I’m glad I’m not in the sciences because then I’d have to write grants once a year instead of once every 8 years. It’s not an unhelpful process. You get to plan and all that. But I hate writing anything that I won’t publish. I have an article and a conference talk that are languishing while I’m wasting my life on this paperwork.
6 responses to “Writing Grants”
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You’d be very very good or lucky if you were writing grants only once a year :-). Even among my very successful colleagues, it is not uncommon to write 3 or 4 grants a year, with the hope that one will get funded.
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God. That’s a sad life.
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That’s why I have never wanted to be a university professor.
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Oh yeah, I would be delighted if I only had to write grants once a year. For me, it’s 2-3 grants once a year for a big fall deadline at the National Science Foundation (NSF), and then several others of different lengths throughout the year for various other agencies and internal solicitations. The thing is, a grant in my field covers only one student, two tops, and basically squat of summer salary, so you need multiple active grants. You are right that it’s soul-sucking because you pour so much time into these documents and usually you don’t get a publication out of it and rarely you get the money you applied for. [In am in the physical sciences; in the biomedical sciences, it seems there are people who submit around the clock to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).] Having to revise grants year after year, hoping to finally get it funded, is its own circle of hell. There is no text I want to look at less than a grant I’ve already beaten to death, more than once.
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That sounds really tough. I’m now feeling more at peace with my tiny little grant.
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It’s the worst part of being a scientist by far 😦
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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