Group Fitness Instructor on Campus

September 26, 2018 by Emily

Name: Carolyn Chlebek

University: Cornell University

Department/Program: Biomedical Engineering, PhD student

What is your side or temporary job?

I work as a group fitness instructor through the Cornell Fitness Center.

How much do you earn?

I currently earn $18/hr, but anticipate raises the longer I teach and more certifications I receive. Additionally, this position allows me to get free gym membership.

How do you balance your job with your graduate work?

I teach 1-2 classes per week and select times that will not conflict with my experiments – right now I am teaching on Sunday nights, so it is a nice calming way to start my week.

Does your job complement your graduate work or advance your career?

My job does not directly impact my graduate work, however I study biomechanics so I can make very broad connections between my work and my side hustle. Additionally, the teaching experience that comes with group fitness will certainly add to my confidence should I go into academia & need to teach or give public presentations often.

How did you get started with your job?

Another graduate student in my lab taught group fitness classes and recruited me to join & learn how to teach.

Is there anything else you would like to share about your experience?

I love being able to connect with students – both in and out of my department – in a more social and healthy way! I also love being able to help people in their fitness journeys, and having an excuse to learn more about fitness and healthy lifestyles as I go through this job.

Even in NYC, This Graduate Student Maintains a Super Frugal Lifestyle

September 24, 2018 by Emily

In this episode, Emily interviews Athena Pierquet, a rising second-year graduate student at New York University in English. In her first year as a PhD student, Athena lived on her $28,000 per year fellowship and save all of her smaller income sources, but her finances are facing a new challenge as she transitions out of subsidized university housing. Despite living in Manhattan, Athena maintains a very frugal lifestyle, minimizing her spending on groceries, transportation, entertainment, and recreation.

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0:00 Introduction

1:15 Q1: Please Introduce Yourself

Athena is a rising second year PhD student in the Department of English at New York University. She lives in the Manhattan neighborhood Stuyvesant, or Stuy Town. Her overall income was $38,000 from several university sources. Most of her income comes from the MacCracken Fellowship, provided for all NYU PhD students, which was $27,526 this past year. She received a housing stipend of $5,500. Several scholarships and grants made up $4,000 of her income, and short term research contracts made up $1,000 to $2,000.

2:20 How is your income reported for taxes?

For taxes, Athena has to self report the MacCracken Fellowship and her other scholarships to the federal government. The university provides her a 1098-T form for taxes. Her short term research contracts are reported on W-2, but these are a minor part of her income.

4:08 Q2: What are your five largest expenses each month?

Athena’s five largest expenses are rent, food, books and supplies, incidentals, and going out for fun.

4:28 #1 Expense: Rent

Athena pays $1,100 per month for rent. This cost includes all utilities, except for internet. She shares a two-bedroom apartment in Stuy Town with another first year NYU PhD student. The market rate for her apartment is $3,500 per month, but since the apartment is in a university housing complex, the cost is subsidized by the university. However, university housing is only available to first year PhD students, so Athena is searching for new housing in Manhattan.

For her new housing search, Athena’s budget is $1,200 to $1,300 for a room in a three or four bedroom apartment. NYU will continue to provide a housing stipend of $5,500 during her second year, but in subsequent years the housing stipend will be replaced with income from teaching classes. In general, her income does not increase to cover the new housing costs.

Athena saved much of her income from her first year in anticipation of her move into the cut throat Manhattan housing market. To get an apartment in Manhattan, she needs $3,000 to $5,000 available. Securing an apartment requires payment deposits for first month’s rent and last month’s rent.

9:57 #2 Expense: Food

Athena’s food budget is $100 per week. This category broadly covers anything she purchases to eat. She includes groceries, coffee shops, restaurants, and take-out in her weekly food budget. She plans out her meals and makes grocery shopping a priority. She makes almost all of her food at home and describes some of her meals, such as fully loaded oatmeal and hearty, entree salads. Athena eats at restaurants only two or three times each semester. She has several frugal tips for going to restaurants in Manhattan and getting free food from NYU events.

20:30 #3 Expense: Books and Course Supplies

Athena’s spending on books and course supplies is about $300 per semester. Her expenses for books and course supplies are considered non-taxable income. As a literature student, she needs many books for her work. She estimates that if she bought every book she needed or wanted, she would be spending thousands of dollars. She frequently borrows from the library, gets used books, and finds resources online. Nonetheless, this was tricky to budget for because of different needs for different courses.

24:29 #4 Expense: Incidentals

Athena budgeted for unexpected expenses, which she describes as the impulsive book purchase, miscellaneous fees, and spontaneous entertainment. Since she set her budget week by week, she intentionally put $45 each week for incidentals. Typically, she only had one or two unexpected expenses each month. The miscellaneous category is a place to lose money if you’re not careful, in Athena’s opinion.

27:29 Problems budgeting for taxes while on a fellowship

Athena later learned that the $45 per week that she budgeted for incidentals was really what she needed for taxes. When Athena began first year of graduate school, she didn’t know how much to set aside for taxes. NYU does not withhold taxes for U.S. citizens in their PhD programs, so it was Athena’s responsibility to estimate how much she might owe in taxes and plan for tax season. This is a challenge faced by many PhD students receiving fellowship funding.

Further reading: The Complete Guide to Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients

30:47 #5 Expense: Going Out for Fun

Athena budgeted $20 per week for going out, and spent $280 over one semester on happy hours and other social events. She went to bars with friends about once or twice a month for happy hour, where she would socialize for two or three hours. In her budget, Athena distinguishes drinks at a bar or restaurant from purchasing a bottle of wine or six pack from the store. She notes that at NYU, she has plenty of opportunities to enjoy free drinks and free food at events sponsored by the institution.

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34:36 Q3: What are you currently doing to further your financial goals?

Athena tries her best to live within her means. She only lives off of the MacCracken fellowship, about $28,000, which is her only guaranteed income source for 5 years. She puts her other fluctuating funding sources into savings and does not create her budget from it. Athena has a healthy cash savings account, and every now and then she moves it into an investment account with Vanguard for retirement and index funds that could be used for major purchases in 20 to 40 years. She needs her cash savings for her new apartment, new furniture, and irregular expenses.

38:19 Q4: What don’t you spend money on that might surprise people?

Athena doesn’t spend money on transportation. If it’s less than an hour walk, she will walk to the distance. The $2.75 to take the subway or bus is better spend on coffee, in her opinion. She won’t take cabs or ride share unless she absolutely has to.

She makes use of public spaces with internet access and working spaces, like the New York Public Library. Some people pay memberships to writers’ rooms and co-working spaces, or even a desk at home, but Athena has a list of go-to public spaces to work remotely.

Additionally, Athena doesn’t have a gym membership, and she won’t go to exercise classes. She avoids shopping and costly activities. Though she’s surrounded by high income earners in Manhattan, she reminds herself that she has more important priorities than the high expense lifestyle.

43:56 Q5: What are you happy with in your spending and what would you like to change?

Athena would like to change how she tracks her cash spending. Since some places are cash only, and some only take cards, Athena finds it tricky to document all of her expenditures.

She’s happy with how little she spends on exercise activities. Athena is a long distance runner, so she makes use of the long trails and paths throughout New York City. She has a deeply discounted New York Roadrunners membership, and recommends that others look into student discounts.

47:36 Q6: What is your best financial advice for a new PhD student at NYU who is budget-conscious?

First, Athena says that budgeting and spending conservatively is absolutely a must. Many daily necessities, like laundry and groceries, are more expensive than you might expect.

Second, she says do not buy in bulk! Buying only what you need will save money in the long term, as well as save space in small apartments.

