109: How Brandon Quintana Went From Losing 10K of Grad Funding to Gaining 75K

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm happy to have another wonderful guest today, who's going to be talking to us all about what happens when you lose your grad funding. I want to say like tun, tun tuuun.. Like it's such a, it's such an important topic.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So our guest today his name is Brandon Quintana, and I'm gonna go ahead and get us started by reading his bio. Brandon Quintana is currently a master's student in the Biological Science Department at California State University Fullerton. Brandon graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara, majoring in environmental studies and is a McNair alumni. He aims to shed light on the... He aims to shed light on environmental justice issues faced by marginalized communities and make academia a more welcoming and inclusive environment.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Additionally, he wants to support queer scientists and advocate for community in a conference setting. For his thesis he's currently studying how biomass and condition index filter feeders are responding to different factors, such as sedimentation and eel grass in the living shoreline setting. The goal of his research is to use the results of the study to inform restoration management and better protect coastal communities, while increasing habitat and biodiversity. Overall, he plans to use an interdisciplinary perspective to advocate for low income communities on environmental injustice issues they are facing, while concurrently preserving natural and human landscapes. Welcome to the podcast. Brandon!

Brandon Quintana

Thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I really am happy to be here.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Yay. So I'm gonna start the way I always start, I would love for you to tell my audience a little more about who you are your background backstory, your educational trajectory, anything you feel comfortable sharing?

Brandon Quintana

Yeah. So are we just like struggle with the talking about yourself question. So the first place that I would start off with is, so I'm from Los Angeles, California, specifically, Linwood, and I grew up going to donate to Warren High School. And then I went to Long Beach City colleagues, I first started my undergraduate career. And then I transferred over to UC Santa Barbara, where I ended up majoring in environmental studies.

Brandon Quintana

And I really gained the interest and need of wanting to like protect environments, but also protect people that are living there and experience disproportionately being impacted by climate change. And moving forward to my thesis. That's kind of where I am able to not only support these foundational species, like oysters, but also figure out ways through education and outreach to connect with historically excluded populations that are not always in the conversation of science, and bringing them in because they're the ones that are going to be affected the most and kind of bringing down this idea, that idea that, that academia is just as ivory tower of scientists just telling you what they should do, but also making it more of a conversation.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Oh, my gosh, you went through that so fast? And I feel like because I know you I know you from from, you know, having like participated in McNair and, and mentoring you but one of the things that when I think of you, I always think about this, I think about how you've always been a huge advocate for diverse for underserved underrepresented populations. So whether it's, you know, queer students, students of color, and low income students, you name it, you know, being involved in SACNAS being involved in O-Stem being involved in who knows how many things you're in, I don't even know all the things.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So I feel like you just like, barely touched the surface in terms of how awesome you are. So thank you for letting us know a little bit more about yourself. And, and then we, you know, really getting into the topic of kind of what can be a bit of a nightmare story of losing funding, like if you can give us kind of a little bit of context about what happened in your situation. And ultimately what you did about it. And you know, I'll kind of I'll just say there is good news at the end of this. So people can listen till the end, but I'm just curious if you can let it let folks know kind of what happened in terms of what led to you losing major scholarship for your program?

Brandon Quintana

Um, yeah, so okay, let me try to put this into a little bow and then I guess we'll talk about it more later. So when, for the master's program at Cal State Fullerton, the award, the top Master's Student Award, which is the Violet Horn Graduate Research Fellowship, and basically $10,000 that you can use for the second year of your master's program to support you. So I was awarded that. And I was excited because for the first year, my advisor has had some funding, and in for the second year, I was like, Okay, I'm this other fellowship, and then maybe do some combination of teaching or being like a research assistant to kind of supplement the two. And so but you're awarded it before you come into the program.

Brandon Quintana

But the only way that you get it in your second year is if you get an A in this class called, basically introduction to grad school, where in one semester, you build a draft of what you want to do for your master's project. And what happened was, basically, with the professor, I kind of felt like, there was always something wrong with my assignments to where I would get a couple of points knocked up here for an abstract a couple points not up here for a poster or for a presentation where they came to the point where the at the semester wouldn't ended, and the the grades started coming out.

