The Rio Hondo Foundation raises funds to create various scholarships for RHC students. However it has been somewhat noted that very few students actually take advantage of the opportunity that the Foundation gives students through these scholarships.
On Tuesday, Oct.7, from 11:30-12:30 p.m. the Associated Students of Rio Hondo College (ASRHC) and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) co-hosted the RHC Scholarship Workshops.
They helped serve nearly 60 students to apply for RHC scholarships. At the workshop, rather than give information about many different scholarship options, the workshops were completely hands on and students were able to begin or continue their application for the Foundation scholarships.
The Foundation Scholarship Workshops were taking place in B113. This lab had plenty of computers for every student to individually apply for the Foundation scholarships. ASRHC and HSF had Janet Castagnola, the RHC Foundation program assistant, facilitate and assist RHC students while they were applying for the Foundation scholarships at the workshops.
The scholarships that the students had applied for can be accessed through students’ Access Rio accounts. Once logged on, students may click on the “Students” tab, scroll down to “apply here for scholarships”, there is only one application that students need to apply for. Although students are filling out one application, the application will them be filtered out by major, GPA, and other criteria for each of the individual scholarships.
The application for the scholarships is fairly easy. Like mentioned before, there is only one application. Other than filling out basic information about ones’ birth and address, the application requires one 600-900 word essay titled, “Who am I”. Castagnola mentioned during the Foundation Scholarship Workshops, “Students shouldn’t feel bogged down or worried about the essay”. The essay portion is meant to give students substance to their application so that the reviewers may review each application holistically. Castagnola also recommends that students have at the minimum a draft or outline of their essay prior to attending a workshop. However, the workshops are an hour long each and students are able to completely begin or continue their application at any point.
Another component to the application is uploading ones’ unofficial transcripts. Some students may already have these saved on a USB. However, the workshops are in a lab and students do have access to all of the computers in B 113. Castagnola was also there to help students upload their unofficial transcripts.
Many students loathe the idea of taking time out of their studies to complete what they may feel is another assignment. Yet everyone needs to remember that in filling out the Foundation Scholarships application, there is free money at stake. This money that one may receive may be money that allows them to take time off of work to focus on their studies. It may be money that may keep students from dropping out of college completely.
The Rio Hondo Foundation did its best to make it easy for all students to apply for the scholarships by creating one application, having one general, “Who am I” essay, and ASRHC and HSF have created four workshops two a day, one in the morning and the other in the evening to ensure that students have an opportunity to fill out the application with direct help from the foundation.
Remember, the deadline to apply for these scholarships is on Oct. 27.
