2019 Mellon Mays Fellow
Name: Georgeara Castañeda
Concentration: Religious Studies
Graduation Year: 2022.5
Hometown: Laredo, TX
About the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
Founded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 1992, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship supports students from historically underrepresented groups or with demonstrated commitments to addressing racial inequality who pursue a PhD in key fields. Brown selects 4-6 sophomores. All United States citizens, permanent residents, and DACA and undocumented students are eligible to apply. Your application is due on UFunds by February. Read more about the Mellon Mays on Brown’s website.
MMUF provides network and support after you graduate Brown. For example, I’m choosing to take some time off post-graduation to work instead of directly going into to a graduate school program. MMUF provides me access to application support after gap years, so they’ll be available to help me with applications for PhD programs as well as potentially financial support. However, you don’t have to wait until you graduate undergrad to access the variety of benefits the fellowship offers. As a low-income student, it was super helpful to be given stipends throughout my junior and senior year to support me as I was exploring what research meant for me and what exactly I wanted to do. I definitely appreciate the community that you have access to once you become a fellow because Mellon Mays is a national network with chapters in different universities, so through conferences you attend as a fellow, you get to meet students in the program. Moreover, the stipend isn’t the only funding provided. You get a limited amount of funds every semester to potentially cover expenses regarding your research, like getting books or traveling to a conference.
What are your goals?
I’m graduating at the end of this year, however, I’ve chosen not to go directly into a PhD program because I want to have work experience before dedicating myself to several years of a PhD program. My timeline and plans tend to change rather frequently, but at the moment, my plan is to return back to Laredo, TX and connect with doulas in South Texas to contribute to my doula training and certification. Hopefully, in Fall 2023, I want to get a Masters of Communications with a focus on Border Media Studies that’s offered at the Texas A&M campus located in Laredo, TX. I have a hope to do a PhD in Religious Studies after I get work experience and a sense of what research direction I’d like to pursue in that type of program. When will that be? I’m not too entirely sure, but I’m anticipating it happening later on.
How did you find out about the MMUF?
As a sophomore (and first-year), I was a part of Brown’s Presidential Scholars Program. Through there, I was introduced to fellowships available for humanities, and at that time, Mellon was shared with me as a potential avenue for me to learn about research. My advisor, Daniel Vaca, is a part of the Mellon Advisory Board, so he was also very supportive of my curiosity regarding MMUF.
What did your application process look like?
The application process was two-fold. The first round consisted of a uFunds application where you had to submit a personal statement and research proposal. If you were selected to move into the second round of the application process, you had an interview with a couple of people from the Mellon Advisory Board (some were professors, some were deans). For my written application, I found it really helpful to connect with Mellon Fellows that had already gone through the process. The personal statement was a way to share your goals and interests, such as if you had any specific programs you would like to do after graduation while the research proposal was an opportunity for me to share what my project was and what I anticipated doing for the next two years in preparation for an honors thesis. However, if you are accepted, you are definitely not bound to the ideas you put in your application—I changed my project entirely when I entered my junior spring and the plan I laid out as a sophomore in 2019 has transformed immensely. Moreover, the written application also asks if you have a faculty in mind to work directly with during your fellowship.
What are the benefits of the application process?
The application usually opens up at the end of sophomore fall. I am totally okay with admitting that I knew little to nothing about graduate school and a project when I was considering MMUF. The application process, however, really helped me research graduate programs and learn more about what exactly I wanted to do regarding a thesis. Students normally do not begin thinking about a thesis sometimes until the summer before their senior year, so the application process brought in these questions early on and provided me extra time to think about what was resonating with me, what was my attention being drawn to, etc. Since the application asked if I had a faculty I wanted to work with, it expedited the process of connecting with my advisor (as he became my faculty person for MMUF) as well as urging me to connect with other professors that could later help with the work I was doing for MMUF.
What do you feel were your strengths in applying for the MMUF?
When I was applying for MMUF, I felt that I didn’t have any strengths because I had never engaged in this type of work before. I barely even understood what graduate school was when I was a sophomore, let alone what PhD programs looked like. Yet, I applied because I had an immense curiosity to explore and I felt that MMUF was an opportunity to do exactly that. I can confidently say that my skills and experiences, both as a disabled and FLI scholar, informed how I approached the work and contributed to the intentionality and care I put behind the work I was doing. For a lot of people going into academia, PhD are avenues to become professors and enter the roles where you can be directly supporting people like you. And I wanted to do that as a sophomore, I wanted to learn and I felt that I was curious enough to do it. It’s sometimes really hard to see your strengths when you feel that academia isn’t a space for you, but that doesn’t make your strengths any less real or valuable. At the time I applied, I was an MPC (Minority Peer Counselor) and while it didn’t click that the work I did as an MPC was impacting the way I approached MMUF, it definitely shaped the way I viewed research and it shaped how I was able to engage with the work because I approached with the intention of accessibility outside of academic spaces.
What, if anything, did you see as a potential limit to your candidacy?
I didn’t know what research was as a sophomore. I’m a first-generation and low-income college student, so I was already entering the application process with immense hesitation because I didn’t know what research meant or what it could look like. My inexperience felt like a limitation, especially in the context of other Brown students coming from families that had university-level degrees and awareness about academic spaces.
What advice do you have for anyone applying for the MMUF?
Strengths don’t just look like having previous experience in research or having a super-detailed plan about the next five years. Strengths can and do look like engaging in community-oriented work on campus. Sometimes our strengths look like having an ability to connect with people and meet them where they’re at. Research should not exist in solitude, it is, to me especially, a potential space for collaboration and learning. So when applying, don’t limit yourself to only the academic things you’ve, like written an amazing paper (although that’s great to mention to), because the work we do outside of academic spaces—such as hosting workshops or tutoring or being a UFLi student—inform how we engage in this work and I suggest honoring that. Don’t force yourself to reduce all the work you’ve done solely to academic papers and presentations because the best work I’ve encountered has been created by scholars that are invested in communities and in care. If you’re choosing to apply to MMUF, remind yourself that you are a sophomore—things can and will change and that’s okay. Your application is only a sliver of all the things you are and will be, so take it with grace and lean into the spaces that have provided you with opportunities to thrive because you might find amazing support for your applications and work.
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