Speaker 1: Hello everyone and welcome to my channel where we talk about everything grad life, grad advice, and research. And in today's video, we are going to talk about how to find grants and fellowships. So we're going to just get into it. Believe it or not, the hardest part of grad school for me is funding it. But nobody has ever told me how to find grants, where to look for fellowships or where the applications are that aren't so competitive. So today I'm going to step by step on how to look for graduate funding to help you find ones that are very specific to you and not as commonly known. Now, while I plan to say the best tip for last, one of the main ways you can find a grant or a fellowship that is relevant to you is through a database. And this can be through your university. So UCLA has a database called Grapes. Databases like Grapes or FastWeb are very useful if you're just kind of trying to cast a really wide net. You can do searches, you can toggle on and off different types of options, and through that they'll populate your results kind of like a search engine. And so you'll find grants and fellowships and sometimes even internships that are generally related to your field, your research topic, or your career goals. They usually contain very common and popular application opportunities and grants and fellowships like the Ford Foundation or the Smithsonian, but they can also have really small ones that may be very unknown and particular to that database or that university. So in that regard, databases are great because they show you a large spectrum of opportunities from big grants to tiny small ones. But databases can be overwhelming, especially because they have so many grant opportunities and many of them, if not most of them, are going to be completely irrelevant to you and your research. Not to mention, because they are so popular and common, grant opportunities on these databases become increasingly more competitive. So the next best way of finding grants is by going directly to university department websites. By going to other universities and looking at your department or disciplines website, or even going to similar or relevant departmental websites, you're able to see more specific and more relevant grant opportunities that are being shared to people within your field. So before on a database, you're getting everything, but through this method, you're able to get very specific results related to the department or discipline in which you find yourself. So thinking about me and my research specifically, my research topic works within the African diaspora, Latin American studies and art history, but my department isn't any of those. And so for me, it's really helpful to look at what other people are doing within my various fields. So by searching in an Africana studies or an art history department, I'm able to see what resources those students are being given by their department or what is the field generally providing as grant opportunities for people who study this type of research. Now, sometimes these can be too specific. So make sure when you are looking at these grant opportunities that you are evaluating the eligibility section and making sure that they are applicable to anybody in the field versus just people within that specific university or specific department. While this may require a little bit more work and be a little more time consuming, there are definitely gems that you find through these specific searches. And in most cases, they will also include the really large grants like the Ford Foundation, while including more specific medium to small size grants for people only in your field or research discipline. The third way I would suggest looking for grants is one that is easily taken for granted and does require some type of strategy. But oftentimes nobody really talks about it. And that would be word of mouth or talking with friends. Now, of course, this method is usually less reliable than a database or looking on a university website. But what is amazing about speaking to people and using word of mouth as an opportunity is that oftentimes the grants that you are suggested to, the people who are telling you about it often have experience applying to it, winning it, and they usually know your research pretty well. So in that regard, you become more competitive or more likely to win those grants because the people who are telling you to apply to them have some type of understanding of the grant and your research and think it's a fit. But unfortunately, people are not going to stop you in the street and say, hey, I know a grant you'd be great for. Unfortunately, you have to be entrepreneurial and self-advocate to be able to effectively use this strategy. And the way you do that is by basically talking about funding. And I know that can feel a little taboo or uncomfortable, but closed mouths don't get fed. So you need to be able to express your needs and your research to your support system. And if you don't have a support system, you need to build that. And one way to do that is really straightforward. And that's going to your professor's office hours. And this could be a professor directly related to your research or even a professor that's just kind of roughly related to your field. And by going to their office hours, you can ask, what do they know about funding? What funding opportunities exist for first years at this university, second years at this university? And really being unafraid to ask those questions and not feeling uncomfortable. And I would also say to help mitigate that feeling is reminding yourself that professors have once been graduate students and they know how important funding is and how hard it can be. And so they, in almost every case that I've experienced, are going to be as helpful as they can, because ultimately everybody wants their graduate students to succeed. Another thing you could do is just dry emails. And you can always, like I said, email professors. But something that I've done in the past is I've emailed people that I know have been successful with getting grants. And I basically introduced myself in these emails, what my research was, and asked them if they had any advice on how to find funding on topics like this, this, and this. And that also can be really weird. And a lot of the times people may or may not answer. But it's better to ask six people and get one response than to ask no people and get no response. Also, your department can help. I know for me, I have no funding for my department. And they basically told me that they would never be able to guarantee me funding. But by going to my department at least once a quarter and reminding them that I need money, I realized that they've been more supportive in my efforts, be it by sharing grants that they think might be relevant to me, or by asking if I would want to work certain TA-ships more often. So I know for me, I had a lot of trust issues with my department and I felt like they