![]() Whether funded or unfunded, we had better believe in the research to which we devote these years of our lives. Even for those whose graduate work grinds to a halt, time waiting can mean opportunities to try other work or pursue classes you wouldn’t otherwise make time for. I was fortunate to have a husband with an income allowing me to continue. We work for a higher purpose, and those committees and moneys are there to help steer us toward that purpose, not to become the purpose.įor many graduate students, lack of funding means waiting months or years for a chance to proceed. More importantly, this offered a deeper reminder that we should never be fully controlled by the committees that evaluate our work’s merit or the money that supports it. I was literally freed (within the bounds of my advisor’s approval) to reconsider what I wanted from my remaining half year of fieldwork. Having my proposal turned down meant I was not locked into the words I had typed on a grant proposal seven months earlier. They may control your purse strings but they don’t control you In choosing the latter, I learned two things. Or we can use rejections as an excuse to refine our priorities and reexamine what it means to exist in the competitive world of academia. We can let them get the best of us, embittering us or becoming an excuse to give less than our best efforts to our research. ![]() How we deal with these rejections will shape our academic careers. ![]() We watch weeks of preparation time, hopes, plans, and thousands of dollars slip through our fingers. Rejections are intrinsic to the graduate student experience: funding proposals, job applications, awards, schools. I found snarky sarcastic comments leaking out of my mouth about the review committee’s ineptitude or about my worthlessness as someone now working for no pay. In that week I felt the temptation creeping up every morning to stay in bed a little longer, to take shortcuts on this research that I was now paying for fully out of pocket. In the week that followed, I went through fieldwork in a daze, my soul reeling as I soaked in the message that yet another committee of “the powers that be” had deemed my research not worth paying for. And still no money, and no line item on future CVs. The review materials were filled with positive comments, ranking me in the top five of 126 applicants for the grant. This was the second time I had applied for the grant, and I’d come nearly as close the year before. In the documents that accompanied the email, I discovered I came within a hair’s breadth of receiving the award. My latest application for funding had been declined. “I regret to inform you” began the email, like so many emails graduate students receive. I read the email on my phone in a coffee shop. I sat there with my hand on my forehead to hide my face, my tears dripping onto the table, hoping no one I knew would recognize me.
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