Hello, my name is Machiya Arrington and I am currently a high school senior at Halifax Early College High School. I have been accepted to 10 HBCUs thus far. The reason why I want to attend a HBCU is because HBCUs are the reason why black students have a better college experience. Being around people of your own kind, especially in an educated environment, is a different type of empowerment for black students. The encouragement that you receive from one another to keep thriving and climbing to success is such an amazing and heartwarming feeling. You would be around people with similar backgrounds and cultural experiences as yourself. Another reason why I want to attend an HBCU is because of the cost rate. It has been proven that the average cost of going to a HBCU is 27% less than going to a PWI. It has also been proven that black HBCU students have a better chance at being more engaged with work financially wealthy later in life than non HBCU students. Overall, I think attending a HBCU would provide me with better opportunities and a better life experience than attending a non HBCU. Due to having more scholarship opportunities and their unique programs, I feel that it would be most suitable for me.

The area of tech that I am interested in studying is advanced manufacturing technology. Since I started my internship in the summer of 2022 at the Center for Energy Education. The internship education me on renewable energy and social justice. I didn’t realize that there were so many jobs revolving around renewable energy. I have researched this career field and realized that it is something that I am interested in. I was most interested in becoming an information technology manager. Their job is to make sure that all of their employees have the technology they need to get their job done. This job shows an act of leadership and that is something that I have grown in as a person. I am I very hardworking and determined young African American woman. A problem that I hope to overcome is not realizing that I can do whatever I want if I put my mind to it. Something I have doubts and overthink things, but I just sit and say a few words of encouragement to myself to push myself to keep going. Due to my ongoing internship, it has allowed me to seek some job opportunities from the people I have networked with, but I just have to succeed in college first and earn a degree. This was a great opportunity for me and I promised myself that I would do anything to see myself succeed in life to make my family proud. I hope to expand my education, become a successful African American woman, and make my name known in this world.

Hi, my name is Machiya Arrington and I am a high school senior who will be graduating in June of 2023 from Halifax Early College high school. I come from a rural area where there aren’t many good job opportunities and programs for adults and youths. I will do anything possible to help my community and make it a better place for people. I see many people from my community who struggle just make ends meet and there are a lot of homeless people in the area and it makes me very emotional and sad to see people struggling. I see people who have to rob and steal from one another just because they don’t have anything. These things are reasons why I took on a internship at the Center for Energy education so that I can get a head start in my career. This internship opportunity has provided me with many wonderful skills and even improved some of the skills that I already had. I have contributed in many community projects such as a food drive, coat drive, Veterans Day program, and a movie and food night for the youth, so as you can see I am very dedicated to improving my community and seeing people with a smile on their face. This ongoing internship have allowed myself and four other young women of color, to work on building our own business as an non profit organization where we advocate and educate our youth on climate change and social justice. We are also planning on bringing on ten interns that are young women who are juniors or seniors with the Center. We want to educate these young women on the many jobs that there are dealing with climate change and open up job opportunities for them in the future. I see now that as I grow older, the children are the future and I know that I am still a child myself by me being 17, but I have prepared myself mentally to think like a boss. I hope open the eyes of people so that they can see that there are many things to be done to improve our lil rural community. I want to get as much recognition as possible and the Center for Energy Education has done exactly that for me. This scholarship will help me improve my education so that I may thrive and give back to my community and other programs.

Hello, my name is Machiya Arrington. I am a high school senior and I will be a high school graduate of 2023 at Halifax, Early College High School. I plan on attending North Carolina Central state university in the fall of 2023. If I win this scholarship, it will help me financially and help me take a step forward in my education. As I become an upcoming college student, I know it will be hard due to all the items I have to buy, as in textbooks and personal needs. I plan on majoring in business administration and use my degree to get a job where I can be a marketing manager or project manager. I am involved in extra-curricular activities that include cheerleading and currently, I am doing an ongoing internship at the Center for Energy Education. The center has taught me many wonderful things such as networking skills, how to start my own business, proper social etiquette, and it even helped me improve my public speaking skills. I saw these activities as opportunities to improve my leadership skills. The opportunity also allowed me to visit some of the colleges that I am interested in and thriving businesses that I realized I wanted to use my level of education at or businesses of such types. Due to this internship, I have received many job opportunities, but they said I had to go to college first and receive a degree. That is why I am so dedicated to fulfilling my dreams, because many students don’t have the opportunity of having a job right after college and sometimes it may take months or even years to find a job. I am the type of person that is big on improving my community and giving back because I come from a rural area where there aren’t many good job opportunities or programs for the youth due to the economy. I was involved in several community services such as a food drive, coat drive, and Veterans Day celebration. I will always remember the people who were there for me and encouraged me to continue following my dreams and once I succeed, I plan on showing and sharing that same act of encouragement to people and do what I can to see others succeed. I believe that this scholarship is a blessing and I wish that everyone could receive one and even if I don’t win this scholarship, I wish nothing but the best for the person who does.