didn't care about me. But sometimes they just literally do not have the resources to support you. And so even though they may not have the resources themselves, they may know connections or be in the loop to other opportunities that they will share your way if they're aware that you need the help. Also, talking to friends that have similar research interests as you can also help share information, not just for you, but for them, and build a community of people who are looking for grant opportunities and fellowships. And it'll be more specific and relevant to you because you've already made a community of people who are doing similar work. The main point about using the word of mouth or asking a friend method to finding grants is that people cannot help you if they don't know you need help. And so while it's uncomfortable and immediately may not be the thing we want to do the most, it can be really helpful when you are trying to fund your graduate career. But when all else fails, then my fourth suggestion to approach searching for grants is by using Google. And I know you're probably saying, I know how to Google things, but that doesn't help. How do I specify or find grants that are completely relevant to me? Well, if you watched my past video on how to pick a graduate program, then you should have a pretty strong list of topics and themes that are completely relevant to the research that you're interested in. And if you didn't watch my past video, you should. But in general, you should be making a list. And this list should include three to four main major topics that are relevant to your research. And from there, within Google search, you can combine them in different ways to figure out how to get very specific grants. And this is helpful and completely different than when we were searching specific departments or disciplines, because there may be grants that are in completely random disciplines that are still relevant for you. So you all generally have an idea of what I research. And oftentimes I look in very specific places. Sometimes I find that my research can exist within sociology. And the only way I was able to look into those different departments or disciplines is by using these keyword searches and seeing what's available. Also, you may stumble upon different disciplines or departments that focus on your research. And that might just be a future resource for you later on when you're thinking about postdocs or predocs or other types of professionalization opportunities. So don't discredit the Google search as something basic or elementary. If employed correctly, this method can help you find very hidden and obscure opportunities that could just be what you need to fund your trip to wherever you need to go. Now, like I promise, I'm saving the best for last. And that fifth method is searching through the CVs or even within the acknowledgement sections of books and dissertations. Now, I'm not suggesting you go through every single person's CV, dissertation or book, but I am saying if you find yourself gravitating to specific dissertation topic or if you're really enamored with specific professors, then trying to get a hold of their CV, which is often provided on their website or within their bio section of the department website or looking at their dissertations, which you can also find on ProQuest through a quick search. And in these places, people list the grants that help them complete their research. So CVs most specifically are pretty straightforward in understanding where that's going to be. Usually it's within the funding or the award section of their CV and it'll be listed chronologically from their most recent to their least recent. So based off of where they were in their education or their career, you can kind of connect what years were related to what funding. And this process is basically the same within the acknowledgements of dissertations and books. So I noticed when I went into my department's dissertation and read some people's acknowledgements, they listed the most helpful grants to finish specific chapters or research trips. And again, this isn't a perfect science, but it is so helpful in finding small, maybe uncompetitive grants that will really be influential to specific needs of your dissertation. And what's cool about both of these, within the same document that you're finding the list of grants, you're also able to kind of deduce the qualifications each candidate had when they were applying to those grants. Again, thinking back to the CV, if you know in 2010 that they got that grant, and you saw in 2009, 2008, they were doing certain research projects or volunteerings, or they could speak certain languages because it's chronological in the CV, then you can measure up or kind of evaluate if you think you would be a competitive candidate. Same thing, not as explicit within the acknowledgement sections, but you'll see the trajectory of their research history and at the very least see the end product of their research to see if what you were studying aligns with what the grant is asking for. So while I don't think this is supposed to be a secret of the trade, I do think that it's something that people do not talk about a lot. And for me, it's been very helpful because my discipline and field is so small. I've kind of felt very lost and alone, but by looking at people's CVs from scholars that I read their work or from past graduate students that graduated years before I was accepted, I'm able to kind of track a different pathway for myself and piecemeal together different grant opportunities that are relevant for me in my dissertation. When it's all said and done, the most important thing is that you develop your own database, regardless of what method that you choose to employ to find your grants. So I would suggest using a mixture of all five. It's most helpful to make sure as you're coming across grants that are relevant for you, that you're putting them in one secure space that you can reference throughout your graduate degree because most grants you may have to apply to will require you to apply multiple times or they may not be relevant one year, but will be relevant the next. So it's important that you keep a type of database or a document that makes it easy for you to reference the work that you've already done in the past to help you be successful in the future. And I mean, when you think about it, that's basically what grad school is all about, building the future that you want. So if you're interested in hearing more grad advice, exploring more grad life and everything research, hit subscribe. And if there are any questions that I didn't answer that are burning inside of you, please leave them in the comments so I can include them in future videos and to respond down below. And if you found at least two of these methods helpful, please hit the thumbs up so other people know that this video has valuable information. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you next week.