Fellowships

From Unofficial Guide to Engineering

While most graduate programs will fund graduate students either through a school fellowship, teaching assistantships and research assistantships, you can also receive fellowships from outside organizations. Fellowships provide funding for tuition costs and usually provide a better stipend than most graduate programs for some number of years. You can also apply for some fellowships as a first-year graduate student.

The benefit of having an externally-funded fellowship is securing funding before starting your graduate education, which allows you to take time to find an advisor. These fellowships are pretty prestigious, so professors might look favorably at taking you on as a graduate student if you have an external fellowship.

Some of the most popular fellowships for engineering in National Science Foundation Fellowship (NSF), Hertz Fellowship, and National Defense (DoD) Fellowship. You can usually find a list of fellowships at university websites. Check out: http://www.grad.berkeley.edu/fellowships/fellowships_deadlines.shtml

Fellowships usually request the same items as admissions applications, including transcripts, GRE scores and essays, but these fellowships usually require more detailed essays, so be prepared. For example, the NSF Fellowship requires 4 essays.

Be aware that the fellowship deadlines are usually before the applications are due. Some of these fellowships are due in October.

Good luck!

Links

http://hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/student/grad/grad-fellowships.html: Notes from EECS panel that included past winners of the NSF fellowship.