By The Eva Monkey on Monday, March 6th, 2006
Today I turned in my application to UMBC’s undergraduate research program. Every year, the school grants a handful of students with a grant of upwards of $1500 to pursue research on a subject of their choosing. Recently, it’s starting to get competitive, with not everyone who applies receiving funding, and not everyone who wins getting the maximum or desired amount. Given that I’m interested in researching a subject not characteristically associated with academia, I remain skeptical about my likelihood of winning funding. But then again, I have a topic I’ve put a great degree of time and effort into structuring prior to applying, and that might translate into a greater likelihood of being seen as potentially successful by the review committee. I have no doubts that my research will go somewhere, it’s just that I need money for translation work so that I can uncover some new insights. Hopefully this time next month when the committee convenes, they’ll look favorably on what I want to do, and give me something to start from. But until that time, I doubt I’ll be getting much sleep.