Fellowship Advising Office SUPER-curricular SEED Grant

Description

Strong candidates for highly competitive national fellowships are intellectually engaged; they value a broad-based education and they have explored their individual interests through wider reading and research outside structured classroom and extracurricular activities. The Fellowship Advising Office SUPER-Curricular Seed Grants are intended to encourage and enable promising undergraduate students to build on their undergraduate studies by participating in EXTRAORDINARY summer experiences that will enhance their competitiveness for prestigious national and international scholarships and fellowships and for admission to highly competitive graduate programs. The best thing about Super-Curricular activities is that there are no exams, no deadlines, and no grades to worry about.  You are FREE to follow your own lines of inquiry into areas that interest you the most within your academic curriculum. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to propose a creative, intellectually engaging project that many students can only dream about! Undergraduate students from all backgrounds and majors are encouraged to apply. We particularly invite creative and original proposals.

One or more awards of up to $5000 will be available for Summer 2016.

Eligibility

• Full-time undergraduate student at the time of application.
• Open to freshmen and sophomore undergraduate students with 3.7 or higher GPA
• Open to junior undergraduate students with a 3.8 or higher GPA if and only if their summer project is for an Honors Thesis (University Honors Program or Department Honors Program).

Guidelines for the Proposed Project

A. The Project MUST

• Be self-designed
• Have a direct tie to your major or minor or to your thesis
• Occur during the summer, for 8 weeks or longer, and be your primary summer activity

B. The Project MAY

• Enhance or expand your independent research already in progress, if the summer research is undertaken outside of NC State
• Supplement a traditional summer study abroad program with an independent research project outside of structured activities
• Be a highly competitive unpaid internship (e.g., National Endowment for the Humanities, State Department, U.S. Embassy abroad)
• Occur within or outside the United States

C. The Grant WILL NOT FUND

• Any experiences taken for academic credit
• Group projects
• Participation in experiences organized by someone else (e.g., REU, missions, service organization)
• Tuition for a program of study

Deadline: Applications must be received by 5pm on Monday, February 1st.

For more information and/or to request an application, please contact Dr. Tiffany Kershner (tiffany_kershner@ncsu.edu).

*The Fellowship Advising Office Super-Curricular Seed Grants have been made possible by a private gift to the University Honors Program.

Advice and Timeline for a Competitive Application

August-September: Begin your research. Think about what interests you the most within your major and/or minor disciplines. Do some reading on this area of interest. Discuss your project ideas with classmates, faculty and advisors.

October-November: Identify a faculty mentor. Begin writing your proposal. Share your proposal with your mentor and peers. Start making arrangements at your research location (make contacts, assess resources, request permission to conduct research at that location, if necessary). For internships, make note of deadlines for applications. Begin your internship applications.

December: Continue to work on your proposal. Draft a timeline and budget for proposed project.

January: Revise, revise and revise some more! Revise your budget and timeline if changes are necessary.

February 1, 2016: Send PDF copy of your application by 5pm to Dr. Tiffany Kershner (tiffany_kershner@ncsu.edu).