Respond to the two posts
Student 1
By far the most challenging task I’ve been struggling with is finding enough statistics on how much funding, or lack thereof, is available for research proposals. A lot of the information I’ve come across is the process of how to apply for grants and who to contact, but finding specifics on the ratio of how many grant applications there or are how many proposals are presented to the amount of money given out, has not been very easy. In addition, digesting and thoroughly understanding this topic is a bit complex; I don’t know any previous information about it. While I’ve been able to talk with a lot of different professionals and their struggles on where to find funding, disclosing numbers is not something I think I have the liberty to ask. My next steps are to contact a representative from the NIH or FDA and see if I can quote them on any information they offer, or contact a professor I know who has worked with the NIH and quote them on the difficulty they encounter in trying to find funding. I also need to decide if I want to create a general guideline on who and if they are eligible to apply, or if each individual applicant will have their own specific guidelines depending on their proposal. With regards to how this will be environmentally impactful, my idea is to use social media and other platforms to raise awareness and the majority of the money. Ideas that relate to the environment are especially welcomed; perhaps I could make it a condition that each proposal must list how it helps the environment if they wish to apply. More trivial details are still needed as well, such as what I will call this organization and where it will be located, contact information, etc.
Student 2
One of the major challenges I’ve been having with this project is involved with my research. I have written other research papers with more specific topics that gave me trouble with finding enough research. Due to the broad topic of this topic, I easily found more than enough information that I found to be important. As I was writing the Introduction, I realized I had too much research and was covering too many topics.
I was able to move a lot of the research down to the Solution section. I realized that this was where the information should have been in the first place. The solutions that I came up with were based on the research, so they should have been together. I was also able to cut out a few sections of research. Although the information was important and I wanted it to be included, I figured the program I was developing should be simple. In order for the community to understand and gain information from the program, there can’t be too much going on and they can’t have too much information thrown at them.
If I were to do this project again, I would make my problem topic more specific. This could then steer my research a little better and allow for more specific solutions.