Past SRWC scholarship winners are succeeding

Scripps Ranch Women’s Club (SRWC) has been awarding scholarships to young women graduating from Scripps Ranch High School (SRHS) since its beginning. Members often wonder how their recipients are doing. We decided to find out by reaching out to three of them in various stages of their careers.

A 2014 SRHS grad, Angela Hampton has graduated from UC Davis where she majored in animal science and is now in veterinary school at the University of Illinois. As a high school senior, Angela knew she wanted to major in animal science with an interest in equine medicine. While in college, she developed an interest in veterinary pathology instead as animal science majors focus on agricultural species. Armed with a USDA scholarship, she is solidly on a path to her veterinary career. Winning a scholarship as a senior allowed her to help with the financial costs of college and encouraged her to maintain good grades and internship experiences.

Ashley Garcia was inspired to apply for scholarships by her mom, who came from a low-income family and had to apply for scholarships to fund her schooling. She graduated from SRHS in 2017 and followed her longtime goal of becoming a nurse by enrolling in UCLA’s nursing program. That program only has less than a 2 percent acceptance rate and she feels very proud to have been selected. She is currently in her third year and, after taking her nursing boards and working in the field, she plans to get a master’s in nursing and become a pediatric nurse practitioner. As her field of study requires extensive and expensive equipment, scholarships have helped ease that financial obligation.

One of SRWC’s most recent graduates is Selena Martinez. Applying and receiving scholarships enabled her to pursue a college degree as her family needed that financial boost. She was accepted at Yale University where she is a sophomore majoring in geology and geophysics with a concentration on vertebrate paleontology. In addition to her studies, she joined a comedy group, joined a club for ASL and worked in her college office. After a freshman summer in France, she returned to a lab research position at Yale’s Geology and Geophysics department where she was awarded a $5,000 fellowship. Being awarded a scholarship has contributed to her confidence in school with the knowledge that other people had faith in her ability to compete with and join her peers.

If you know a current senior at SRHS heading to college, be sure to encourage her to apply for a SRWC scholarship by the deadline of March 30. She can find an application in the school counseling office or online at srwomensclub.org.