I have been very fortunate in my career. One way, has been through obtaining scholarships and grants. I attribute this type of success to several factors:
Three out of my four years of high school I had two English classes every semester (writing and literature). We were taught a basic formula for writing:
Brainstorm, outline, rough draft, edit, re-draft, ..., final version.
I am good at seeking out advice from multiple people and crafting a plan from the advice
I am driven and I took failures as opportunities to improve
Despite this, obtaining awards often came with a bad case of Imposter Syndrome. This is because there are a lot of myths around what affirmative action is, and how it is performed. Because I belong to groups that are underrepresented in Mathematics, or marginalized in society, I believed not that I was worthy of the award, but that it had been given to me to check some box on some form. However, I am happy to report that I no longer feel this way.
Which brings me to this new project: the Mock NSF. Beginning (hopefully in 2024) I am going to run a Mock NSF grant panel with 10 participants as follows:
The application will includ a 1-2 page narrative where the applicant describes how they belong to an underrepresented or marginalized group and how it has (or has not) affected them. The narrative must be sufficiently vague as to not uniquely identify the applicant; a selection will be put into a volume for publication. The application will also include how the participant will view their placing into the 3 possible categories below.
10 participants will be chosen, and they will then prepare a 3 page (excluding bibliography) mock NSF proposal. The proposal must be in fact concerning completed (and publicly available) work. The identity of the panelists will not be disclosed publicly.
We will hold a virtual panel over the course of 2 days. Each panelist will be absent during the discussion of their mock-proposal.
The outcome of the panel will be 3 unranked groups:
Top priority: 2 proposals
Medium priority: 3 proposals
Low priority: 5 proposals
On the 3rd day, we will begin with a discussion about the panel process. We will then discuss how to use the basic writing formula above for writing grant proposals as well as coming up with new research directions.
More information coming soon!