51:17 Find out your summer funding situation

Athena recommends being aware of how you will be funded through the summer. In some cases, you will receive payments for only the nine months of the academic year. Some refer to the first summer after graduate school as the “summer of poverty,” so think about this when you get your offer letter. You may need to save during the academic year to get through the summer, or find summer work. Make plans at the beginning of the academic year.

Further reading: How to Financially Navigate an Summer

52:49 Q7: Would you like to make any other comments on what it takes to get by where you live on what you earn?

Athena says you need to be honest about your financial situation. Seeing wealth around you in NYC does not mean you need to spend like that too, or emulate what you see people doing around you. Athena takes the initiative to suggest more frugal activities, like going to coffee or happy hour instead of more costly brunches and dinners.

Athena does an end of the semester assessment of her budget that she finds highly valuable. She evaluates how she spent her money and considers how she can do better the next semester. It can be difficult to anticipate how expensive things will be ahead of time, so she has gone through a process to try things out and reassess her expenses.

58:00 Conclusion

The Complete Guide to a Side Hustle for a PhD Student or Postdoc

September 17, 2018 by Emily

It’s no secret that PhD students and postdocs are paid a meager salary, sometimes not even as much as the local living wage. While a fraction of graduate students have probably always pursued side income to supplement their stipends/salaries, e.g., through part-time jobs, moonlighting, or odd jobs, only in recent years has it become easy to make money online or make money from home. Enter the ‘side hustle.’ The term exploded in popularity during the Great Recession along with the ‘gig economy.’ The flexibility of modern side hustles has made it possible for students and postdocs to fit their income-generating activities around their busy research schedules.

This article details why a graduate student or postdoc would want to side hustle, whether it’s allowed by their university/institution, examples of real side hustles held by PhDs, how to best manage the side income, and advice from PhDs with successful side hustles.

Motivations for Side Hustling

The motivations for having a side hustle during your PhD training are to make up for the deficiencies in what the university provides: money (primarily) and career-advancing experiences.

Increase Income

Pursuing your PhD during graduate school or gaining additional training as a postdoc is supposed to be your full-time (or more) pursuit. Research is life, right? Unfortunately, the positions don’t pay anywhere near as well as a regular full-time job.

The best case scenario for a PhD student or postdoc is that you will be paid enough to support yourself without making extreme lifestyle sacrifices, i.e., living in a van. However, there are plenty of programs and universities that do not even meet that low bar for a single person with no dependents. For a graduate student or postdoc with a dependent spouse (e.g., of an international trainee) or children, the low stipend or salary is almost certainly inadequate.

Graduate students almost always turn first to cutting their living expenses to be able to live within their means. They know that they are supposed to devote the lion’s share of their weekly energy to their coursework, research, and teaching. But when their backs are against the wall, some make money on the side to avoid going (further) into debt.

Career-Advancing Experiences

Some graduate students and postdocs are motivated to side hustle not by lack of income but rather lack of practical career preparation.

What careers does a PhD or postdoc prepare you for? These days, the vast majority of PhDs are not hired into tenure-track faculty positions. (Time to stop calling the jobs most PhDs get “alternative”, right?) Some universities have acknowledged this and put in place programming to help PhDs transition out of academia (my alma mater, Duke University, and in particular the Pratt School of Engineering, is innovating in this area), while others are still catching up.

Of course, PhDs have plenty of transferable skills that can be put to use in a wide variety of careers, but landing a job is still challenging.

Further reading: How My PhD Prepared Me for Entrepreneurship

A judiciously chosen side hustle (or even volunteer work) can help a PhD build out her resumé/CV and network to stand out from the other PhD applicants. A side hustle can teach you new skills, give you an opportunity to demonstrate the skills you already possess, and introduce you to professionals who can further your career journey.

Video Series: How to Increase Your Income as a Graduate Student

Subscribe to our mailing list to receive the 7-part video series on increasing your income as a graduate student, including side hustles and passive income.

Are Side Hustles Allowed by Your PhD Program or Postdoc Position?

While some academics may take the view that side hustling distracts from classes, teaching, research, etc., for some people a side hustle is the main factor that enables them to stay in their graduate programs or postdoc positions. They side hustle because they want to keep doing PhD-level research; otherwise, they can just leave and earn more money elsewhere! If conceived and managed properly, a side hustle is not a distraction from the student or postdoc’s training but rather an enhancement of it.

If you think about graduate school or your postdoc as similar to any other type of job, usually the only stipulations regarding your side hustle are that: 1) it does not interfere with your primary job and 2) it does not present a conflict of interest. That logic is helpful for thinking through whether a side hustle is allowed, but the universities sometimes add layers of complexity.

Further reading: Can a Graduate Student Have a Side Hustle?

Side Hustle Permissibility by Position Type: International, Fellow, Employee, Etc.

There may be explicit bans on making money on the side or it may be frowned upon. The income and experience gained from a side hustle is not worth getting kicked out of your graduate program or postdoc position.

International trainees

The F-1 and J-1 visas generally only permit employment directly in your capacity as a graduate student or postdoc. Sometimes, you can seek permission for other employment ventures, such as Optional Practical Training (OPT) for F-1 visa holders. A side hustle that you work on simultaneously with your research will likely not comply with these rules, so it’s a no-go.

Fellowship Recipients (Graduate or Postdoc)

Check the terms of your fellowship funding supplied by your university, employer, or funding agency. There may be a stipulation that no outside income is allowed as the fellowship is designed to support you completely and require your complete dedication. If you choose to pursue a side income against the terms of your fellowship, proceed with extreme caution and recognize the downside is potentially losing your primary funding. In other cases, outside income is not mentioned by the fellowship terms or is even explicitly allowed.

Research and Teaching Assistants

This is the category of graduate students most likely to be able to get away with a side hustle or be explicitly allowed because your responsibilities are generally time-limited to 20 hours per week (officially). Of course, beyond that, you are responsible for your dissertation work, so side hustling might conflict with that important pursuit. If you are in a contract with your university, check its terms. If outside income is not allowed, proceed with caution as you might lose your assistantship. You might, however, find a provision that allows outside income, perhaps up to a certain number of hours per week.

Postdoc Employees

A postdoc employee has a regular job, albeit a demanding one. Your desire to side hustle at that point in your training is more likely motivated by career advancement rather than income. Again, check your contract, but a side hustle may very well be permissible as long as it doesn’t interfere with your work. If you are working in your field, though, it could be a good idea to seek your advisor’s permission in advance.

What Does Your Advisor Think?

The person with the most important opinion on your side hustle–after you–is your advisor. Allowed, disallowed, frowned upon… The status of side hustling in the eyes of your university, department, or funding agency is less important than its status to your advisor. If your advisor is an unforgiving taskmaster who expects his myopic view of the supremacy of research to be adopted by his trainees, a side hustle is a very risky endeavor. However, if your advisor is a reasonable and kind person who respects work-life balance, it may be better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission if your side hustle is discovered and viewed negatively.

The Bottom Line: The Spirit of the Law

The spirit of the law when it comes to side hustling during graduate school or your postdoc is that it should not distract from your training. (This sentiment does not apply to visa holders; the letter of the law is most important in that case.) Financial and career stress itself can easily distract from training, so it may be a matter of choosing the lesser of two ‘evils.’

Prohibitions against outside income make sense when the income comes from a part-time job with fixed hours (meaning that you wouldn’t be able to stay late in lab if necessary) or if it takes so much time overall that you can’t complete your work healthily. But I don’t find prohibitions against outside work that doesn’t interfere with the student or postdoc’s primary ‘job’ any more logical than prohibitions against having a family or a hobby (assuming no conflict of interest).

