On Tuesday, April 18, seven Prince George’s County Public School seniors – including two from Eleanor Roosevelt High School (ERHS) – were surprised by a special delivery from Amazon. They each received $40,000 college scholarships and paid internships at Amazon through the Amazon Future Engineer program. Among the recipients were Yeabkal Abeje and Gabrielle Stewart of ERHS.
Stewart plans to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill this fall, where she will major in computer science and information science and minor in entrepreneurship. Last year she interned at College Action Program, working on the organization’s website and presenting at the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program Student Research Conference. Stewart is a member of the National Society of Black Engineers and the National Honor Society and is currently taking computer science classes at Bowie State University through the College Pathways Dual Enrollment Program.
Abeje recently returned from some college visits and is still considering where she will attend this fall. She won first place in her category at the school’s STEM fair in February and went on to present at the Prince George’s Area Science Fair last month. She is an intern at the science, engineering and technology company Science Systems and Applications, Inc. (SSAI) in Lanham. Like Stewart, Abeje is taking computer science classes at Bowie State through the dual enrollment program, and she also took a business management course at Prince George’s Community College.
The Amazon Future Engineer Scholarships are awarded to 400 students across the U.S. Criteria considered in the selection process include: class performance, primarily GPA; engineering experience through after-school clubs, competitions and so forth; work experience; students’ short answers in the application; a teacher survey; racial, ethnic and gender diversity; and financial need, usually household income. According to Amazon, the goal of the scholarships is “supporting underserved students in their engineering education,” which they identify as “imperative to building a diverse tech industry and ultimately future.”
