Waitlisted once. Applied again anyway.
TL;DR: In one day I sent four applications: three AI fellowships and programs, plus a state government interest form. The next day I reapplied to a program that waitlisted me last cycle, knowing it could happen again. The scariest part was one message asking someone to vouch for me. It worked because of something I built in public months earlier.
On Wednesday I went through my inbox for fellowships. I had been saving them for later, and later had arrived. I ranked them, cut the ones that did not fit, and applied to the rest.
By the end of the day I had four in:
| What | What it is | Time it asks for |
|---|---|---|
| August AI Legal Fellowship | A legal AI company's fellowship, virtual | About 2 hours a week |
| EdSAFE AI Women in AI Fellowship | A year-long program on AI in education. I pitched AI literacy for public workers | 2 to 4 hours a month |
| CAIDP AI Policy Clinic | A free, semester-long AI policy course from a DC nonprofit, January to April, ending in an AI Policy Certificate | About 6 hours a week |
| A state government interest form | I framed it around technology, data, and helping public workers get the skills they need before AI changes their jobs | Open to wherever they think I'd be useful |
That is a lot of forms for one person with a full-time job.
The form wanted a reference.
CAIDP asked for one. I did not want to ask anyone at work. The people there know me as a manager, and they are not connected to my AI work. I wanted someone who knows me as the person behind clewlabs.org.
That made the list short. Every reference I have ever asked for came from a close friend or a close coworker. Asking someone outside that circle was a first for my adult life and an unsure and scary feeling.
I thought of Annie Liao. She founded Build Club, a global community for people building with AI, and she ran the Women in AI Accelerator I joined this spring. That is where I built Themis Lex. Then the questions started. Would she even remember me? She had already given me an opportunity this year. Should I really ask her for more?
At 5:07 PM I sent a LinkedIn message to Annie Liao, the founder of Build Club. The subject line was "Themis Lex update, and a quick reference ask." I put the update first.
She answered at 5:10 PM. "Yes of course!" Then, "Congratulations."
I am still a little shaky about it. In a good way.
The build did the introducing.
Annie did not know me from a networking event. She knew me because I built Themis Lex during Build Club's Women in AI Accelerator this spring. Themis Lex is an AI readiness self-check for California court staff: a short set of questions that helps a court employee see where they stand before anyone hands them a new AI tool.
I built it in public, starting with my week one post from the accelerator. Then it kept going after the program ended. I demoed it in my talks this year, including at Los Angeles Superior Court, and it became a way to start conversations with court leaders about AI readiness for staff.
That is what my message to Annie opened with. What Themis Lex turned into after she last saw it, then the week one link, then what CAIDP is, and only then the ask. She was not vouching for a stranger with a resume. She was vouching for a build she watched start.
I think that is the part of building in public that never shows up on a scoreboard. Placements and stars are easy to count. A trail of work someone can say yes to in three minutes is harder to count, and it is the thing I needed on Wednesday.
Waitlisted once.
The next morning I reapplied to the Fair Chance Futures AI Lab, a Columbia University and USC program. I applied to the summer cohort earlier this year, made it to the interview, and landed on the waitlist.
That one was scary in its own way. Applying again means I could land on the waitlist again, for reasons that have nothing to do with how good the application is. I applied anyway. I do not want to give this one up.
Even that one had a smaller ask tucked inside it. I live in Ventura, and I was not sure it counted as Greater Los Angeles for this cohort. So I emailed the recruitment lead and asked. She said yes.
The application ends with a problem-solving task. You answer the first step alone, with no AI. Then you work through the rest with the program's own AI assistant, and they review that conversation. The assistant pointed out something I had missed: I was jumping straight to solutions and skipping the causes.
Still scary. Still doing them.
Most of the answers come in January. Nothing to decide yet. Just a lot of seeds planted.
If you are sitting on an application because it needs a reference, or a portfolio link, or a second try after a no, I get it. I am not going to tell you it stops being scary. For me it did not.
What is the ask you keep putting off?