Ultimately, rules or no rules and advisor’s opinion aside, you are the only person who gets to decide whether to pursue a side hustle. You are the one who will manage it and make sure that it enhances your PhD training instead of detracting from it.

Types of PhD Side Hustles and Examples of PhD Side Hustles

I break side hustles for PhDs into four categories: ones that advance your career, ones that you enjoy, ones that pay well (enough), and passive income. A side hustle that pays well and advances your career is ideal. If you can’t achieve that, doing something you enjoy is obviously preferable to doing something that you dislike or feel neutral toward that simply pays some bills. Passive income is outside of this ranked order as it doesn’t involve trading time directly for money.

By the way, if you are looking for a way to increase your income that your advisor would be totally on board with, try applying for a fellowship. I’ve created a guide to applying for and winning fellowships that includes a list of broad, portable fellowships that pay full stipends/salaries.

Further reading: How to Find, Apply for, and Win a Fellowship During Your PhD or Postdoc

PhD Side Hustles that Advance Your Career

There’s no better type of side hustle than one that pays you and helps you along in your career. Through this type of side hustle, you put your current skills to use, learn new skills, expand your network, and/or explore a possible career path. Often, this sort of side hustle is related to your current field of research or uses skills you’ve honed during your PhD. You might even be able to start working for a potential future employer while you’re still in training.

Examples of PhD side hustles that advance your career are:

Consulting
- Teaching (Derek)
- Zoo and aquarium evaluation (Kathayoon)
- Design (Mark)
- Data science (Edward)
Writing
- Freelance writing (Derek)
- Freelance academic writing (Vicki)
- Journalism
Editing
- Freelance scientific paper editing (Julie and Amy)
- Freelance scientific paper editing (Jenni)
- Thesis/dissertation editing
Internships
- Scientific research summer internship (Alice)
- Engineering summer internship (David)
Professional fellowships
- Science policy fellow (Emily)
Analysis
- Research analyst for investor relations (Adam)
Teaching
- Adjunct
- Online professor (Kathayoon)

PhD Side Hustles that You Enjoy

Sometimes an enjoyable hobby can be monetized or you can find meaning and delight in a side hustle. This kind of side hustle is one you would likely spend some time doing even if you weren’t being paid and can be particularly revitalizing during the long slog of your PhD or postdoc.

Examples of PhD side hustles that you might enjoy are:

Monetized hobby
- Art
- Crafts
- YouTube (Shannon)
- Singing (Meggan)
Non-academic teaching
- Piano (Kathayoon)
- Fitness classes (Anonymous)
Resident advising
- Resident advising for graduate students (David)
- Resident advising for a fraternity (Adrian)

PhD Side Hustles that Pay the Bills

If the only purpose a side hustle fulfills is bringing in some money, it’s done its job. Sometimes these pursuits are necessary for survival, but you shouldn’t spend any more time on them than absolutely necessary.

Examples of PhD side hustles that (likely) simply bring in income are:

Tutoring
Retail
Food service
Uber/Lyft
Childcare

PhD Passive Income

Passive income has become a bit of a buzzword in recent years. Ostensibly, passive income occurs after you make some kind of investment that then pays a residual.

Making a monetary investment in a rental property or dividend-paying stock is a classic example of passive income. The former is definitely a possible income source for a PhD who owns her own home.

Further reading: Should I Buy a Home During Grad School?

If you don’t have money up front, you can “invest” your time and talent into a product that people will buy over time. The classic example of that type is an author who is paid a royalty with each book sale.

The current fad incarnation of passive investing is a promise that you can “make money while you sleep!” through online business, generally selling previously created digital products. (I do this in my business.) However, almost no online business runs for long without input of time and labor. The upside for a graduate student or postdoc, however, is that the large time investment needed up front to generate passive income and the maintenance over the long term can generally be performed on your own schedule and under the radar.

Examples of PhD side hustles that are passive income:

Writing (i.e., published author)
Patent holder (licensed)
Digital products
- Flash cards and ebook (Alex)
- Courses
Investing for current income
Landlording

Video Series: How to Increase Your Income as a Graduate Student

Subscribe to our mailing list to receive the 7-part video series on increasing your income as a graduate student, including side hustles and passive income.

Balancing Your Side Hustle with Your PhD Work

Figuring out how to make money and settling into a groove of earning a side income can be exciting. It can even be more gratifying at times than your research as research is basically a series of failures punctuated by occasional successes. In those weeks and month when nothing is going right in your research, being able to turn to an activity with a known outcome ($$!) can be a welcome relief. However, you should not forget why you are pursuing the side hustle in the first place: to finish your PhD and pursue a certain career. (Of course, your side hustle may spur you to leave your program, but only do so after serious reflection! It shouldn’t be about the side hustle per se but a carefully considered evolution of your career plans.)

To that end, there are a few strategies you can use to make sure your side hustle complements and does not compete with your primary role:

1) Track Your Time

Set weekly limits for yourself on the amount of time you will spend on your role as a graduate student or postdoc vs. on your side hustle. If your time spent side hustling creeps too high or your time spent on research dips too low, you know you need to readjust. Expect your weekly time goals to change throughout the seasons of your PhD training.

2) Set Geographic and/or Temporal Boundaries

It’s best if you conduct your side hustle in a different location than your primary PhD workspace; for example, you could work from home on your side hustle and never in your office or on campus. An alternative to geographic boundaries is temporal boundaries, such as never working on your side hustle during daytime working hours. The exact boundaries you set will depend heavily on the nature of both your PhD work and your side hustle.

3) Choose a Flexible Side Hustle

An ideal side hustle for a PhD is one that can be accomplished from anywhere at any time and ramped up or down depending on how busy you are with your research. This is not realistic for all side hustles, but the more axes of flexibility yours has the better it will complement your primary job.

4) Keep Your Side Hustle Quiet (If Possible)

An internship or professional fellowship that requires time away from your graduate program or postdoc obviously can’t be kept secret, but many other side hustles can fly under the radar of your advisor and department if you want them to. The seriousness of the possible repercussions or how “frowned upon” side hustling is should dictate how open you are about your pursuit. Keep in mind that a side hustle in your current field of research may very well get back to your advisor as communities are quite small, so in that case it may be better to be completely above board.

Best Financial Practices for Your Side Hustle

Most side hustles are independent contractor or self-employment positions, which means that you become an entrepreneur (or solopreneur) of a kind. There are some common best practices in self-employment you should put in place from the start of your side hustle.

Further reading:

1) Use a Separate Business Checking Account

Separating your personal transactions from your business transactions at the account level will help you keep track of exactly how much money you are earning after expenses and what is deductible on your tax return. You can make periodic transfers from your business account to your personal account to pay yourself.

2) Set Aside Money for Tax Payments (Quarterly or Annually)

Your PhD side hustle generates (potentially) taxable income, subject not only to income tax but also in many cases self-employment tax. Add your marginal tax brackets at the federal, state, and local levels together with the FICA tax you must pay, and set aside that fraction of each of your side hustle paychecks to ultimately pay the extra tax. If you earn enough in your side hustle compared to your primary job, you eventually will need to start paying quarterly estimated tax. Fellowship recipients who don’t have automatic tax withholding are already familiar with this process. Even if you aren’t required to pay quarterly, expect a larger year-end tax bill.

Further reading: The Complete Guide to Quarterly Estimated Tax for Fellowship Recipients

3) Give your Earnings a Job

The best way to ensure you don’t blow your side income is to assign it a job to be completed as soon as it hits your personal account. You could pay a specific bill or two with your side income or only allow yourself certain indulgences from your side income. For example, Jenni saved her side hustle earnings for travel.

