Scholarship - Part 2

Yes, he needs to eat too.  He's almost as tall as my 9 year old, so it's spendy.

To pay for my study abroad, I applied for 67 different scholarships.

Let that roll around in your brain for a minute.

As one of my Arabic classmates told me on the train home from school last spring semester, "I hope you walk away from this with like $100k."  Hey, me too!  I applied for so many scholarships because I do not have anyone but myself to help me through college.  My husband has three mouths to feed and shelter, and therefore I did not want to be a burden to him.  The mortgage would still need to be paid, and the dogs needed to be fed, even if I was not here to help out with one ounce of what I left behind.  So...I researched and wrote essays...a lot.

I didn't really think I'd get everything paid for, but I certainly did try.  There's a lot to pay for in running two households a world apart, and after thinking it all through, I'm probably going to be horrified when I realize I didn't consider some crucial detail.  It's going to sneak up on us with some serious consequence, and I'll kick myself.  My next year has been the last year's word problem about budget, and let's face it; no one likes word problems.



At the end of my scholarship ride, I did end up with quite a chunk of change, but the much of that money came from smaller scholarships. My one big fish was great, but I got more out of my smaller scholarships.

When I threw study abroad and scholarship into a simple Google search, there weren't a ton of obvious results.  Boren and Gilman came up, of course, but other than the big fish in the sea, I knew that it was important to search for a  few minnows to take up the slack.

The obvious places to look include your financial aid office, and the departments that house your major.  The University of Utah has put together a searchable database of scholarship opportunities.  If you're lucky, your institution has done this as well.  By the time my university had this database up and running early spring semester, I had located about half of the need based scholarships on my own.  Many required essays, but not all, and they were not difficult to complete.  So, I was able to apply for all of those fairly easily.

There are other possible scholarship locations to consider as well.  Let me just say that I really do think it's highly unfair that by offering scholarships that are minority only, gender only, or orientation only, you can not help but discriminate against the people left out of that loop.  This means, for the most part, white males.  It seems unfair that their need is less important and therefore unmet, even though they were born with no more of a silver spoon then the next guy of color.  But, since that is how the world currently works, I have chosen to work with the system.  My kids look as Anglo as they come, but their father is Cuban.  Therefore, I have them listed at school as of Hispanic decent, so one day, they will be able to apply to Latino Scholarships.  It's not their fault that they were born white-ish into a family without much money.  In this frame of mind, I went to the Women's Center at my university.  Here, they had a few scholarships for people who were parents, and others for women.

I was directed to the Women's Center by my Middle Eastern Studies adviser.  She also suggested that I go to the Political Science department, and ask about their Honor Society Scholarship.  Your study abroad office likely also has places to apply.

The last place to consider is the vehicle of your study abroad.  My organization has several to offer, and I did get one from them as well.  This applies strictly to a reduced tuition, but I'll take what I can get.

The final note on this is that if you want it bad enough, then you'll find a way.  Before even leaving, we have sacrificed so much, and the value of this experience warrants the further sacrifice for the year to come.