Seventy thousand dollars in free money is available for students in scholarship.

Students like Minh Villaencis, nursing major, said this was her first scholarship workshop she experienced.

The Cerritos College Foundation Scholarship workshop application took place on Wednesday, Aug. 24.

She said Rachel Samarin, Foundation Program Assistant, provided really good and detailed information, she went over what were the proper requirements that were needed to submit a scholarship.

She answered student’s questions clear enough to be understood.

Villaencis said,”Samarin gave the students her personal suggestion and instructions on how to apply for a scholarship.”

The deadline for sign-up is Friday, Sept. 23.

The workshop was led by Samarin who has been working for the foundation for nine years.

Samarin provided detailed information and assisted with any help needed to fill out the scholarship application.

Sitting down behind a computer were 16 students filling out their application for a scholarship.

Jonathan Chavez, kinesiology major, thought this financial scholarship workshop was a really good source of information provided by the instructor.

He said for students who are pursuing a higher education, but are in need of a scholarship financial resource, “I encourage students to attend one of these workshops to obtain good detailed information.”

Samarin said, “I think it is very important for students to be aware of resources like scholarships and the Foundation Awards.

“This semester we will be awarding over $70,000 to Cerritos College students and a lot of them don’t realize the resource is available.”

She went on, “We have workshops like this to [bring] awareness so students can apply, and hopefully be honored a scholarship, which of course that helps them in pursuing their education.”

To be awarded a scholarship, she stated that the GPA is important, but is not the sole factor, the personal statement she notes is more important.

“Some students may have had a bad semester and lowered their GPA because they were going through something personal.

“It is important for students to address it on the statement so it will be taken as consideration when their application is reviewed.” said Samarin

She said they have made improvements at the foundation, when she first arrived nine years ago.

She said, “This is my ninth year at the foundation, when I first arrived we were doing paper applications for all of our scholarships.

I think we had about 60 [scholarships] that we were awarding. Now we have more than doubled, we have 130 to 135 different scholarships that are offered every year.”

She said “The program itself has grown tremendously, the amount of money we [the foundation] are awarding has grown. It has definitely been an improvement over how it was 15 years ago.”

Samarin made it a point to email faculty at the beginning of every semester, asking them to share the information with their students.

She said “I can only reach so many students, but faculty who have them in their classes are able to say, ‘hey you can check out the foundation, they have some scholarships maybe you are eligible for something.'”

She believes the e-mails will really help spread the word, she said the school has the marquee now on the corner, so now the announcements can reach a lot more students.

Foundation Scholarships are always trying to improve and grow and get more students to apply.

She feels very encouraged to continue to see students who keep going and continue pursuing their goals.