Closing Advice and Thoughts from PhD Side Hustlers

“Honestly, it kept me sane to have other things going on… [They] helped me to finish my dissertation more quickly because I was more focused on the time I had, instead of having lots of unstructured time to work.” – Kathayoon

“I’d encourage graduate students to pursue a lot of different opportunities while in school, even ones that are at a slant from what they usually do. It’s easy to get tunnel vision as a grad student, but if you open yourself up, you can develop really useful skills while reinvigorating your academic work.” – Derek

“I definitely recommend finding something in grad school that’s unrelated to the work you do, monetized or not, so that if all your experiments fail one week, you still have something meaningful to throw yourself into.” – Shannon

“This experience was critical for my transition out of graduate school. I ended up getting a full-time offer at the same company after maybe 2 months of hourly work and have been there for almost 2 years now. The best part was that I had an opportunity to try out my job before starting full-time. How else do you know if you want to launch a career in a certain field?” – Adam

This PhD Student Paid Off $62,000 in Undergrad Student Loans Prior to Graduation

September 10, 2018 by Emily

In this episode, Emily interviews Dr. Jenni Rinker, a mechanical engineering PhD currently working as a researcher at the Denmark Technical University. Jenni paid of $62,000 of student loans from her undergraduate degree while pursuing her PhD at Duke University. Her average payment was approximately $1,500 per month on a post-tax income of $2,700-$3,000 per month. Jenni shares her motivation for setting her lofty debt repayment goal and the practical strategies she used to accomplish it. After paying off her student loans, Jenni even saved enough money to take six months off from work post-defense.

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Links mentioned in episode

0:00 Introduction

1:10 Please Introduce Yourself

Dr. Jenni Rinker is a postdoc researcher at the Denmark Technical University. She attended Harvey Mudd University for undergraduate studies in engineering then went to Duke University for graduate studies. Her PhD is in Mechanical Engineering.

2:28 We’re talking today about your debt repayment journey. Can you tell us about this?

After undergrad at Harvey Mudd in 2011, Jenni had $62,000 student loan debt. She set the goal to repay the full debt during her PhD. She accomplished this goal, paying off the debt in 3 years and 7 months.

3:48 Can you tell us more about what kinds of loans you had?

Jenni kept a spreadsheet, a valuable tool that she used to track her debt repayment. She only had the option of unsubsidized student loans because she comes from a middle class household. At the time she started graduate school in September 2011, Jenni had $62,00 total from nine different loans. Federal student loans from Sallie Mae and Nelnet made up $28,000, at 6.8% interest rates. Jenni’s private student loans came to $34,000 total. Her single largest loan was from Alaska Advantage, a loan of $8,500 at 7.3% interest. She had several low interest (3-4%) private loans from Wells Fargo.

5:54 What was your income during your PhD?

Overall, Jenni’s post-tax income varied from $2,700 to $3,000 per month throughout her PhD. Before she started graduate school, Jenni was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. This fellowship provides an annual income of $34,000 for 3 years. When she started, Duke University offered her income in addition to her NSF fellowship. After the NSF fellowship period ended, Jenni won another external fellowship through the Office of Science that offered $3,000 per month.

However, Jenni started graduate school in debt and did not have any savings or assets she could use to reduce her debt.

10:50 Why were you so determined to pay off student loans during grad school?

Although student loan repayment could have been deferred while she was in graduate school, Jenni was uncomfortable with debt and letting interest accrue. She thought that keeping the debt would limit her choices after graduate school. The student loans felt like a weight over her head that was growing every day, and she wanted the freedom that would come after debt repayment.

Jenni decisively started paying off her student loans as soon as she started graduate school. She saw that her income was higher than her monthly expenses, so she made it her priority.

13:53 How did you pay off your student loans?

Jenni committed to her financial philosophy that the money earned from her job goes to rent, utilities, food, loans and other essential expenses first and foremost. Money for her other interests had to come from side income. Jenni earned extra income as a technical copyeditor. She had private clients and worked for the American Journal Experts. She funded several trips from her side income.

Spreadsheets were Jenni’s most important tool. She had a spreadsheet for each year, where each month had a tab. She calculated that $1,300 per month needed to be budgeted for student loans in order to pay off the debt in 4 years. Her living costs, the “monthly nut,” were $800 to $900 per month. She kept frugal habits, such as rarely going out to dinner.

Jenni implemented the strategy of paying herself first. Right after receiving her paycheck, she made her loan payment so the $1,300 was out of her account immediately and she wouldn’t be tempted to use it elsewhere. However, Jenni paid her student loans instead of building up her emergency fund, which was drained after she needed a car repair.

Jenni paid her loans manually, so she could pay the highest interest loans first. Her biggest loan also had the highest interest rate, so she prioritized this one first. Though she had nine different loans, she focused on paying off one loan completely before paying towards another loan.

Her story is an example of the debt avalanche method. Jenni prioritized bigger loans with higher interest to pay off first. She was motivated by paying as little interest as possible. This is in contrast to the debt snowball method, where a person pays off the smallest loans first, to feel motivated by these easy wins.

Jenni also identified where she overspends. She would take out cash to be more aware of her expenses.

28:23 Did you have any speed bumps during your debt repayment journey?

Though Jenni had one instance where she paid for car repairs, she feels like she got lucky with no major financial setbacks. Paying her student loans was her highest priority, and she ended up paying about $1,500 per month on average over three years and seven months. She paid her loans back faster than she expected.

29:53 How did you feel after paying off your student loans? Did anything change in your life?

Jenni realizes that this is an unusual accomplishment. She posted on Facebook and got many congratulations. At the time she made the final student loan payment, Jenni was still working on her dissertation.

She was so used to immediately using $1,300 for student loans, that she started saving that amount each month for travel. After she defended her PhD, she had stress-free travel for 6 months. She went to Patagonia, Europe, and traveled around the United States. Jenni already had a job lined up, so her travel was a true vacation to celebrate finishing her PhD and repaying her undergraduate debt. Jenni learned that traveling is very important to her, so this experience rejuvenated her and put her in the right mindset to start her postdoc.

34:30 Is there anything you wish you had done differently?

Jenni wishes she had rebuilt her emergency fund after she drained it for her car repair. Overall, she’s satisfied with her debt repayment journey. She balanced frugality with having a good quality of life.

During debt repayment, Jenni allowed herself flexibility for how much she paid every month. In the beginning, her repayment was more aggressive but she relaxed as time went on. She knew that in an emergency, her family could support her and she could pay her parents back for financial help in a tough situation.

38:14 Did this experience affect how you approach personal finance?

When Jenni moved to Denmark, she stopped tracking her daily expenses so carefully and has allowed herself to indulge in treats and go to cafes.

However, her budget spreadsheet is still her most valuable tool. She created her own spreadsheet template that makes sense to her. Jenni briefly considered using software budgeting tools like Mint, but never ended up trying one out. By using her own spreadsheet that she updates manually, she feels like she has more control of her budget. This manual system forces her to actively consider how she’s spending her money.

43:00 What advice would you give to someone starting graduate school with student loans?

First, Jenni recommends that graduate students with student loans set realistic goals. Your income must be more than your expenses, and you still need to have a good quality of life. Figure out your “monthly nut” and compare it to your income. Then, identify your problem areas in your expenses.

Second, she encourages graduate students to reevaluate their financial strategies. As graduate students, we have to educate ourselves about finance and learn from our mistakes. If your financial strategy is unsustainable, you can change it.