Brandon Quintana

What happened was, I was 15 points away from getting the a resulting in me losing the fellowship and losing the $10,000. And I went back and forth with the department, the chair, my advisor, emailing reaching out for support in all areas to kind of help me and I wrote an explanation, basically a six page essay to the donor. Because at the end of the day, it came down to him based off of the professor, the grade that the professor gave me, and the donor decided to, despite hearing all of these disadvantages that I had went through in order to be awarded this fellowship to begin with.

Brandon Quintana

And I remind everyone that it's a merit based fellowship, not including any of those disadvantages. So being awarded this merit based fellowship, on top of all of this disadvantages, made it really even more meaningful, because this not taking into account any of those hurdles I face, I still made it out on top, within all of the cohort for that and coming here. And, yeah, so that resulted in me getting the funding taken away. And even after fighting it, for many months and a lot of stress, I still wasn't able to get it. And that's kind of the short story of how the funding got taken away.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Wow, um, that's a really tough situation to be in. And, you know, I can hear and I know, I also kind of, you know, I heard from you when that happened, but I, when you share about it, I'm like, dang, you fought really hard to try to keep that funding. And then I can imagine how disappointing and frustrating it must have been to have a flat out no, after all that work. It's like you practically reapplied for it writing six single spaced pages, to justify why you need it.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

On top of that, we know one thing I want to point out about merit based scholarships is that I have a lot of conflicting emotions about merit based scholarships, because I don't actually believe in meritocracy, I don't believe there is such a thing as meritocracy when there is so much inequity in academia. So for you to get a merit based scholarship, that's wonderful, but then for them to take it away, not considering your disadvantages, not accounting for that not trying to be equitable, that's completely unfair and unjust. And so, you know, I'd love for you to kind of keep going and just kind of let us know, what did you do next?

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Because ultimately, you not only regain that funding, by applying through other to other sources, but you got even more funding. So like, how did you go from that from point A to point B? Because those are two very different situations. It's like, I would have been so afraid and almost wanting to give up out of frustration, but you didn't. So let us know kind of what happened.

Brandon Quintana

Um, yeah. So in undergrad, I was really always applying to every single scholarship that I could, because that's kind of what a low income first generation student does. You try to look for the money so that you can continue doing the research that you're doing, because where else are you going to get it from? It's not going to come from your parents, or it will come from working but because you're doing the research, you can't really work. So that's kind of always been my idea for applying for the scholarship and fellowship program for research programs. So keeping that same mentality in graduate school, I already had a really long list of scholarships that I wanted to apply to you before I even got into the program.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Can I interrupt you there? Yeah. How did you find out about these scholarships? Because people ask me all the time, how do I find out about scholarships for master's programs? So how did you find these scholarships?

Brandon Quintana

Yeah, so basically, what I did was first look on the school website. So I went to CSU F fullerton.com. And then I looked at the university scholarships, and just read through all of the PDF, and I listed all the ones that I was eligible for, or even maybe even the ones that maybe I wasn't eligible for, and still wrote it down, wrote down how much it was dropped down when it was due, so it would be on my list. And then I went into the department fellow at the department bio, and I looked at the specific department scholarships, and basically the same thing, I wrote down how much it was, when it was due, and then made sure I was eligible for it.

Brandon Quintana

And then I basically, I basically Googled like Marine Science scholarships, and just went through, like, so many lists of what I could be eligible for. And then again, wrote down how much it was and when it was due, and then did like an upcoming scholarship deadlines. And then for the month, I would just look at what I needed to do see if I had enough time to apply for the scholarships, and then kind of, you know, just put from the list that I had created.

