Early in the Fall term CES organizes a workshop on proposal writing and dissertation research funding for graduate students. This workshop, led by the student programs coordinator, discusses strategies for developing a strong proposal, evaluation processes for external grants, differences in focus and approach for proposals in the social sciences and the humanities, and also surveys the most relevant sources of external funding. In addition, it parses specific proposals, both successful and less effective, in an attempt to offer some hands-on tools for mastering the skill of successful proposal writing. In the past, CES graduate students who won some of the most competitive external grants have joined the student coordinator and shared their insights and prose samples during the workshop.