46:37 Final Comments

Jenni’s inspiring story is applicable to anyone in any kind of debt repayment scenario. The financial strategies Jenni used can help graduate students pay off their own student loan debt.

47:47 Conclusion

How to Find, Apply for, and Win a Fellowship During Your PhD or Postdoc

September 3, 2018 by Emily

Applying for fellowships is an essential component of your PhD training. My fellowship application advice is to apply for a few relevant fellowships as a prospective PhD student, whether you are coming from an undergraduate degree, master’s degree, job, or other fellowship. It’s also a great idea to keep applying for fellowships and grants throughout your PhD and postdoc for any years when you’re not already a fellow.

The advice in this article is on why, where, and how to apply for fellowships successfully. It has a particular focus on outside fellowships that are portable (you can use them at any institution), remunerative (they provide at least stipend/salary support), and broad (many research fields are eligible).

Fellowships at the graduate level are similar to scholarships at the undergraduate level in that they are awards that are given based on merit, and sometimes only a narrow slice of students is eligible. They are “free money” similar to scholarships and grants in the sense that they do not have to be repaid. What is different is that fellowships typically pay part or all of a PhD student or postdoc’s stipend/salary and may also include some money for tuition and fees. However, as a fellow you do have the responsibility of making progress in your research or else your fellowship is not likely to be renewed. PhD-level fellows are free to focus their attention solely on their research (in addition to classes in the early stage of training).

Further Reading:

Why Apply for Fellowships

Regularly applying for outside funding is an expectation in graduate school (and often before and after) that should be made more explicit. Even if you are fully funded by your program or group, you will benefit from applying for fellowships throughout your PhD and postdoc. The only reason to forgo submitting at least one fellowship application in a given year is if you are already funded by an outside fellowship in the upcoming year.

Further Reading: Why You Should Apply for Fellowships Even If You’re Fully Funded

There are numerous reasons apply for fellowships regularly, some of which apply even if you don’t ultimately win a fellowship.

1) A Higher Stipend/Salary

Often, outside fellowships are structured to pay a higher stipend than what is typically paid to a graduate student or postdoc. This is especially true for the prestigious, competitive, national fellowships. Winning an outside fellowship that awards a higher stipend/salary is one of the very few ways a graduate student or postdoc can secure a significant raise within the same career stage. Even if the fellowship pays a stipend/salary lower than the baseline amount for the department, typically the department will supplement the fellowship stipend/salary up to or even above the baseline pay as a gesture of appreciation to the student or postdoc for winning the fellowship.

2) Greater Independence

Depending on the PhD’s stage and department, an outside fellowship may confer an increased degree of research independence. For example, a fellow may be able to set up a new collaboration, pursue a side project, or complete additional lab rotations when a graduate student funded by another means would not be given permission. This is because the fellow’s funding is not tied to working on any specific project the way a grant would specify.

3) Negotiation Power

Virtually all PhD students and many postdocs assume there is no room for negotiation in their funding package. However, there are two points at which negotiation is possible: Upon admission to a program and upon winning an outside fellowship (best if combined). If you are funding yourself through a fellowship, that’s money that your advisor/department does not have to spend on you (assuming they would have), and that money has now been freed up for other purposes.

After finding out that you have won a fellowship, you can tactfully ask your advisor or department chair if it is possible for you to receive an extra benefit. You could ask for an increase in pay, a one-time or yearly bonus, or one of the extra degrees of independence listed above.

4) Excused from “Work”

One aspect of PhD funding that is not necessarily widely discussed is the difference between being funded by a fellowship and being funded by an assistantship.

A research assistant, teaching assistant, or graduate assistant is virtually always an employee of her university (as well as a student). You can be sure of this status if you receive a W-2 at tax time. The graduate student’s stipend or salary is being paid for work she does: teaching, research, or another type of service.

A fellowship, on the other hand, is an award, and there is not supposed to be any work requirement tied to it, although in practice the PhD student must of course make adequate degree progress.

There is not much of a functional day-to-day difference between graduate students funded by research assistantships in which the research is included in their dissertations and graduate students funded by fellowships. In both cases, 100% of the graduate student’s time (less time spent completing courses) can be devoted to his dissertation.

However, being funded by a fellowship makes an enormous difference in the day-to-day life of a graduate student who would otherwise be funded by an assistantship that requires non-dissertation-related work. That work requirement is typically 20 hours per week. Winning a fellowship excuses the graduate student from that work requirement, meaning that 20 hours per week can be devoted to research that furthers the student’s degree progress. This might very well shorten the time it takes for the student to complete his PhD.

5) CV-Booster

One of the unsung but most important benefits of winning a fellowship, particularly a prestigious national fellowship, is its effect on your CV. Once one fellowship committee has deemed you worthy of funding, that stands as a testament to your ability that is seen by every subsequent funding committee. Winning your first fellowship gives you momentum toward career success. Assuming you continue to be an excellent candidate, winning subsequent fellowships and grants becomes more likely.

6) Shows Initiative/Effort

In my opinion, applying for at least one outside fellowship concurrently with applying for graduate school is an unspoken requirement. Being able to say on your grad school application or in your interviews that you have applied for outside funding (even if you don’t ultimately win) shows the faculty members reviewing your application that you take initiative and are ambitious. Even once you are settled into a department and group in grad school, attempting to fund yourself will almost certainly be viewed favorably by your advisor, even if you are not awarded a fellowship.

7) Applying Forces You to Frame and Justify Your Research

Writing a fellowship application can be a wonder pause and possibly reset point in your research progress. You have to step back from your day-to-day work, think about the underlying motivations and aspirations for your project, and explain why they (and you) are worth being funded. This exercise alone is likely to benefit your research and experimental design.

8) Good Practice

The final benefit of applying for fellowships is that it’s good practice. If you stay in academia or research long-term, applying for grants is likely to become part of your regular work rhythm. You may as well start early, gain experience, and hone your message.

When to Apply for Fellowships

Most fellowship application deadlines are in the fall, though a few occur at other points in the academic year. Over each summer, you should create a list of the fellowships you plan to apply for in the upcoming academic year, including ones with deadlines later in the year. Create calendar reminders leading up to each fellowship deadline to ensure that your applications stay on track.

Where to Find Fellowship Opportunities

Your first stop for finding fellowship opportunities should be your research and/or program advisor (postdoc, graduate, or undergraduate). Ask him or her what fellowships you should consider applying to and what fellowships other students and postdocs at your same stage apply to. You can also ask your peers which fellowships they have applied to in the past or are applying to now.

Another great place to look are websites that maintain databases of fellowship opportunities. Your university or department may cultivate such a list. In the next section, I have provided my own list of broad fellowships to consider. Other great databases can be found at:

Finally, try a simple Google search with keyword combinations of “fellowship” or “scholarship” along with anything particular to you, such as your field, research interests, career stage, demographics, standout qualities, etc. You may find a fellowship or scholarship that is tailored to you that your peers wouldn’t qualify for and therefore overlooked.

When looking for fellowship descriptions and listings, always consider both the large, well-known programs that fund a lot of fellows and lesser-known opportunities that may be a good match for you in particular, either because of your demographics or your research area. All of the advantages of fellowship funding apply to both types.

Fellowship Programs for Graduate Students and Postdocs

Below is a list of portable fellowship programs that are granted to a large number of fellows each year in a broad array of fields. These fellowships provide full or nearly full levels of stipend/salary support, often in addition to tuition and fees.

