Well life is about to be turned up-side-down for me! I will be withdrawing from all the amazing projects which I am a part of unless they are near to completed. I will continue to be the SIG leader for the Self-Efficacy group within NAEEA but I will give up my leadership role in the AARE Social Justice SIG. I no longer have time…. because…

I WON A SCHOLARSHIP!!!

A RTP (Commonwealth Governement) scholarship through FedUni!!!!! But the condition is that I have to be a full-time PhD student. So I have checked the rules and I’m allowed to keep my 0.5 FTE job. I’m going to have my cake and eat it too! I’m going to be paid to work AND paid to study! So, the story from the start!

Well I didn’t really think I had any chance of getting it when I applied. Once before I got a scholarship but that was hardship based because I had to travel to get to a placement (50 ks or there abouts from memory). This one was merit based (which I understood) but I didn’t really know exactly what they were looking for – it was all a bit vague. It was explained to me later that there was 3 equally weighted criteria.

1. Past results. I was told my honours results but I think it must have included my undergraduate results as well. I am making that assumption because I got second-class honours (which I think is similar to distinction) but I had a distinction (nearly high distinction) undergraduate average which was more impressive in a Monash Arts degree
2. The project. I had to write about how my project linned up with the strategic plan of the university and how it would contrubute to the field of knowledge. My project is about self-efficacy and marginalised student groups – it relates directly to student retention and success. If I couldn’t make it obvious how it was going to benefit the university and the world then there must have been something seriously unclear about what I wrote! So I think this criteria was a strength.
3. Research outputs. I had 2 conference presentations, 1 conference poster, 2 book chapters and 4 journal articles when I put the application in. All of these are from “side-projects” and not directly related to my PhD but that didn’t matter. I am certain that there are not many other PhD students with that many research outputs, so I assume this was another strong point in my application.

The irony was not lost on me! The university said rather loudly with this schoalrship that my research outputs were a good thing when my supervisors have been saying that I have too many side projects. Not recently though, they have been happy with my progress. I hope that can continue as I move to full-time in January!

By the way, I DID inform my supervisors I was applying for this scholarship but that was one of those emails which they felt was unimportant and did not require a reply. I am not sure how much of a shock it was to them when they were CC’d into the congratulations email!

Since I got the congratulations email I have been in logic-mode organising my life and how I’m going to fit everything in. I haven’t really had time to stop and just soak it in that out of all the PhD students at the university who applied, they awared this to me. It is by far a career highlight – my biggest thus far – and it will be hard to beat in the future. I am feeling extrememly happy, a little bit daunted or scared, but mostly I just want to get on with it. I don’t want to waste this win as a motivating factor.