It’s now December and fellowship application season is picking up pretty quickly! I have a couple of deadlines within the next month and wanted to share my process for applying to fellowships. In my previous post, I detailed why you should apply to fellowships and provided some resources that you can use to apply to some. In this post, I’ll be talking about how I organize my applications and how I prepare my research and personal statements.

For those who need a quick refresher, here is a short list of the main things you need to apply to fellowships:

• List of fellowships you are applying to
• Personal and research statements
• List of potential recommenders

Consistency across your applications is very important! I realized that I was forgetting a lot of the awards and honors I received during undergrad and this may have impacted my previous applications in ways I don’t even know. Now, to keep on top of everything, anytime I get a new job, award, or volunteer experience, I add it to one of my various lists to ensure that I won’t forget it! Not only does this help with consistency, but I am able to keep my LinkedIn and CV updated more often. This also helps when recommenders ask for more information to provide in their respective letters! 

Here are examples of some of the documents names I use to organize all of my work and internship experiences, presentations, research, volunteering, and awards/honors:

• Application Plan
  • This document is basically a summary of an article I read on ProFellow. I just tailored the timeline to match my own schedule and voila!
• Impact of Research + Keywords
  • A lot of fellowships will ask what impact your research has and ask for you to provide keywords relevant to your research. I thought it would be great to write this out in its own separate document so I could explain everything more clearly.
• Research Summary
  • Sometimes different fellowships require varying word counts, so I have 500, 750, and 1000-word versions of my research summary in this document.
• List of Awards
  • Very simple! I keep track of all my past awards (undergrad and up) and write down present ones as they come in.
• Teaching Experience
  • This document hosts all of my Teaching Assistant experiences plus other experiences where I led workshops or collaborative learning sessions.
• Research Experiences + Presentations/Publications
  • In this document, l keep track of my undergraduate and graduate research experiences plus poster/oral presentations and publications (coming soon!).
• Volunteer Experiences & Science Outreach
  • Again, a pretty simple document! I keep track of volunteering I do such as speaking on panels, organizing workshops, etc. I also keep track of executive board positions I have in student organizations.

In addition to these files, I also keep track of the fellowship names and application/recommendation deadlines. I also use Google Tasks to send me reminders, which is extremely helpful because it integrates with Google Calendar. I hope this article was helpful and I am sure that implementing some of these tips will definitely help you craft the best fellowship applications! If you have any questions about how I format these respective documents, feel free to leave any suggestions or comments and I’ll incorporate them in future blog posts. Thank you for reading and good luck on your fellowship applications — you got this!

Be sure to catch up on my Grad School Series by reading my previous posts here. Feel free to share this post and follow me on all social media platforms @CollegeSista! Have questions about applying to grad school, life as a graduate student, or Cornell in particular? Feel free to contact me on LinkedIn or through email!

So now that you’ve finished preparing your grad school applications, how are you going to fund your studies? One popular way of doing this is through fellowships! Fellowships are alternate funding sources sponsored by organizations and agencies that allow students to pursue their research and graduate studies.

Throughout my last few posts, I have discussed why I went to grad school and how to determine if you should apply to grad school. Next up in this series, I’ll discuss what you need when applying to grad school!

1. Money! (Let’s be real, application fees and entrance examinations are expensive)
2. List of schools you are applying to
3. Personal statement
4. Research statement
5. List of potential recommenders

Fortunately, I was able to receive fee waivers for every grad school I applied to and even a partial waiver for the GRE! I was adamant that I would spend the lowest amount of money I possibly could throughout this process and achieved my goal. I will admit that the GRE score reports were a bit expensive after adding everything up. I would suggest asking the respective schools you apply to if you could send unofficial score reports and only pay for the official ones once you have been accepted and plan to enroll.

As I’ve said in a previous post, I only chose to apply to schools I would go to if they were the only ones I got into. From this, I was able to choose a mix of top 10 universities in computer science and universities not in the top 10 or top 20 that had professors I was interested in conducting research with. Research fit is extremely important and it’s essential to not let the prestige of schools you may be interested in cloud your judgement. Being stuck in a research area you’re not passionate about may prevent you from progressing throughout your graduate studies and leave you with an unsatisfactory experience.

In my opinion, your personal statement and research statements are the most important parts of your application. These statements should demonstrate your interest in research and passion for the respective field you want to conduct research in. It is also important to convey why you are the best fit for each program you apply to and you can do this by tailoring your statement to the respective university. Another essential part is your letters of recommendation. While you have less say in what your recommenders write in their letters, you do have a say in who you pick to write them. Always make sure that any person who writes a letter for you will write a positive one!

I’m still debating if I want to make another series detailing how to craft statements for graduate school and fellowship applications but here is a great Twitter thread about common pitfalls to avoid when writing your research statements. Let me know in the comments if you would like a more detailed guide or links to more resources and I’ll get started on a post! Also, Dartmouth’s Computer Science department has a great webpage detailing the process of applying to, selecting, and enrolling in MS or PhD programs in computer science. Definitely take a look if you are interested in going that route! 