American Association of University Women Dissertation Fellowships

Website
Fields: All
Eligibility: US citizen or permanent residents; applicant must identify as a woman; current PhD students who will complete their dissertations between April 1 and June 30
Award: $25,000
Number of Awards: Not specified
Deadline: November 15, 2023

American Association of University Women Postdoctoral Fellowships

Website
Fields: All
Eligibility: US citizen or permanent residents; applicant must identify as a woman; must hold a Ph.D., Ed.D., D.B.A., M.F.A., J.D., M.D., D.M.D., D.V.M., D.S.W., or M.P.H. at the time of application
Award: $50,000
Number of Awards: Not specified
Deadline: November 15, 2023

Department of Defense Science, Mathematics & Research for Transformation (SMART)

Website
Fields: Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering; Biosciences; Biomedical Engineering; Chemical Engineering; Chemistry; Civil Engineering; Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences; Computer and Computational Sciences and Computer Engineering; Cybersecurity; Data Science and Analytics; Electrical Engineering; Environmental Sciences; Geosciences; Industrial and Systems Engineering; Information Sciences; Materials Science and Engineering; Mathematics; Mechanical Engineering; Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering; Nuclear Engineering; Oceanography; Operations Research; Physics; Software Engineering
Eligibility: Citizen of the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, or United Kingdom; 18 years of age or older; Requesting at least 1 year of degree funding; Able to accept post-graduation employment with the DoD for every year of funding requested; Minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale; Enrolled in a regionally accredited U.S. college or university or awaiting notification of admission for fall term.
Award: 1-5 years of support; $30,000-46,000/year stipend, full tuition and fees, $2,500 health insurance allowance, $1,000 miscellaneous supplies allowance
Number of Awards: Not specified
Deadline: December 1, 2023

Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF)

Website
Fields: Science & Engineering Track: Aeronautics, Astrophysics, Biological Sciences, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, Electrical Engineering, Environmental Science, Materials Sciences, Mechanical Engineering, and Physics. Mathematics/Computer Science Track: applied mathematics, statistics, computer science, computer engineering or computational science.
Eligibility: Prospective and first-year graduate students; US citizens or permanent residents; full time uninterrupted study toward a Ph.D. at an accredited U.S. university
Award: up to 4 years of support; $45,000/year stipend, full tuition and fees, professional development allowance of $1,000 per year
Number of Awards: not stated; there are ~110 current fellows
Deadline: January 17, 2024

Ford Foundation Dissertation

Website
Fields: Research-based programs, e.g., American studies, anthropology, archaeology, art and theater history, astronomy, chemistry, communications, computer science, cultural studies, earth sciences, economics, education, engineering, ethnic studies, ethnomusicology, geography, history, international relations, language, life sciences, linguistics, literature, mathematics, performance study, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, religious studies, sociology, urban planning, women’s studies, and interdisciplinary programs
Eligibility: Previous Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship recipient; Current PhD students who will complete their dissertations no later than fall 2024; Enrolled in an eligible research-based program leading to a Ph.D. or Sc.D. degree at a not for profit U.S. institution of higher education; US citizens, nationals, permanent residents, and DACA recipients; Indigenous individuals exercising rights associated with the Jay Treaty of 1794; individuals granted Temporary Protected Status; asylees; and refugees; committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level in the U.S.
Award: 1 year of support; $28,000/year stipend
Number of Awards: ~36
Deadline: December 12, 2023

Ford Foundation Postdoctoral

Website
Fields: Research-based programs, e.g., American studies, anthropology, archaeology, art and theater history, astronomy, chemistry, communications, computer science, cultural studies, earth sciences, economics, education, engineering, ethnic studies, ethnomusicology, geography, history, international relations, language, life sciences, linguistics, literature, mathematics, performance study, philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, religious studies, sociology, urban planning, women’s studies, and interdisciplinary programs
Eligibility: Individuals who held a previous Ford Foundation Fellowship; Individuals who completed or will complete their PhDs or ScDs between 12/08/2015 and 12/08/2022; US citizens, nationals, permanent residents, and DACA recipients; Indigenous individuals exercising rights associated with the Jay Treaty of 1794; individuals granted Temporary Protected Status; asylees; and refugees; committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level in the U.S.
Award: 1 year of support; $50,000/year stipend
Number of Awards: ~24
Deadline: December 12, 2023

Graduate Fellowships for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Diversity (GFSD)

Website
Fields: Astronomy, Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Materials Science, Mathematical Sciences, Physics, and their sub-disciplines, and related engineering fields (Chemical, Computer, Electrical, Environmental, Mechanical)
Eligibility: Prospective and current graduate students available for two summer internships; US citizens with the ability to pursue graduate work at a GFSD university partner
Award: Up to 6 years of support; $20,000/year stipend
Number of Awards: Varies
Deadline: December 29, 2023

Hertz Foundation

Website
Fields: Applied physical and biological sciences, mathematics, or engineering
Eligibility: Prospective and first-year PhD students; US citizens and permanent residents
Award: Up to 5 years of support; $38,000/9-month stipend and full tuition; $5,000/year stipend for fellows with dependent children
Number of Awards: 15 in 2023
Deadline: October 27, 2023

Life Sciences Research Foundation

Website
Fields: Life sciences
Eligibility: PhD or MD/DVM recipients (awarded less than 5 years ago); US citizens working in any geographic location and non-US citizens working in US laboratories; begun (or will begin) working in your postdoc lab between August 1, 2022 and July 31, 2024; Postdoctoral training must be completed in a lab different from that of your graduate (thesis) lab
Award: 3 years of support; $66,000/year for salary and $11,000/year for research
Number of Awards: 18-27
Deadline: October 1, 2023

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship (NDSEG)

Website
Fields: Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering; Astrodynamics; Biomedical Engineering; Biosciences (includes toxicology); Chemical Engineering; Chemistry; Civil Engineering; Cognitive, Neural, and Behavioral Sciences; Computer and Computational Sciences; Electrical Engineering; Geosciences; Materials Science and Engineering; Mathematics; Mechanical Engineering; Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering; Oceanography; Physics; Space Physics
Eligibility: Prospective and current (first or second year) PhD students; US citizens and nationals
Award: 3 years of support; $3,400/month in stipend, up to $1,400/year in health insurance, and full tuition and fees
Number of Awards: Up to 500
Deadline: November 3, 2023

National GEM Consortium MS Engineering and Science Fellowship Program

Website
Fields: Science and engineering
Eligibility: Senior or graduate of an accredited engineering or computer science program; Minimum cumulative grade point average of 2.8/4.0; Agree to intern for two summers with sponsoring GEM Employer; under-represented students (American Indian/Native, African American/Black, Hispanic American/Latino); US citizens or permanent residents
Award: Employer Fellows: full tuition and fees; $4,000 living stipend per full-time semester up to 4 semesters; minimum $16,000 total stipend over the entire Master’s program; up to two paid summer internships. University Fellows: full tuition and fees; Associate Fellows: full tuition and fees; at least $8,000 stipend per year
Number of Awards: ~180 in 2022
Deadline: 2nd Friday in November

National GEM Consortium PhD Engineering and Science Fellowship Program

Website
Fields: Science and engineering
Eligibility: Senior, masters student, or graduate of an accredited engineering or applied science program; Minimum cumulative grade point average of 3.0/4.0; Agree to intern with sponsoring GEM Employer; under-represented students (American Indian/Native, African American/Black, Hispanic American/Latino); US citizens or permanent residents
Award: Employer Fellows: full tuition and fees up to the 5th year of the PhD; $16,000 stipend for one academic year, supplemented by university; a minimum of one paid summer internship. Associate Fellows: full tuition and fees; at least $16,000 stipend per year
Number of Awards: ~240 in 2022
Deadline: 2nd Friday in November

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF GRFP)

Website
Fields: STEM and STEM education
Eligibility: Pursuing a research-based Master’s or Ph.D. at an accredited United States graduate institution, with a US campus; Completed no more than one academic year of full-time graduate study; Graduate students can apply only once either in their first or second year; US citizens, nationals, and permanent residents
Award: 3 years of support; $37,000/year in stipend, $12,000/year to institution
Number of Awards: 2,750
Deadline: October 16-20, 2023 (date varies based on discipline)

Paul and Daisy Soros

Website
Fields: Unrestricted
Eligibility: Prospective and current (first or second year) graduate students; immigrants and the children of immigrants age 30 or younger
Award: 1 or 2 years of support; $25,000/year stipend, 50% of tuition and fees up to $20,000 per year
Number of Awards: 30
Deadline: 10/26/2023

How to Create a Winning Fellowship Application

You can’t throw together an excellent fellowship application in a weekend. They take a great deal of time and effort to conceive, write, re-write, and improve with feedback. Below are the steps you must follow to submit a potentially winning fellowship application.

