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Talented students + Opportunity = Potential Fulfilled
With support from a Students First Matching
Challenge Endowed Scholarship, UW sophomore
Nia Nguyen studies finance and entrepreneurship.Nguyen receives a combination of scholarships and grants, including a Students First Matching Challenge Endowed Scholarship, created through a Campaign UW initiative to increase scholarships. Nguyen benefits from the Husky Promise, a guarantee that the UW will cover tuition and fees for students from low and lower-middle income families.
"Now that I'm actually attending college, it's like a dream come true. Just to see how my family had to struggle financially over financing my education — I don't want to see that happen to other people too, so I plan on giving back," Nguyen says. "I hope donors continue supporting students to fulfill and live their potential and dreams, so we can one day also help, and give back to future college students in need."
This is an idea that resonates with Roger Haight ('85), an English major at the UW who now works at Microsoft. He gave to the Students First Matching Challenge Fund because he knows how important scholarships can be. "When I was a student, college felt expensive," Haight says. "Now I'm in the position to give back a little bit. I know there are people for whom college is a stretch financially, and there are plenty of bright people who could go if they could just afford it. That's why I decided to give."
UW graduate student Jevin West studies computational biology with help from an ARCS fellowship.West, who specializes in mathematical biology, has created a powerful algorithm-based method that will allow scientists to comb through huge volumes of scientific and citation data. "It's a novel method — a lot like what Google did with the Web," says West, who receives an Achievement Rewards for College Scientists (ARCS) fellowship. ARCS fellowships currently support more than 100 UW graduate students in science, engineering and medicine at the UW. "I would not have been able to do this research without the funding of my ARCS Fellowship," West says. "It's made a huge difference for me."