Laidlaw Scholars Program: A Deep Dive!

Dean Ariella Lang, myself and my fellow Laidlaw Scholars, Photo Credit: Dean Ariella Lang

As Eli’s latest blog post points out, one of the key topics that comes up often in the CCRA blog is how to find funded research opportunities, especially as an underclass student looking to pursue summer research! One of the first places to start is the URF fellowships database, where it’s possible to filter by class year, school, nationality, and field to find programs that might be a good fit—or through making an advising appointment with a fellowships advisor. To supplement these resources, the next few blog posts will offer deep-dives into a sampling of these opportunities, discussing their structures, resources, and application processes. Of course, applications and program structures change a lot from year to year, and everyone’s experience is different, based on the year they applied, the project they applied with, and other factors that are outside of anyone’s control! The best sources for up-to-date information on these different fellowship opportunities are the Columbia URF website, their events and info sessions, and drop-in and 1:1 meetings with fellowships advisors. Hopefully, nonetheless, these blog posts can help spark some ideas and answer some broader questions about these different programs.

We’ll begin with the Laidlaw Undergraduate Research and Leadership Scholarship! All current first-years in Columbia College (as well as in Barnard College, through the separate Barnard Laidlaw program) are eligible to apply, and applications tend to be due in March of the spring semester of applicants’ first year of college.

Laidlaw provides two years of summer funding to current first-year students to pursue research and community engagement during the summers after their first and second years at Columbia. Supporting projects in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences, the program draws together cohorts of scholars on campuses across the world. When our 2021-22 Laidlaw cohort reunited this Fall, many of us were reflecting on how the program provided mentorship, time, and space to deepen and push our interests very early on in college—something that can make Laidlaw a very formative experience, but can also make it challenging to put together the application so early on in one’s time at Columbia. This blog post is my attempt to summarize some of these reflections and bits of advice from our cohort!

Program Structure

As of writing this post, Laidlaw offers two summers of funding, as well as leadership training and community-based initiatives throughout the year.

1. First Summer: In scholars’ first summers in Laidlaw (the summer after first year), they spend six weeks on campus pursuing research projects with the supervision of a faculty mentor—either by working on an independent project that they have defined and proposed, or by joining an existing faculty-led research team or project on campus as a research assistant. This is supplemented by a week of workshops on resources for research at the university, including digital humanities, archives, and collections accessible through Columbia Libraries, as well as regular meetings for scholars to discuss their projects with each other.
2. Second Summer: In scholars’ second summers in Laidlaw (the summer after sophomore year), they receive funding to travel outside the US, elsewhere in the US, or to stay in New York City to pursue six weeks of a full-time community engagement project. They can either participate in a Leadership in Action project organized by the Laidlaw foundation and partner universities, or propose their own projects, which have spanned areas ranging from public humanities and science education. (I spent my Laidlaw second summer at the Unstable Archives Project at the University of Oxford—and wrote a CCRA blog post about it here!—as one of the many possibilities that is open to people working in the humanities/social sciences).
3. Throughout the year: Laidlaw hosts leadership trainings and workshops for current scholars, scholars conferences in the US and abroad annually to meet Laidlaw scholars from other universities, as well as on-campus dinners and events to bring together Columbia and Barnard Laidlaw scholars and alumni to share resources and advice.

Application Timeline

Laidlaw’s timeline has extended over the last few years—our cohort recalls applying in early January 2021 (and hearing back about final decisions by March 2021). As of the 2023-24 year, however, Laidlaw applications are now due in March of the Spring semester, giving everyone more time to understand the application process and develop materials! Make sure to check the URF page on Laidlaw for updated information about deadlines for any given application cycle.

While application prompts will vary from year to year, the heart of the Laidlaw application is generally a few key materials: a research proposal, letter of recommendation, supplemental essays (on topics like leadership and the Laidlaw second summer), a transcript, and a resume or CV, with some applicants also being asked to interview. Below are some tips and resources from current and past scholars about preparing these materials!

