Funding Earned Through Lessons Learned

Funding Earned Through Lessons Learned
A personal account of my experiences with obtaining Ph.D. funding
By Derrick Brown August 1994
Copyright 1994, 2011 Derrick Brown and KnowledgeBase, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Derrick Brown Principal Consultant

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"Funding Earned Through Lessons Learned"
Derrick Brown
Introduction Securing long-term funding by applying for graduate fellowships is perhaps one of the most crucial tasks of a graduate student. Because of its importance, a prospective applicant must commit far more time to prepare for the process than just the time required to complete the application. Graduate fellowship applications are written proposals for funding; thus, applicants must demonstrate a meticulous plan of study and research to the awards panel to be successful. The level of detail required for this plan can be developed only through a student's sincere attempt to understand and learn from his/her experiences in order to articulate a solid plan. In this article, I present details of my search for graduate school funding. It was an experience that motivated the following objectives for this essay: To provide insight to the effort that is required from the student to prepare successful applications. This includes lots of writing about past experiences, and, most importantly, seeking the advice and input of others (that is, people who can critique your writing, and people who can evaluate the technical merit of your plans). To convey the importance of using self-assessment and introspection as means to understand failure and convert it into success. I was awarded a National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science, Inc., (GEM) Master's Fellowship in January 1991. At that time, I was enrolled in my next-to-last semester of Clemson University's undergraduate electrical engineering curriculum, and had just taken the first of my senior elective courses. I knew even then that I had at least some desire to obtain my Ph.D. Therefore, I decided to seek additional funding by applying for more fellowships during the 1991-92 school year. Motivated by the success of my GEM application, I applied for Ph.D. Fellowships from the Department of Defense (DOD) and The Ford Foundation. At the time of the 1991-92 applications, I had one summer of intern experience at The MITRE Corporation in McLean, Virginia, where I worked in the Signal Processing and Advanced Technology Department. This summer provided me with experience that applied directly to my technical interests, which I tried to demonstrate in my statement of purpose and previous research experience essays. As you read the following excerpts from those essays, though, notice the following shortcomings:
Copyright 2011 Derrick Brown and KnowledgeBase, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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I do not clearly explain technical terms like "LPI", "spectral estimation", and "direct-sequence spread spectrum". I do not demonstrate my understanding of my assignments. I do not articulate a detailed coursework plan. 1991-92 STATEMENT OF PURPOSE AND SUMMARY OF RESEARCH EXPERIENCE " ... This past summer, I was employed by the MITRE Corporation in McLean, Virginia as a co-op student. I worked in the Signal Processing and Advanced Technology Group, where I was assigned to work with a project that sought to develop low-probability-of-intercept (LPI) techniques that could achieve a five-to-ten decibel advantage in LPI performance over current techniques. I was specifically tasked with implementing a direct-sequence spread spectrum communication system simulation using the Signal Processing WorkSystem, a software design tool. This simulation was to be used later in the development of LPI waveforms. While at MITRE, I was also introduced to the area of spectral estimation. I assisted Dr. Thomas Bronez with research to develop equi-ripple windows for use in multi-window spectral analysis. Much of my assignment here involved familiarizing myself with work that Dr. Bronez had already completed so that I could write descriptions of MATLAB mfiles that were used to compute the windowing sequences. Because I have not yet pinpointed a specific area in which I would like to concentrate, I would like to obtain my initial graduate degree by structuring a sequence of coursework that will develop my skills in the areas to which I have already been exposed, as well as introduce me to new areas." I did not receive an award from The Ford Foundation or DOD, (I did receive honorable mention from both, though). From the comments made on my Ford application, I learned that one of the judges thought my plans and experiences were of sufficient technical merit, another thought that I needed more research experience, and the other felt that I had wasted my time in applying for the fellowship. Needless to say, this provided me with no useful feedback (other than the fact that the judging panel held widely varying opinions of the applicants), and quite a bit of discouragement.