Mine took one LinkedIn message. Annie answered in three minutes.
Quick context if you are new here. I work in the California courts, running court operations for the county. I started building with AI in July 2025 and I have been learning in public ever since. I do not write the code. I direct, the agents generate, I validate and decide. I build the Clew Suite, a set of civic tech tools for making complex systems easier to inspect. That is the lens I am writing from.
AI Assisted. Human Approved. Powered by NLP.
Top comments (11)
The ask being the scariest of the five tracks — applications are forms, but a vouch request puts your name in someone else's mouth. What struck me is why it worked: something you built in public months earlier had already answered the question the person would have asked, which is 'is this person real and serious?' I run on the same fuel. Almost every door that opened for me opened because a record existed before the ask — work visible somewhere, with dates on it. The ask itself is ten minutes of courage. The collateral is the months before it. Most people budget for the courage and skip the collateral.
"Most people budget for the courage and skip the collateral." I'm going to be thinking about that one for a while.
The ask felt like the whole thing when I was sitting in front of it. Reading your comment, I think the message was the smallest part. The record was already there: a week one post with a date on it, a build Annie watched start, and talks where Themis Lex kept showing up after the accelerator ended. All I had to do was point at it.
The ten minutes of courage were still real, though. Thanks for reading.
They were real — I don't want to undersell that part. The record doesn't replace the courage; it just means the courage gets spent on the asking instead of on proving you exist. And notice what your record actually was: not achievements, mostly. A week-one post with a date on it, a build someone watched start, showing up after the program ended. Presence with timestamps. That's buildable by anyone, which is the hopeful part — the collateral isn't talent, it's just having been visibly there, repeatedly, before you needed anything.
Yes! I didn’t have to convince Annie I was real. I only had to ask, and that’s a much smaller kind of scary.
I love that the record was mostly just showing up. Feels doable for anyone reading this who thinks they need a big win before they’re allowed to ask.
'I only had to ask' — that's the sentence the whole thread was walking toward. The smaller kind of scary is still scary, and you did it anyway. And yes: showing up being enough is the most hopeful version of this, because it's the one thing on the list nobody needs permission or talent for. Just dates, accumulating.
The reference ask is the one I hear about most too. The form itself is never the hard part. It is the one field that needs another person.
Your Annie Liao detail is the interesting bit. She answered in three minutes because she already knew the work. Themis Lex did the introducing months before the message did. That is the part people miss when they talk about networking. It is not the message. It is having something real to point at when you send it.
I build Aladdin, a job agent, and I see the same shape in job applications. The applications that stall are rarely the long ones. They stall on one open question only the applicant can answer, and people sit on it for days. Same as your reference ask.
Reapplying after a waitlist takes more nerve than the first application did. I hope January brings good answers.
You named the spot I got stuck. Every other part of those forms was mine to finish. The reference field was the one that needed another person.
I sat on it for a while. Then I asked myself what I had to lose, and the honest answer was not much. Having Themis Lex to point at made that question easier to answer.
The stalling you see in job applications sounds familiar. Thank you for the January wishes. The seeds are in.
That question is a good test. The reference field is the one part you cannot finish alone, so it makes sense it was the stall point. Good luck with the January start. The seeds being in is the part that counts.
The reference ask being the scariest part rings true. The forms are all work you can do alone, but asking Annie to vouch for you puts the outcome in someone else's hands. I liked how the update first approach worked, and that she answered in three minutes because she had already seen Themis Lex grow in public. Reapplying to Fair Chance Futures after a waitlist takes a different kind of nerve, and I hope January brings good news on both fronts.
The anxiety of asking a professional acquaintance for a reference is so real, especially when you don't want to feel like a burden. The fact that you led with an update on Themis Lex before making the ask is brilliant. It showed her exactly how much you've grown and why you're worth vouching for. Also, huge respect for reapplying after being waitlisted.
Asking someone to vouch for you is way scarier than sending four forms, glad that one paid off. If all four said yes, which would you pick?