We’ve previously covered why it’s a good idea to make the most of opportunities whilst at university. Opportunities come in many different guises, and today I want to share one such amazing experience. This is how taking action on an email secured me an all-expenses paid scholarship to visit Fiji!
The email
During my third year as a Warwick undergraduate student I received an email asking for applications to the Arthur Shercliff Travel Scholarship. The aim of the scholarship is: “to support technical visits abroad that enable students to enhance their international awareness of engineering in an applied context”.
In my experience of STEM university mailing lists, there are usually a few of these types of emails a year. They’re not always worthy of your time, but every so often there is one which is too good to pass up.
What I noticed with this email was that the scholarship was limited specifically to engineering students at only two universities. Therefore I knew that the pool of potential applicants would be small. This was made even smaller knowing how few people do actually take action on their e-mails.
At the time (back in 2011 – yes I’m old!) the scholarship was worth £1150. Enough to make it worth spending a few hours applying for.
My application
So I felt it was worth applying, but what would I want to do with the money? I had to apply for a technical visit, somewhere outside of the UK which would enhance my “international awareness of engineering in an applied context”.
The old version of scholarship webpage lists the previous recipients and the projects they went on. Looking at the list I saw that the previous projects has all had an obvious engineering angle to them.
Yet that’s not what I wanted to apply for.
I pushed my luck and decided to apply for something I’ve been really interested in: coral reef restoration.
I’d long been interested in coral (having kept a marine aquarium). I’d also seen some BBC programmes featuring a guy living in Fiji known as the Coral Gardener (BBC clip here) who was working to replant and regenerate coral reefs. I therefore decided to write an application saying that I wanted to go to Fiji and help with this project.
The keen eyed amongst you will notice that this project would suit biology or environmental science students more than mechanical engineering. Nevertheless I filled in the short application, explaining the project and why I wanted to go.
I’ve still got a copy of my application and here is the bit where I addressed how the trip could fit the scholarship:
“I feel that not only would the work experience be useful personally but also to the wider environmental and engineering context. The opportunity to witness first-hand the environmental problems featured on the news would be eye opening.
Additionally, becoming more environmentally aware and orientated towards the repercussions of decisions made through engineering design would be extremely valuable and help me to shape how I use in engineering in the future. Additionally, experiencing a completely different culture and having to work in a multi-national team would be very useful experience for when moving into employment.”
From my application, which is pretty cringeworthy to read back over now!
I’m sure I could have written this better now. Yet there is no getting around the fact that there was practically no engineering involved with the project. I certainly didn’t expect anything to come of it!
The outcome
I didn’t hear back for ages so I assumed I’d been unsuccessful. Then a glimmer of hope! An email came through saying there would be a delay because the panel were still deliberating.
A few weeks later and the email came through to say that I had been awarded the scholarship! There was no interview process, simply the short application form. Suffice to say I’m extremely happy I put those few hours work into it!
As I thought my chances of being successful were low to non-existent, I naively hadn’t reached out to Austin (my coral-farming host) to check if it would be ok to come. This resulted in a very speedy email once I learned I’d been successful!
Why was I successful with my application?
I don’t really know to be honest with you. I’m kind of surprised there wasn’t a better applicant with a more clearly engineering-focussed application. What I do know is that most people don’t put themselves out there and apply for things like this. This post should serve as a reminder as to how and why you should grab any opportunities thrown your way.
Even looking now at the list of annual awardees, mine sticks out as being pretty whacky and unrelated to engineering:
The experience
In short, I had an amazing time!
I lived in a Fijian village for a month, working on a topic I care a lot about. Although the weather wasn’t always great (it was winter in Fiji), the scenery was just as idyllic as you might imagine. Castaway was filmed nearby and I spent time on tiny remote islands, such as this one which Google hasn’t put a name to:
Overlapping with my time in Fiji there were a few other students who had decided to volunteer with the project. This made for a more interesting trip.
Our days started with breakfast in the village leader’s home (often including homemade cakes and doughnuts!) then we headed out to work on the reef. Our work included taking cuttings from the most healthy corals, maintaining the coral nurseries and surveying the status of the reef.
Along with the changing climate, crown of thorns starfish (these nasty things) are decimating reefs around the world. They cause massive issues by killing huge areas of reef, so we did our part to slow them down too.
Most of the work involved taking cuttings from successful coral species to regenerate the reef. This started with going out to the reef and collecting samples from healthy corals. Don’t worry this doesn’t kill the remaining mother colony! These pieces were then taken back to land and split up in to smaller pieces which were then grown into colonies themselves in the coral nursery. The new colonies could then be transplanted onto a local reef to begin the process of regeneration.
One of the side-projects our host wanted to explore was fluorescence. Many corals can be seen to fluoresce when exposed to to light near the UV range. The idea was to seek out these corals, because through this pigment they may be better protected from damage caused by climate change.
The issue though is that environmental conditions would rarely (if ever) allow you to see the fluorescence. So we waited until night and used some “actinic” light bulbs which emit light at and around the visible light/UV boundary to see which corals would fluoresce. Some of them were glowing like radioactive waste!
In addition to learning about reef restoration, it was a real adventure to experience life on the Fijian island. I got involved with helping with some projects for the village, including construction of a school. This also provided the bonus of being able to include pictures of activities related to engineering in my post-trip report!
Supercharging the opportunity
I was allocated a month to work on the project in Fiji, yet the university break over the summer was three months long (undergraduates: make the most of this!). So it seemed a bit of a shame to just fly straight home.
I figured I would make even better use of the opportunity by turning it into a round the world adventure!
Before Fiji I stopped off in New York and California, taking the beautiful Starlight train journey between San Francisco and LA. After Fiji I spent a week seeing the highlights of New Zealand’s south island with a Stray tour and went to Sydney for a few days. Finally I spent a month going around several countries in Southeast Asia with my girlfriend.
To be clear, I didn’t use the scholarship funding for these extras. It wouldn’t have covered it even if I’d wanted it to. The point is to look for ways to boost opportunities (and to build up savings to enable it)! Adding on these extra bits to the trip made the experience even more amazing.
The snowball effect
It is said that success breeds success and I think that taking opportunities can have the same effect.
Not only can the experience itself be incredible, but it gives you:
- Experience and potential new expertise to foster
- Confidence to put yourself out there again in the future
- Credibility which can help with future applications:
When I finished my undergraduate degree I started applying for research jobs. I added the scholarship to my CV and often mentioned it in covers letter too.
One of the jobs I applied for was at Cambridge University, who just so happened to have funded this scholarship. Incidentally (or not) one of the main talking points at the interview was this project work. I feel getting awarded the scholarship very likely got me my first proper job.
From there, having experience working at Cambridge University helped with my next applications (including my PhD) and so the knock-on effects continue. Please don’t misinterpret this to mean you should occupy your time hunting prestigious trophies. That in itself is not fulfilling, yet doing interesting things can continue to open doors long in to the future.
Summary
If you spot something which could be an interesting opportunity, grab it! As you can see, it can lead to some pretty amazing experiences.
Simply taking the first steps of action put you in a pretty select group compared to many of your peers. Unless you put yourself out there the opportunities more than likely won’t fall into your lap. Or if they do, it’s probably because you’ve already proven yourself to be someone who makes the most of whatever comes your way!
You can find my main post about opportunities and why your time as a PhD student is a perfect for making the most of them here.
I hope this has inspired you to take a shot at the opportunities all around us. It would be great to hear any stories you might have of what came from seizing opportunities.
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