1. WHY THERE’S FREE $$$
It looks good for universities, nonprofits and other companies to fund and support someone who becomes super successful.
2. START LOOKING ON YOUR CAMPUS
Ask the career center on campus about fellowships offered for students and how they can receive grants and funding for different travel or research opportunities. Other resources at school are the SGA and other non-profits or professional funds that partner with the school.
3. APPLY TO JOIN A PROFESSIONAL SOCIETY
Although you have to pay a fee to join most professional societies they offer plentiful opportunities for undergrad, graduate and postgraduate students. These opportunities can be paid for including fellowships and travel expenses for certain networking events. Professional societies can offer fellowships and host conferences and balls which are great networking opportunities for young people.
4. TALK TO YOUR SCHOOL’S STUDY ABROAD OFFICE
Again, universities want to support cool ideas and driven students. If you talk to a study abroad office on campus and talk to them about your ideas and ask for the funding, you can essentially be paid to travel on your university’s dime. Unique opportunities like an impressive internship or research will encourage the study abroad office to support you.
5. CHECK OUT A GRANT/SCHOLARSHIP DATABASE
Databases like grants[.]gov and scholarships[.]com list the thousands of companies and nonprofits that are willingly giving away money to support students. A lot of these scholarships are geared towards minorities, but you can also find other scholarships that can apply to non-minorities as well based on merit, academic achievement and extracurriculars.
