Ok y'all, grad school has taught me 2 things: (1) put the *correct* date on your calendar and (2) read the fine print. I need to get my NSF GRFP story off my chest (please ignore if you don't want to read a rant) 1/5

After spending weeks? months? on the application, I missed the CS deadline by 15 mins *because I stupidly had the wrong date on my calendar.* We debated long & hard whether I should apply to Engineering 2/5

(deadline 2 days later) or wait till next year. I ended up applying to Engineering & doing a s/Machine Learning/Artificial Intelligence on my app. I kicked myself & swore I'd never miss another deadline (still cringe thinking about this). Today I opened 3/5

my NSF portal & was surprised to find decent reviews, but turns out I was ineligible because: I already have a master's degree & applied in my first year of the PhD. This was in tiny letters on page 6 of the solicitation!! Should have read all those 10s of pages...ugh 4/5

So turns out I stressed myself & others unnecessarily, multiple times throughout the year. Anyways. Giving myself a break, but here's my advice to incoming grad students applying to fellowships: you can start early & work hard, but don't mess up the basics! 5/5