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Since I could not secure any Ph.D. funding beforehand, I enrolled at Georgia Tech in September 1992 with the intention of completing my M.S. degree within the four quarters of funding that my GEM fellowship would provide. During that time I planned to explore the Ph.D. funding opportunities that existed in my department, and also wanted to try again to secure a fellowship. I resubmitted applications to both DOD and The Ford Foundation for 1993-94 fellowships, but was again denied an award. To compound matters, I discovered that little funding was available in my department, and did not know what resources existed outside the electrical engineering department at Georgia Tech. I had a problem that I needed to solve before my GEM Fellowship expired. Back to the Drawing Board ... Having failed twice in my attempts to win a Ph.D. fellowship, it was time to evaluate my strategies. During the early part of June 1993, I reviewed all of my old applications to see if I could determine ways to improve my chances of getting an award. I knew that my academic record and my GRE scores were good (but not great), but could not confidently make the same assertions about my essays and recommendations. Why? Because I did not know what a solid statement of purpose / plan of study should contain, and had no particular insight as to how I should select people to write my recommendations. I simply wrote about what I had done and what I wanted to do, then found four people who could write letters of support for me. After pondering my past efforts, it became clear that I would need to consult someone who knew more about the application process than I did, so that I could pinpoint my strategic errors and determine how to correct them. There were several seminars held during the school year on obtaining graduate funding, so I retrieved a copy of the handouts distributed at the seminars to read once I went to work for the summer. The main handout from the seminars was entitled "Your Graduate Funding Application A Brief Guide to Writing Successful Proposals". It is an unpublished guide written by Jeffrey Donnell of Georgia Tech (who also gave the seminars), and distributed by Georgia Tech's Office of Graduate Studies. The paper was full of insights to the process that I had not realized, and allowed me to clearly determine where I had gone wrong in my approach. In addition to the previously indicated errors in my essays, I determined the following: Strategic Errors

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Although my statement of purpose indicated some academic promise, it did not present a detailed plan as to how I would improve my technical knowledge through graduate study, then use that knowledge to do useful research. I did not do a good job of stating how I planned to address my relative lack of research experience in my area of interest through graduate coursework, projects, and further intern experience at MITRE. Instead of utilizing references from my summer mentors at MITRE (who would have been able to assess my abilities related to signal processing), I only chose professors from my undergraduate institution to do all of my recommendations. Doing this presented the awards panel with assessments of only my undergraduate academic abilities, thus preventing them from seeing how my experiences were allowing me to mature as a student. I had not let anyone in my field review my essays to evaluate their technical merit. I only had the essays proofread. New Approach After assessing my mistakes, I began to address correcting them. I had a good idea of how I wanted to plan my graduate coursework, but I needed to sharpen those ideas so that I could explain to the awards panel how my plan would put me in a position to do good research. Before I could tell them, though, I had to think about these things seriously myself. The seminar handout suggested that the most effective way to sharpen the scope of my plans was to ask myself basic questions about my goals and experiences, then answer them honestly and in writing. Some of the suggested questions were: What kind of engineer am I? How do I regard my professional abilities? What kind of projects do I want to do? What type of project do I want to do next?

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What do I want to study next? What has my schooling prepared me to do? How does my co-op/research experience fit into my overall plans? How do I regard my undergraduate experience? What have I learned in my graduate classes? Why do I want to get my Ph.D. ? It took a couple of months to write answers to these questions, but the introspection gave me a more complete understanding of my own goals and plans, which made it easier to convey these goals and plans to others. Strategic References The next step in my plan was to select referees who knew me at different stages in my development - as an undergraduate, as an intern seeking experience, and as a graduate student focused on developing a high level of skill. To familiarize them with my plans and experiences, I gave them summaries of my graduate school and work activities, and submitted drafts of my statement of purpose and summary of previous research experience essays as well. Submitting the essays to them allowed me to get feedback on the technical merit and cohesiveness of my plan. The referees gave me numerous helpful comments on how to strengthen the technical content of my essays and my overall application. Among the more insightful comments were the following: Explain clearly what you want to study and how you would like to apply the knowledge you will acquire. Determining how you can apply your knowledge requires that you read publications in your area of interest, and ask questions of people who are familiar with your area. Demonstrate a clear understanding of your previous research and/or work assignments. For me, this required studying my earlier assignments to determine what I did not understand. I then consulted my work mentors at MITRE and asked them questions that I lacked the experience to ask before. Learn to speak the language of your area of interest, because that makes it easier to write the detailed technical descriptions that comprise your fellowship essays. To address this, I developed the habit of periodically conversing with my work mentors about my

