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Grant Writing: Does It Get Any Better?

Apr 23, 2007 commentary

I’ve been taking a graduate course this semester, “Molecular and Cellular Reproduction,” that aims to provide a comprehensive overview of all of the most relevant areas of reproductive biology from a physological, molecular, and cellular perspective. It’s been informative and fascinating, and as an undergraduate taking a completely unrequired course, it’s been challenging at times to remain engaged when other (required) courses demand my time.

However, recently I’ve been working on one of the course’s main requirements: a 5-10 page grant application that will conclude with an NIH style review session. This will allow all members of the class to get practical and objective review of their grant (whether it will be submitted or not) and hopefully provide an opportunity to improve our understanding of how to construct a quality grant application more likely to be funded.

And I’ve got to say: I love this stuff.

Writing this grant has been one of the few things in my undergraduate career that has provided a natural progression of ideas and revisions, and slowly working to a quality finished project. Undergraduate science courses provide so few opportunities for creative thought and association of disparate ideas that you tend to start stumbling along as if in a daze. Learn some basic concepts, memorize more concepts and mechanisms, recite and draw facts and figures for exams and quizzes, rinse and repeat.

But this grant is something unique, something closely related to the research I’ve poured countless hours into over the past 2.5 years. It requires careful crafting and thoughtful analysis of the best way to present an idea to a group of young graduate students. It requires major and minor revisions at each step along the way as a garbled early draft slowly transforms into something much more refined.

I’m not saying that I’m good at it yet — far from it. But I do like the process, and it has helped cement my decision to head for graduate school following graduation in May 2008.

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