1) Find Fellowships that Are a Good Match for You

You will dramatically increase your odds of winning a fellowship if you are selective about which ones you apply to. Don’t waste time applying to fellowship programs that have been cultivated for candidates with characteristics or research interests that you don’t share or for which you are unambiguously unqualified.

2) Read the Fellowship Application Components and Prompts Carefully

It may seem like all fellowship applications are similar, but there are actually overt or subtle differences among them. Most if not all fellowship programs will want to hear about your research or research interests (research statement) and also about you personally (personal statement), but the particular aspects of each that they are looking for may differ. It’s vital to fully answer the specific prompts for each different application. Make it easy for the evaluators to confirm that you have addressed every component of their rubrics, e.g., intellectual merit and broader impacts (for the NSF GRFP), career aspirations, etc.

You may be able to use similar points and even prose across your fellowship applications, but each application statement must be carefully tailored.

Early on, it’s also important to identify the various non-statement components of the fellowship application so you can gather them without rushing. These components may include letters of recommendation, test scores, and transcripts.

You may be required to receive your current university’s permission (nomination) to apply for a fellowship, so you need to be aware of the requirements and deadline for applying for that pre-selection stage.

3) Select and Notify the Writers of Your Letters of Recommendation

Give the writers of your letters of recommendation plenty of notice regarding the fellowship applications you request that they submit to (at least a couple months). It is helpful to share with them a spreadsheet or similar in which you can list all the different applications, their due dates, and submission links for each application season.

Different fellowship applications may require different types of letter writers, so you may need to reach out to faculty members or other mentors who are not your primary research advisors for one application or another.

Give faculty members who have never written you a letter of recommendation in the past an extra-long period of time to prepare the letter and offer to meet with them to discuss your application.

4) Begin Drafting Your Fellowship Application Materials Well in Advance of the Deadline

Once you are finished preparing, it’s time to start writing. Again, writing well in advance of the application deadline is imperative. You need to give yourself time for high-quality research, reflection, and crafting. Finish a draft, walk away from it for a few days or a week, and then come back with fresh eyes. At any stage you may ask for feedback: outline, sketchy draft, full draft, or the I-think-it’s-complete draft.

5) Write for the Proper Audience

As with any piece of writing, it’s vital to write for a certain audience. In the case of fellowship applications, you must understand, possibly by reading between the lines, what the evaluators of the fellowship applications are looking for. This is not to say that you will simply tell them what they want to hear, but rather that you will highlight the specific components of your application that you know they have to or want to see included. You should also use language that the evaluator will understand, which likely does not include obscure jargon.

6) Seek Input from Advisors, Peers, and Past Winners

To create a competitive fellowship application, you need outside eyes and expertise. You can get feedback and tips from:

1. Your Research and/or Academic Advisor(s)

Your undergraduate or graduate advisor is the best person to read your statements and give you feedback from his or her perspective as a career researcher who has advised other fellowship applicants and winners. He or she may even be overseeing the project you have proposed in your application, in which case the feedback will be even more specific and useful. Your advisor is likely also writing you a letter of recommendation, so it’s a great idea to give him or her full awareness of what you’re proposing.

2. Other Research and/or Academic Mentors

You may reach out to other faculty or staff members at your current or past institutions to read and provide feedback on your fellowship application. Your university may even designate a specific faculty or staff member as a mentor for certain fellowship applications. Your current institution may hold workshops and seminars to guide you in your applications, which you should make every effort to attend.

3. Your Peers Applying for Fellowships

Forming a reading group for one or more specific fellowship applications is among the most powerful steps you can do to take your application from ordinary to extraordinary. Your group should be composed of your peers of a similar stage and field who are applying to one or more of the same fellowships. You should agree on deadlines for producing outlines and drafts of your statements and read one another’s work at one or more of the stages to help one another improve the ideas and writing therein.

4. Prior Fellowship Winners

You can learn from the past awardees of the fellowships you are applying to. The first network to tap is your personal one: your friends and (older) peers from your college or graduate school who have previously won the fellowship you are applying to. You can also search for advice from fellowship winners online. Ask these winners to share their tips with you, in particular anything that is unique to that one fellowship. Some past winners may even share their statements with you as a model, but if you do read them be quite careful to avoid even inadvertent plagiarism.

7) Finalize Your Fellowship Application

Once you have incorporated the feedback you receive from your mentors and peers, it’s time to finalize your statements and application. Follow all formatting specifications precisely, and even beyond that format your statements so that they are easy to for the evaluators to read.

Be sure to proofread the final version of your statements carefully. While you can complete this step yourself, it is probably even better to ask a friend or family member who has not yet read your statement to go through it with fresh eyes to catch any grammatical, spelling, or formatting mistakes. You might even be able to use your university’s writing center for this step.

Again, don’t wait to the last minute to load your application materials into the application portal. Do this a couple of days in advance of the deadline so you can be sure you have prepared all the materials properly. Finally, you’re ready to submit!

The main advice in this section is to give your application plenty of time and careful attention and to ask for feedback from anyone willing to give it to you!

How to Be an Excellent Fellowship Applicant

This last subject is arguably the most important one of this entire article. Submitting a large number of marvelously written fellowship applications will not propel a weak applicant to success. That is to say, prior to and concurrently with searching out and applying for fellowships, you should also take steps to increase your strength as an applicant.

Of course, fellowships vary in what they look for in a candidate. But there are commonalities:

Research experience with demonstrated results and/or deliverables (e.g., papers, posters, presentations, patents)
High grades and test scores
Strong and detailed letters of recommendation
Community service
Stand-out experiences
Career commitment to research, teaching, service, etc. (whatever is in line with the ideals of the fellowship program)

It’s a great idea to keep track of accomplishment or activity you participate in throughout your college years and beyond with a few annotations about your contributions to draw upon when preparing fellowship applications.

At the end of the day, what makes you an excellent fellowship applicant has a great deal of overlap with what makes you an excellent undergraduate or graduate student or postdoc, effective researcher, and personable individual. Effort you put toward making yourself a stronger fellowship applicant will benefit many other areas of your life as well.

This Grad Student in DC Prioritizes Living Alone and Investing in Mental Health

August 27, 2018 by Emily

In this episode, Emily interviews Christina Padilla, a PhD candidate at Georgetown University in human development and public policy earning $38,000 per year. Christina shares her top five expenses as a DC resident: rent, groceries, eating and drinking out, regular monthly expenses (i.e., phone, internet), and the copay for her therapist. They discuss Christina’s tips on leveling up her housing, meal planning, living car-free, and finding frugal fun in the city.

