Once again, I find myself writing yet another post about some of the many challenges and frustrations I have had with academia recently.
This week, I found out that my proposal for a postdoc fellowship was unsuccessful. I had no email, no message or feed back saying why my proposal was rejected. I just found out from the list of funded projects on funder’s website.
This is poor. How on earth are ECR’s meant to start transitioning into independence without any guidance or feedback about their application? What makes this process even more frustrating was that one of the funded projects was very similar to mine, yet I have zero knowledge as to what got their project over the edge over mine.
In academia, in order for you to progress, you need grants. The more money you bring in, the greater the chance of being awarded more grant money. It’s a negative feedback loop, and it seriously impacts the growth of ECRs.
Furthermore, no one tells you how to write an effective and convincing proposal which funders will like. At no point in my career to date have I ever be taught how to succeed at this. It just feels like a game of pot luck. Sometimes you get it and sometimes you don’t.
Maybe I’m writing this post out of frustration and resentment, but still, I just feel like academia is very good at keeping you stuck at the same position for years and years on end with little to no progress to show for it.