Brandon Quintana

And, yeah, I feel like a lot of master's programs are really underfunded, where the research that you're doing is really important too. And PhD programs can be more have more likely chances of being funded. So just kind of really being proactive about what you're eligible for what you can get. And yeah, like, it doesn't always have to be like, you know, the really big like fellowship like those $500 scholarships, 1000s to 1000s. Like they all add up to like this big kind of like no snowballing effect of what you can get. And yeah, that's basically how I made my list of funding.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So you might not feel comfortable sharing numbers, but can you give us an N word like, an idea of like, they do double the funding that you lost to triple the funding that you lost? Like what like, what did you end up doing in terms of like, the funding that you ended up gaining after losing the other scholarship and applying to a bunch of other opportunities?

Brandon Quintana

Yeah, so kind of like going off with the other question. Like, I've always kind of had, like wanting to apply for scholarships. And then with all of this, like, stress of like losing the $10,000 for the second year. I was like, Okay, well, now I need to make sure that I applied to every single thing that's on this list. And so I ended up losing 10,000. And then from like those small grants that I was talking about earlier, I ended up getting about like 15,000, so exceeding the 10,000. And then I was awarded the California Graduate Research Fellowship, which I had been wanting to apply to for like the last three years. And then after not getting the NSF GRFP I was like well it this is it like I have to get this one. And then I ended up getting it and that ended up increasing the 15,000 to 75,000 so I ended up getting seven times seven and a half times more like

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Maybe that should be the how Brandon went from losing 10k of funding to gaming 75k of funding like come on now. Can I just like clap?

Brandon Quintana

I went from like this kind of like really like big hole of being like, what am I going to do like, cuz I do door to door nice, like, every weekend or something like to make up for it. But yeah, losing that big funding to being basically fully funded for the rest of my Masters is a really big jump that I wasn't expecting to happen, but also made sure that I put myself in a position where I was competitive for these applications where I really put in my time for it to make sure that I could get it. And yeah...

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

That's incredible. Do you think you did anything differently to help you start to get scholarships like, sign of like when when in my experience of like getting scholarships and fellowships, I noticed that like one I treated it like a job like a necessity and two, it was just kind of like I use one application that I started to reuse and then it just got easier each time and it almost felt like once I got one I started to get easier to get more. I don't know what your experience has been but I'm curious to hear what it's been like for you and and what changed or like anything that you want to like give us like advice or tips like clearly you're getting really good at this So I would love for you to share the wealth in terms of advice.

Brandon Quintana

Yeah, so I think, really, when you're, if the scholarship requires like a statement really going into getting to know what the organization is, and what they stand for, and making sure that your statement aligns with the same mission, so like, if they say, they want to protect ecosystems across the coasts, or like coastal ecosystems, then you say, like, and I'm committed to protecting coastal ecosystems, so really, like, check off that box for them. Or when they say, Oh, our fellows do this, and this and this, like, they're, like, inspirational or like they tell good stories, or they change ecosystems. So I'm gonna say that I'm gonna be, like, communicate stories that will effectively relate to people to exchange ecosystems.

Brandon Quintana

So I really like kind of just using their words and adding your own twist to it, to make sure that they're like, oh, like, this is the candidate that we want. Like for the secret and fellowship, they basically had like four main goals with like, sub goals. So what I did was just copy and paste their goals and make a comment of to like, okay, how can I directly address this goal? And how can I address this sub goal, even like, like, I basically said that my research can have some aquaculture element, even though it maybe doesn't have an aquaculture element. But I can add it in to make it be more competitive to check off all of the boxes of the goals. Because for the Sea Grant fellowship, I think you can, you only have to check off one, but I made sure that there was a way that I could like, basically check off most of them to really be like, Oh, this is the candidate that we want. And this is the project that we want to find. So really just aligning with what they want, and say that you're the candidate that they want.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Those are really spot on, like pointers there that you gave, it's, you know, I actually helps people apply to fellowships not only apply to grad school, but apply to fellowships too. And like the coaching that I offer, I've been doing that too, like we're working with McNair Scholars, being a grad mentor, like I've been doing that for a while. And one thing that I tell people to do is like, print, you know, print out the prompt or copy paste the prompt into like a Google Doc. And treat it like almost like a checklist, like whatever, you know, underline key words or things like that, whatever it is, that is their mission statement, whatever it is that they include in their prompt, like, make sure that you are treating it like a checklist and like addressing every single thing that they're asking for. Because then that's going to make you make a case for yourself of being a better fit. So it kind of aligns with what you're saying about like making sure that you use their language, making sure that you you know, you know, whatever it is that they're interested in that you're What is it, you're matching your work your background, with what they want. So that's really good. Keep doing it, I feel like you've unlocked, you've, you've unlocked the key or whatever you want to call it to getting funding.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