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Links Mentioned in Episode

0:00 Introduction

1:18 Q1: Please Introduce Yourself

Christina Padilla is a PhD candidate at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She is in the psychology department, and specifically in the human development and public policy program. Her research focuses on early childhood, parenting, and early education.

Christina completed her undergraduate studies in Baltimore before taking a 2-year research position at the National Institute of Health (NIH) in the D.C. area, and then stayed for graduate school.

3:11 Q2: What are the top expenses that you have, either in a typical month or in the last month?

Christina’s top five expenses per month are rent, groceries, eating and drinking out, other regularly occurring monthly expenses like phone and internet access, and a copay for therapy, which she started in the fall.

4:15 Expense #1: Rent

Her first year at the NIH, Christina lived in Maryland because it was closer to her lab and her rent was only $600-$700 plus utilities, but she hated being so far outside the city. In her second year at the NIH, she moved to a group house and paid $800 a month. However, it was a very old house and required Christina to have four roommates. She lived there for three years, including her first two years of graduate school, and then decided it was worth it to live by herself. She had saved money to be able to live in a studio.

Now, Christina is budgeting with an income of $38,000 for the fall 2017 through the summer; after that, her funding situation is uncertain. She allocates $2,700 per month, and of that, rent is $1,350. For a place in D.C., that is not very expensive. Christina lives alone in a rent-controlled studio apartment in a very desirable area outside of Dupont Circle.

Transportation was once one of Christina’s top expenses, and she would spend $150 a month to get to and from campus. She does not own a car: all the costs were for public transportation. At present, she is able to walk to campus, and now spends about $40 every other month on Metro costs. Georgetown also has a free shuttle between the area she lives and the university campus.

9:13 Is the building that you’re living in popular with students?

Another graduate student living in the building recommended it to Christina when she moved out, but Christina took a different unit because the cost was significantly less due to rent control factors. A number of other Georgetown students do live in the building; there are quite a lot of young people and quite a lot of long-term residents, but very few people in between.

11:43 Expense #2: Groceries

Christina spends about $200 per month on groceries on average. Unless she is going to a social event, she tries to cook all of her meals at home instead of ordering out. Christina has a small kitchen, which it is in a separate room from the rest of the apartment. She does not have a dishwasher or garbage disposal, but all other major appliances are included.

13:11 Have you always tried to cook at home, or is that something you decided to do along the way?

Cooking dinner at home is a habit Christina has always had; eating out was only for special occasions, rather than a casual habit. Even when she was at the NIH, she would cook every day. Her savings enabled her to take a lengthy trip to Europe before starting graduate school—Christina and another woman compared their spending and found that a major factor in Christina’s savings for the trip was that she was not ordering out, and the other woman was ordering food almost every day.

16:17 Do you have any comments on how you keep food costs down in a high cost of living area?

Christina also allocates $200 per month for eating out, but her ability to stay within both budgets was enhanced when she started meal planning. Planning meals for a week and only buying what’s necessary for that week has helped her stay within her budget. Christina enjoys cooking, and so cooking food and freezing it is both relaxing and budget-friendly.

On Sundays, Christina will make breakfast and lunch for at least Monday through Wednesday, and cook again on Wednesdays. Previously, she would try to prepare meals one day ahead of time but would often find that she was too tired or busy to do so, and ended up having to cook in the morning or buy meals. By planning meals ahead and cooking in bulk, Christina saves herself money and time.

19:13 Expense #3: Eating and Drinking Out

Christina sometimes feels that $200 per month for eating and drinking out may be high, but acknowledges that D.C. is an expensive city to eat in—one brunch could cost $50 or $60. Brunch and happy hours are both popular in the city, and the costs of each can add up. The $200 also includes going out for celebrations and other social events. Christina avoids going out to eat unless it is with other people so that it stays a treat instead of becoming an expensive habit.

21:21 Expense #4: Other Regular Monthly Expenses

Other regular monthly expenses make up the fourth largest category for Christina, which amount to about $100 per month. She pays $35 each month for her phone, $43 for internet access, $13 for dental insurance, and $5 for Spotify, which is cheaper with a student membership. The cell phone price is for the cost of the actual phone; the one thing Christina’s parents still pay for is Verizon service.

22:12 Expense #5: Therapy Co-Pays

In the fall, Christina was having a difficult time with her dissertation. The $200 per month she now spends on co-pays were originally going into savings and have transitioned into payment for counseling. Christina mentions that all graduate students need support but sometimes struggle with talking about it or feeling justified in seeking out help, and enjoys talking about counseling to help de-stigmatize it. She considers it an investment in herself and getting through graduate school in one piece.

23:24 Will you be finishing grad school soon?

Christina has an external fellowship for $30,000 for two years, and her department gave her an extra $8,000 to match everyone else’s stipends. She will continue to receive the $30,000 stipend but does not know whether her department will award the $8,000 again. She hopes to finish in January of 2019. She may drop her counseling sessions to once or twice a month instead of each week.

25:33 Q3: What financial goals are you working on?

In addition to the five categories and other spending, Christina saves at least $200 per month. $100 goes into a mutual fund with Schwab and $100 goes into a Roth IRA that she set up last year.

Christina does not get a very good interest rate on her savings account and chose to invest in a mutual fund because of an episode of the John Oliver Show “Last Week Tonight,” from which she learned it would be a good option for her savings goals. She has not decided whether to use it for a mid-life expense or for long-term savings, such as a down payment on a house or for retirement.

28:03 Q4: What don’t you spend that much money on that might surprise people?

People are often surprised by how little Christina goes out to eat. Many people in graduate school tend to order in a lot for convenience. However, many people bring lunch to campus, so Christina regularly eats lunch with other people in her lab, and bringing food has not been an isolating experience.

29:24 Q5: What are you happy with in your current spending and what would you like to change?

Christina is overall happy that she is staying afloat and able to save money even though she lives in an expensive city. Many of her friends have “real” jobs where they make more money, and it is hard to compare herself to them, but she is pleased with being able to save at all. She tries to think positively about being paid to get a degree and be happy that a stipend is available, that tuition is covered, and that she has no student loan debt.

31:43 What advice would you have for someone who is starting in their first year at Georgetown?

Christina’s number one piece of advice is to be honest and reflective with yourself about your priorities in terms of housing. It’s not always possible to live in a luxury building in a great location without roommates and have low rent. There are housing options for all priorities, but you have to be honest about what you want and to be ready to make sacrifices in terms of money, location, or roommates. A lot of people live outside D.C. in Virginia or in Maryland, but many of those areas have become as expensive as D.C., so comparing prices is important.

Georgetown does not offer much graduate student housing, and what’s available is about equally expensive as other housing options if not more. Georgetown does provide shuttles, however, because the campus is not connected to the Metro line.

35:30 Any closing thoughts or other comments about living in D.C. on $38,000 per year?

D.C. has a lot of free activities, especially in the summer. There are many free outdoor concerts, and all of the D.C. museums and monuments are free to visit.

No matter where you live, setting a budget and sticking to it is immensely helpful. Christina uses the free version an app called Good Budget, which allows you to create spending categories and record your transactions. The app will show a green bar decreasing as you spend throughout the month. Christina found that Mint was not helpful for her in curbing her spending and now uses Good Budget instead.

Trying to keep up with people who have “real” jobs and salaries is impossible, but it is possible to politely take charge of social situations. For example, Christina recommends offering to choose the restaurant where friends will gather and selecting a lower-cost option. Other people may not recognize that their budget constraints might be looser than a graduate student’s.

Christina opts for casually steering events with friends towards more affordable activities, and will occasionally decline to go to things if they are too expensive. She has found that most people are fairly sensitive to graduate student budgets and have no problem with less expensive activities and options.