Choosing a faculty-led vs. an independent project

As explained earlier, there are two ways to approach the first summer of Laidlaw: you can either apply to join an existing faculty-led project, or you can propose your own project that will be supervised by a faculty mentor. The option you choose will determine how you might want to approach your research proposal! URF advisors will generally share a spreadsheet containing the faculty-led projects for a given year, so make sure to go through this early on to see if you want to join one of these! (As an example, here’s the list of 2021 faculty-led projects that was shared with us when we were applying). Our 2021 cohort included a mix of people doing independent and faculty-led projects; the latter can sometimes provide more infrastructure for getting started (depending on the faculty member and the project!), while the former can provide more freedom to develop your idea, and could make sense if you don’t see a project on the list for your year that speaks to your interests and what you want to get out of the Laidlaw program.

Research Proposal

One of the key essays for the Laidlaw application is a research proposal, a statement of around 500 words that explains how you plan to spend your first summer in the program! Here are some guiding questions that might get you started on thinking about what to include:

1. What do I want to study?

1. 1. This is a chance to explain your topic in lay terms! Because Laidlaw is multidisciplinary, the applications are read by a panel of faculty in a range of different fields (and as a scholar you will be explaining your work to a cohort of people in a range of different fields!), so being able to explain your research questions and the stakes of your project to people who might not have a lot of technical knowledge in your field becomes especially important.
2. How will I study this topic?
   1. This is a chance to be as specific as possible about how you plan to spend your six weeks in the first summer of Laidlaw! You might want to mention any key sources you hope to look at, provide a rough outline of your goals for this period, and give a sense of your methodology (all with the caveat that this likely will evolve further as you pursue the project—the reader knows this, even as they look for initiative and clarity of vision!). This is a crucial place to demonstrate that your project is feasible to be carried out in six weeks (if an independent project) or shows an understanding of the goals of the existing work you want to join (if a faculty-led project).
3. Why do I want to study this topic?
   1. This is a chance to zoom out and think about the bigger picture—the value your work will contribute to advancing understanding, whether within an academic field or in a particular community your research engages with. It might be useful to return to the Laidlaw Foundation’s statement of its mission and values (and examples of past scholars’ work on their site) to think about how investing in your work would align with—and build upon—the organization’s mission.
4. How does this work build on my past experiences—academic, extracurricular, personal, or otherwise?
   1. This is often a trickier question, since Laidlaw applications are due in first-year, before many applicants have finalized their major(s), taken upper-level coursework, or had other opportunities for intellectual, personal, and professional exploration! Even if we had pursued research in high school, we were advised not to frame our projects as a direct continuation of high school research, but rather to see this question as a way to build a bridge between high school and first-semester college coursework, skills, interests, and experiences and the kind of work we can have the opportunity to pursue in Laidlaw. This might also (for people applying to faculty-led projects) be a good place to emphasize how your experiences and interests are a good fit for what the project needs!

Requesting a letter of recommendation

Laidlaw generally requests for one letter of recommendation to be submitted with the application. For most of us who were applying, this was the first letter we requested in college! If you are wondering whom to ask, URF advisors are a great resource to talk through the people you have worked with thus far to request a letter. Applicants have taken a range of different approaches, including asking an instructor for a Core seminar class (eg. Lit Hum, University Writing, your Frontiers of Science discussion section) to asking a graduate student TA for a lecture class (at times getting the letter co-signed by the TA and the professor who is the primary instructor). URF provides some general guidelines for requesting a letter of recommendation here, which include making sure to ask a few weeks in advance of the deadline and to provide the recommender with your application materials (eg. outlines or drafts of your essays, or even a written-up description of roughly what you are applying to do).

Finding a faculty mentor (Independent projects only!)

If you are applying with an independent project, you will likely be asked to name a faculty research mentor in the application! While (at least as of our year) it wasn’t required to have found a mentor in advance of applying—as Laidlaw and URF would help newly-selected scholars with finding advisors—we were told that our application could be advantaged if we already had a mentor (since, again, it is a way of showing you’re ready to hit the ground running with the research!).