So that means now that you have that skill set, you're going to be able to get more and more in should you continue to, you know, continue with grad school or another program or whatever it is like, there are lots of grant opportunities, you know, professionally outside of grad school to think, you know, it's gonna carry you a long way. I want to ask, if there's anything else, you know, in terms of words of advice that you want to share with other listeners, you know, folks who are, you know, low income version, queer, underrepresented, like student of color, just who's interested in going into a master's program or is interested in STEM or who's just like, you know, curious about about grad school or worried about funding, that's the thing, holding them back or in the similar position, like, the guy into a program don't have a lot of fun? Do you have to figure it out on their own? Like, what kind of advice would you give to a listener?

Brandon Quintana

Um, yeah, I think maybe like the most important advice was it that I learned from using the funding is maybe even when it looks like you don't have allies close to you, like look for allies, that can help you advocate for yourself and kind of like, speak for you and say that you've been trying really hard to like be in this space of academia that we're not like, allowed, allowed to be in and just being like, believing in yourself to be like, I do belong here. And I can do it and I have a certain point of view that isn't represented among all my white counterparts, that is really important and deserves to be heard just as much, if not more than the white counterparts.

Brandon Quintana

And really just kind of when that voice comes in your head, like, oh, I'm not good enough, like, oh, no, like, I am good enough because like, I'm here, and I'm trying. And really, at the end of the day, it's advocating and trying your best to really make it. I'm just talking about, like, the cycle of poverty that like, first gen and low income students have. And like, it's like, it's a cycle of poverty. And it's like, hard to break sometimes. But like, I'm not saying like, motivation will like just break everything, but having that belief that you can do it, it will give you some motivation to push forward. But also, kind of really, he says, like, kind of like, also at the same time, like, what I kind of learned was this, like, academic thing. It's like marginalized, students don't have to change everything, or like, put all of this extra weight that white counterparts aren't putting on themselves.

Brandon Quintana

Like, I know, like, I'm still like, trying my best to like change things, but I'm also not going to take on, like, like, change the entire school. When it's like professors like the one that didn't give me the grade that I need it, despite me meeting with him to tell him how stressed I was about losing this fellowship, which is like, eight months of rent, or like my car payments, and all of this stuff, about being stressed over it. And really trying my best to keep this fellowship and him not helping me because he doesn't understand what it means to lose the fellowship. Like I. Yeah, I get into it a lot. But yeah, just really like advocate for yourself. But also remember that, like, these systems have been, like, upheld for such a long time. And like, it's really hard.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

It is hard, and spaces were not built for us. And, you know, what we deserve, if we want to we, you know, we deserve to be there. And we deserve to get an education and, and, you know, to use it as a tool as a tool for the next thing, you know, within academia outside of academia to kind of hopefully, uplift yourself and others. Yeah, I am wondering, I think unless there's anything else that you want to give us a takeaway, if others resonated with you, if they, you know, want to be in touch and connect with you in some way, how can they reach you? How can they kind of follow up and stay in touch?

Brandon Quintana

Um, yeah, so I don't really use like, what I use like Instagram, personally, but like professionally, I use Academic Twitter.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Which I think you might come back to the podcast again, to do a whole a whole podcast on Academic Twitter, just so you all know, Brandon is is pretty good at Twitter. From an older millennial perspective from my old, my old ass, like, he can't know what you're talking about. Anyway, sorry. We all want to see just connect with Brandon on Twitter.

