Becoming a Candidate for Scholarships and Fellowships

One way to view prestigious scholarships and fellowships is that they reward an “ideal” undergraduate education. While your professors and mentors at Pacific can help you design such an education, you are its true architect. With that in mind, plan to:

Strive for excellence in your coursework.

• Choose courses that are challenging.
  
  
• Choose diverse courses that allow you to grow in knowledge outside your major.
  
  
• Find something, in each course, about which you can be passionate—and make that passion evident in your work.
  
  
• Go “above and beyond” what your professors explicitly require in your written work, class participation, and preparation for each class session. Remember that such excellence will be reflected not only in course grades, but in how your professors think of you when they write letters of recommendation.
  
  
• Remember that grades are not “the end of the story.” A less than perfect performance in a course, or on a given essay or exam, can be rescued by a willingness to revise the work, or better understand the material, even when such improvements will not be reflected in your course grade. Faculty admire students whose ambitions extend beyond grades. Show that you are such a scholar.
  
  
• Seek opportunities to know and be mentored by faculty.
  
  
• Go to office hours. Discuss with your professors aspects of their courses or their field of study that you want to understand better, or to ask questions about how to develop the quality of your coursework. (If you produce “A” work in a course, invite your faculty to tell you what you can do to take your work to the next level of excellence.) Be open to their input and try to use it. Check back with them for further guidance.
  
  
• Learn about your professors’ research—by reading it, and/or by discussing it with them, even if it it’s mostly “over your head.” You will gain a greater understanding of the field, and of graduate study generally, from the opportunity to dialogue with these authors and experts.
  
  
• Actively seek opportunities to do research under the supervision of your professors. If you are unsure of what types of research activities are conducted in your field—ask faculty in your department. You might join an ongoing research program, or develop an independent research project of your own. Your professors can help you refine your thinking about a project you propose in your major. Remember that expenses associated with independent research projects may be funded by the university.
  
  
• For students who study abroad, take time to cultivate relationships with faculty there with whom you might want to work after college, supported by an international fellowship or scholarship such as the Fulbright.

This page has been adapted, with the permission of Jim Hohenbary, from  Becoming a Strong Candidate for Scholarships.