Finding one can be a scary process, but there are resources to help out with this! Even if you haven’t taken many classes yet in your intended field, URF advisors, Core instructors (eg. for Lit Hum and University Writing), and graduate TAs are resources you can reach out to—they often have excellent recommendations about which faculty members would be open to supervising your project, and might even (if the alignment works out and they are current faculty members!) be open to advising you themselves.

If you are advised to contact a faculty member you haven’t worked with before, this is might also be a chance to become more comfortable with sending cold emails—something previous CCRA blog posts have discussed! You can take a look at Juliet Paiva’s “How do I find a Faculty Mentor?”, Sara Bell’s “The Dreaded Cold-Email”, and Isabel Wong’s “Cold Emails, Warm Conversations.” URF also has an incredibly useful presentation on sending cold-emails, which emphasizes keeping it short, specific to the person’s area of interest (and the alignment you see between their work and what you hope to do), and flexible, with the aim of trying to set up a meeting with them to discuss your project and see if they’re open to supervising (or if they know someone else who might be!).

Resources for Writing

Along with URF advising and current graduate students and faculty members, here are a few other miscellaneous resources for developing your proposal:

1. Columbia Libraries: If you’re struggling to find sources—especially for a humanities or social science project—you can fill out the Ask A Librarian form on the Libraries website with a broad description of your interests, and this will direct you to a Libraries subject specialist in your area to set up a meeting! The wonderful Librarians can direct you to resources that will help you put together the background context for your project and a list of materials you want to consult during the summer.
2. Writing Center and URF: If you’d like help with brainstorming what to write, organizing your thoughts, or just would like another pair of eyes on your draft of the Laidlaw essays, you can book an appointment at the Columbia Writing Center! The Center offers 40-minute 1:1 appointments with trained writing consultants, some of whom specialize in grant and fellowship applications and can give tailored advice! The URF office is also a great resource to share your ideas and drafts of the proposal, and can give feedback that is targeted to Laidlaw specifically.
3. Columbia Career Center (CCE): CCE is a great resource on resumes and CVs (and telling the difference between the two!), especially if this is your first time preparing one of these documents since starting college. You can make an appointment with a CCE advisor here, and can also check out their webpage on CVs and resumes, which includes a number of useful samples—including a sample resume from a first-year student who wants to bridge their high school experiences with their work in college, a position many Laidlaw applicants find themselves in!
4. Past proposals: You can also read past Columbia Laidlaw Scholars’ proposals on the public Columbia University room in the Laidlaw Scholars Network! New scholars are generally asked to post their research proposals to the network after being selected—looking through these can give you ideas for how scholars in a range of different fields and kinds of projects structured the proposal. This page also includes video reflections of scholars discussing their work over the first and second summers, which can also help provide a concrete sense of what your time in the program could look like—helping you tailor and narrow down your essay prompt responses.

Interviewing for Laidlaw

Finally, you might later be asked to attend a finalist interview for the Laidlaw program, generally later in the Spring semester!

1. If you applied to do a faculty-led project, the interview will generally be a 1:1 conversation with the faculty member leading the project, focused on whether it is a good fit for your interests and experiences—and also a chance for you to ask questions and learn more about what working in the project will entail.
2. If you applied to do an independent project, then the interview is generally led by a multidisciplinary panel of faculty, spanning the sciences, humanities, and social science (to reflect the wide range of the Laidlaw program and the kinds of projects applicants are proposing!). Past scholars have mentioned being asked to reflect on the feasibility of their project, how it relates to your academic plans/intended major(s), how they hoped to engage with the leadership component of the Laidlaw program and the scholar community more broadly, and their ideas for their second summer.

In both cases, it can help to re-read your application (including essays, transcripts—that show the list of courses you’ve taken thus far!—and resume entries) to brainstorm what you might be asked to follow-up on, as well as to read more about the Laidlaw program and to prepare some questions in advance that you might want to ask the interviewer(s).

That’s it for this post, though more to come on other fellowships!