I’ve been traveling for the past two weeks and I’m super happy to get back to posting! In my last post I started off my graduate school series by discussing why I went to grad school. Next up in this series, I’ll discuss how you should make a decision to go to grad school!

Before you think about applying to and enrolling in graduate school, here are some things I think you should consider:

1. Can I afford to go to grad school?
2. Am I willing to stay in school for 1-2 more years (Master’s) or 4-7 more years (PhD)?
3. Do I like taking classes and conducting research?
4. Am I comfortable moving far from home?
5. Do I want to become a professor?

Fortunately, if you are enrolled in a reputable PhD program you don’t have to worry about paying for tuition and you get a stipend! With my stipend, I’m able to afford everything I need to live comfortably in Ithaca and save for retirement (series coming soon!). I moved halfway across the country for undergrad (Missouri to California) and then all the way across the country (California to New York) for grad school, so I’ve become used to long distance moves. When I applied to grad school, I was set on becoming a professor so I knew that there were few other options for me to pursue post-grad.

There are way more things to consider such as if you have significant student loans. If you enroll in a professional program (MBA, MPA, MD, JD, etc.) and you don’t have any outside income, you need to account for living expenses and tuition. They may be deferred during your time in grad school but if you take out more loans during this time, you may be expecting serious payments once you graduate. I was fortunate not to have any loans during undergrad, so I am not super familiar with this process but there are lots of resources online!

Feel free to share this post and follow me on all social media platforms @CollegeSista! Have questions about applying to grad school, life as a graduate student, or Cornell in particular? Feel free to contact me on LinkedIn or through email !

Graduate school application season is here, so I’ll be starting off my blog with a graduate school series! First up, I’ll be talking about why I chose to apply and attend my respective institution. 

I’m currently a PhD student in Computer Science at Cornell University studying Computer Vision and Information & Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD). As a young adult, I always loved the idea of attending graduate school but it took me a while to figure out the exact path I wanted to take. Fortunately, I had the privilege of participating in summer research experiences, mentoring groups, and preparatory programs that supported my journey to graduate school and I’m here to share this with you all!

How did you choose where to apply?

My mantra for applying to grad school is that I would only apply to a specific university I would attend if it happened to be the only place I was accepted to. I also wanted to attend a top program in computer science, so making my choices based on these two main criteria simplified my options pretty easily. In grad school, it is important to find professors in a specific field that you are interested in working with, so you can’t choose a school based solely on its name or reputation. I used a handy website (http://csrankings.org) to factor out university rankings based on specific areas within computer science and then found professors in those disciplines that I would want to work with. Also, I was not picky about location or climate (even though I would have preferred to stay on the west coast), but that is a major factor for many prospective students to consider.

Why did you choose to attend Cornell?

During the second semester of my senior year after a receiving acceptances from graduate schools across the country, it was time to make some visits! Due to my hectic schedule and having to finish up my senior project, I was unable to visit every school but I did make it to my top choices. During my spring break, I flew over 2500 miles across the country to visit Cornell and Princeton and knew that I would have a tough choice ahead. I knew that I would be happy with either choice, but these institutions are so different culturally and academically that it was important for me to take everything into consideration. 

I’m not sure much how this factored into my decision, but I visited Cornell first and it really set the tone for my subsequent visits. When leaving, I felt a twinge of sadness and knew that I wanted to come back. Even though I had never heard of Ithaca, NY a day in my life, my visit to the Computer Science department left me fulfilled and reinforced the idea that I could survive as a Black woman in a department where I would be one of few who look like me. I loved visiting Princeton as well, but I only saw one other underrepresented student at my visit (who I coincidentally met at a conference 7 months later!) and didn’t get to interact with current students as much as I would’ve liked. Most importantly, the faculty in the research areas I was interested in pursuing were a bit more established at Cornell and I knew it would be easier to switch or add research interests (which I ended up doing!).

Are you happy with your choice?

I can say that I’m extremely content with my choice to attend Cornell for graduate school! The graduate school here is unmatched in terms of support and opportunities and I couldn’t have chosen a better institution for this journey. I’ve had my struggles along the way, but the supportive communities I’ve cultivated across campus and within my department keep me motivated!

Welcome to my blog! For those that don’t know me, I’m Chinasa Okolo: a PhD student, avid traveler, and music aficionado. I’ve been informally blogging for almost 5 years and decided to revamp my blog to focus on my personal and academic life.

I’m dedicated to helping those of us not represented enough in academia, technology, and entrepreneurship succeed within these respective domains. The goal of my blog is to provide insight throughout my journey as a Black woman at the intersection of these fields and hopefully inspire more of us to pursue careers in them.

You’re deserving of all the things in the world. So go get it.

— Janet Mock

Throughout the life of this blog I plan to post about personal finance, higher education, travel, my personal interests, and more! I’m open to taking questions about my journey and can be contacted through my blogging email. I’ve also posted a FAQ page to answer questions I tend to receive more often.

Thank you for reading and stay tuned!