities. Sometimes, (like I said at the beginning) these awards exist, but it’s hard to find them.