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projects and the classes I had taken at Georgia Tech. I also kept a journal of my work activities, and began to write technical memos that summarized each of my assignments during the summer. Realize that of the four judging criteria used by award panels essays, recommendations, grades, and GRE scores - you have more control over the essays and recommendations. Therefore, it is important to get timely feedback from your referees so that you can implement their suggestions, then show them that their comments helped you improve. This may improve their evaluation of your ability. Using Electronic Mail Another helpful hint made concerning the importance of timely feedback was to use electronic mail to make it easier to communicate with my referees and mentors at Clemson and Georgia Tech while I was at MITRE. I used email to send them drafts of my essays, to ask questions, and to keep them informed of my summer activities. Doing these things helped me develop confidence in my preparation because I was getting quick, honest reaction to everything that I wrote, and I was getting my questions answered. As shown below, my summer preparation made my statement of purpose and summary of previous research experience essays much more concise and complete. As you read the following excerpts, don't pay attention to the technical details that pertain to my coursework and research experience. Instead, concentrate on how both essays answer the following questions that I failed to answer in my previous efforts: PLAN OF STUDY AND RESEARCH What do you want to do / What do you want to study? How have you been preparing, and how will you continue to prepare in order to reach the goals you have set? SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS RESEARCH EXPERIENCE What type of work have you done? Describe it in detail, including your primary responsibilities.

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What do you understand about the nature of the work that you have done? What have you written and/or presented about the work that you have done (that is, how have you demonstrated your understanding of your work to others)? 1993 PLAN OF STUDY AND RESEARCH "... I want to study signal processing theory and its applications, particularly the areas of speech and image processing. Research in both of these areas will make numerous contributions to interactive multimedia technology - the integration of full-motion video, still images, graphics audio, and text into an accessible format that is manipulated by a computer. I wish to make my contribution primarily by investigating the following: The development of speaker-independent speech recognition systems The development of algorithms to enhance images that are coded at low bit rates To develop background in the image processing area, I have taken an introductory image processing course, as well as courses in Multidimensional Signal Processing and Medical Imaging. I have enhanced my knowledge of speech processing by taking an introductory course in that area, as well as another course in Statistical Signal Processing. I have bolstered my mathematical background with a course in Complex Analysis, and plan to take additional courses in Applications of Finite-Dimensional Vector Spaces and Numerical Linear Algebra to learn computational methods that can be used to implement signal processing algorithms ..." 1993 PREVIOUS RESEARCH EXPERIENCE " ... In May 1991, I began interning at The MITRE Corporation in McLean, VA for their Signal Processing and Advanced Technology Center (SPC). During my first summer there, my primary responsibility was to become skilled at operating a block-diagram-oriented simulation tool called the

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Signal Processing WorkSystem (SPW). I used SPW to design the transmitter and receiver for a direct-sequence spread spectrum (DSSS) communication system to support ongoing efforts to investigate optimum low-probability-of-intercept waveform design. A DSSS communication system is one that produces a signal that has a much larger bandwidth than that of the original transmitted data due to direct modulation of the data pulses by a pseudo-noise sequence. Another of my tasks from that first summer was to study classical methods of spectrum estimation, which is concerned with estimating a signal's power as a function of frequency; these estimates aid in the analysis of data like speech signals and seismic data from earthquakes. Techniques exist that improve resolution of these spectral estimates by partitioning data records into overlapping sequences, applying data windows to each of these sequences, and averaging the weighted squared magnitude of each windowed sequence's Fourier transform. I worked with Dr. Thomas P. Bronez of MITRE, who developed an alternative data window that yielded better spectral estimate resolution than those employed previously. I tested the software that Dr. Bronez wrote to compute the data windows in order to benchmark its speed and quantify its performance, then wrote a description of the algorithm implemented by the code. This description was included in "Alternate Windows for Multi-Window Spectral Analysis", which Dr. Bronez presented at the 1992 International Conference of Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP) ... " Conclusion Regardless of the outcome of my applications this time around, I felt that I had done a solid, thorough job of preparation. My efforts were rewarded in March 1994 with a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Fellowship for the 1994-95 school year. I was happy to learn that I had won, but I was pleased even more by what I had learned from the experience. The lessons I learned can be summarized in the following points (that perhaps apply to more than just securing graduate funding): It is important to develop a complete understanding of yourself and your goals, mainly through honest thought and writing; however, it is equally important to learn how others view you through

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discussions with people who have known you at different stages in your development. Take advantage of all opportunities to learn and gain experience, then make a sincere effort to understand those experiences through study and asking questions. Keep in mind that success is often the result of understood failure.


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Funding Earned Through Lessons Learned

A personal account of my experiences with obtaining Ph.D. funding

By Derrick Brown August 1994

Derrick Brown Principal Consultant