Steve

What year are you in school?
Senior, '12

What Fellowship did you get and what does it involve?
I received the Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship last March and just finished my application
for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

What motivated you to apply for a Fellowship?
For the Goldwater, I was one of the two Gustavus students (sophomores or juniors) that were
nominated by the science faculty. After winning the Goldwater Alisa and my research advisor chemistry professor Dwight Stoll highly recommended I apply for this fellowship.

What was the hardest part of the Fellowship applying process?
Goldwater: The hardest part of this scholarship was expressing what my career goals and
objectives were. It was really hard to communicate to others what I wanted to do the rest
of my life, when at the time I was not sure myself.

NSF: The most challenging part of this application was determining how to say as much as
possible in the personal statements and research proposal in the two page limit. Given
the detailed prompts, where we had to describe everything about ourselves while meeting
the NSF requirements of "Intellectual Merit" and "Broader Impacts" was quite challenging.

For both fellowships the timeframe and due dates were challenging. For the Goldwater I
had about four weeks to fill out the application. This was short, but achievable because
the due date was at the end of J-term. The NSF fellowship was due November 15. During the
semester, classes and GRE exams made finishing up the total of three detailed essays
quite fun.

What was the most rewarding part of the Fellowship applying process?
The most rewarding part of the application process was hitting the "submit" button. At
this point I had done everything I could to win it and now you just wait and see.
In reality the most rewarding part of the fellowship process is finding out you have won
the fellowship/scholarship.

Do you have any advice for people applying?
My only advice is to take the time and apply. Realize that 'we' are good, competitive
applicants at Gustavus and that when we apply we can win.