Brandon Quintana

I haven't really been as active on Twitter. But yeah, I was showing you that some of the ropes of how to become connected with other people on Twitter. And my at is @brandoyster_ so brand oyster underscore. So just like B, R, A, N, D, O, Y, S T E R underscore.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I'll add it to the show notes so they can see it. Yeah. Okay.

Brandon Quintana

And then I think also, like, yeah, it was like, I don't know, I'm trying to think of like the takeaway and like, trying to wait it right. I think when moments that I really want to share with the everyone that's listening is it's not just like, oh, less than $10,000 so like getting to 75,000 like it was such like a hard thing that I went through and I feel like probably the most stress out that I've been through all of my graduate experience. And like, I can share that when I was trying to really like talk about this with the chair of the department and with my advisor together and the meeting. I like in the first five minutes of like the hour meeting like I was like, literally crying of just from like the peak stress of like, okay, this is the meeting that like is going to be pivotal to whether I get this or not and I literally broke down in tears telling them, like I like, I don't know what this is going to do, or what's going to happen. So it really like is what was a low point and, and it really was like a struggle to get through this.

Brandon Quintana

But somehow made it through. And I feel like there's a lot of low points that everyone else can relate this to whether it's like being stressed about funding or getting into graduate school or just like finishing the graduate. But like, just kind of remembering that, again, these systems were built to work against you, and just you trying your best is really all you can do at the end of the day. And there's always going to be something that you can do on the to do list, but really protecting yourself at the end of the day. Priority and making sure that your mental health is in check.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

That's why I was like, the irony is like going from like a really, really low point to, to being in a much, much better spot after in the aftermath. It's just like, you never really know how you could potentially turn things around, they sometimes something won't one moment feels like it's the end of the world. And then you kind of somehow the opponent has been that last the last like they say, like you just kind of like, you know, keep going push through, get a support and, and turn things around, and you're taking your time you're taking care of yourself along the way. Tambien. So I appreciate you sharing this message and being vulnerable and talking about a very difficult kind of circumstance and experience that you had and, and using it as, as, as a means of kind of, you know, sharing advice and uplifting others. And you know, hopefully someone will get a takeaway from this. And all of a sudden, they're gonna apply to a bunch of scholarships and get funding. Getting that motivation from you. So yeah. Like, that's okay, so just one last thing before I let you go.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

As someone who was formerly a scholarship advisor, there are a ton of scholarships, and not all of them are university scholarships. There are nonprofits, there are individuals, there are companies or scholarships all over the place. The hardest part, I think, is not applying. It's finding the funding, like I got a scholarship from a beauty website. Like, I'm not even like into beauty stuff. And I get a random scholarship like $1,500 from you know, sabbatical beauty like we applied, as you know, for support for funding for when we were working on on our Chicana Motherwork Anthology, and I was like, Are they really going to fund us? Like, really, like, we hardly we don't even really use their stuff. But we wrote a good essay, and we got the funding. So you just never know. And sometimes people say, oh, all the scholarships are undergrads. And that is not true. There are scholarships for master's students, for PhD students. They're harder to find, but they're out there. So I'm glad that you are reminding us all about that, that the money is out there. Yeah.

Brandon Quintana

Um, I follow like this account on Instagram. It's called like access scholarships, and they basically just like, post about scholarships, and I just like, look through them to see Oh, am I eligible? And can I add this to my list? And yeah, sometimes like they are relevant, and sometimes they're not, but like, it's good to have it there to really remember. Like, they're just like, endless scholarships to apply to. And just kind of, like, I know, like, not everyone can set aside the time to really apply for them. But like, just trying because after, like a couple of scholarships, you might get some you might not but just like that you're trying to get the funding and can use previous material and then it gets easier. And then you do get a couple is kind of the important part.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

I want to link that I was just taking notes to that. You said add access scholarships on IG. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna link that too. So if folks are curious and want to check it out, they can do that, too. All right, Brandon. Well, thank you so much for sharing space with me and for sharing your words of wisdom and your experience. It was really nice to have you.

Brandon Quintana

Yeah, thank you so much for having me and hopefully, some someone can learn something from this.

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu

Sure. Okay. Thank you.