Multiple opportunities throughout the semester lend students to gain some extra money to put towards education; over the spring break was one such opportunity students took.

March 1-28 is the time for posting scholarships, but also the deadline for students to turn in their paperwork. This can add stress during this already stressful academic time. 

After logging into the student center students can access the scholarship application and search menu to find scholarships they qualify for. This is the only time of the semester College of Education gives access to students. 

Based on the timing of the initiation and deadlines of the scholarships, the cream of the crop dedicated students, who really value free money, will be recipients of scholarships.

The deadline of scholarships weeds out lazy students just because of the timing. Students want a break from academics and do not think of spring break as the downtime to apply.

After filling out the orientation applications, I was surprised to see the next screen display all the scholarships I qualified for.

Surfing the internet for scholarships is time consuming. There is no direction for specific individuals accomplishments, so the experience of using the focused scholarship search at the student center was delightful.

One website students are familiar with is scholarships.com. There is no deadline for these California based scholarships and can be applied for year-round. 

Access offered by online websites to scholarship information is always there, but the scholarships Sacramento State College of Education offers during the month of March are a one time opportunity.

Students lament over filling out applications and write 500 to 1000 word essays as to why they deserve the scholarship money.

Senior economics major Joaquin Iniguez, was reminded of the deadline and said he will have to fill it out.

There is added difficulty when certain scholarships require  you honor the individual  the scholarship is named after. I did not know any of the prestigious people I had to write my essays about, so it required me to do some research. 

After filling out two scholarships I felt I had gained a little bit more insight on the people who support Sacramento students and feel honored to count myself as a student of Sac State, as they did. 

One notable scholarship was the Susan Blad Seldin Scholarship. After learning how she impacted young adult students to be knowledgeable about who they vote for, she made a huge impact on former President Bill Clinton’s campaign.

As many newspaper and company bio’s have stated, “A veteran organizer, Susan studied Political Communications at California State University, Sacramento. Before moving to Washington, DC, she earned a reputation as one of California’s savviest political operatives.”

Makes sense why Sac State would honor Seldin through a scholarship, she helped put Sac State reputation across the United States.

Debbie Santiago answers any questions related to scholarships offered by the College of Education. 

Good luck to all students who participated and may the best essay writer win.