Purpose

In 2021, it became even more apparent that universal hardships aren’t experienced equally. The ongoing pandemic– just one of the large-scale crises affecting our planet– disproportionately affects populations without access to social mobility, economic opportunity, personal freedom, and support from societal institutions.

Given the increasingly complex set of large-scale challenges we face, there is an urgent need to transform our culture in pursuit of FIRST’s vision to create a world where young people of all backgrounds dream of becoming problem solvers-- innovators who leverage their diverse experiences and their STEM skills to make the world a better place. Achievement of this goal requires providing increasing access to STEM opportunities for underserved and underrepresented students, as well as breaking down barriers for participation in STEM. FIRST provides conceptual tools, such as Gracious Professionalism and Coopertition, which are designed to assist in this work. The EWCP Scholarship for Cultural Impact celebrates students who pair these tools with action, to build equality and advocate for justice in their communities.

The 2022 EWCP Scholarship for Cultural Impact is a one-time, $1000 scholarship open to high school or college applicants who have participated in FTC or FRC.

Essay requirements

Mentor-based youth STEM programs such as FIRST create frameworks and build skillsets for addressing inequality and injustice. Your essay should respond to the question: Given what you have learned in your FIRST experience, how will you positively impact culture in your community?

Here are some questions you may consider when composing your response. (A winning essay doesn’t need to respond to all of these.)

What did you learn in your FIRST experience that gives you the tools to put your plan into action?
What is the impact and scale of your plan?
What steps need to be taken to meet your goal? Have you taken any already?
What resources would help you with your goal?
How will you determine if your plan is successful?

Additional essay requirements:

Limit your response to 400-500 words.
Cite your sources. If a bibliography is used, do not include the bibliography in the word count.
Essay must be solely the work of the applicant. Plagiarism will result in disqualification. Essays must not infringe on any third-party rights or intellectual property of any person, company or organization.

EWCP will publish the winning scholarship recipient's winning essay, with credit to the author, on our website.

Timeline

Application deadline: 11:59 PM EST, Monday 3/21/2022

Notification of award: Thursday 4/21/2022

Eligibility

Scholarship applicants must:

Be a high school senior or a college freshman, sophomore, or junior.
Have participated as a team member for a minimum of one season on a FIRST® Tech Challenge or FIRST® Robotics Competition team.
Be enrolled in an official undergraduate program of study (college, community college, university, or technical school) for the upcoming fall semester.
Not be related to any officer or director of EWCP, Inc., EWCP member, or EWCP Scholarship judge.

Eligible students are invited to apply here by the deadline.

How essays will be judged

The following information is subject to change without notice by the EWCP Scholarship Committee.

Essays will be judged in two stages. Submissions will be initially screened using a scored rubric, then a winner will be chosen from among the highest-ranked submissions.

Our rubric evaluates the following on a 0-3 point scale. A winning essay doesn’t need to score highly on all of these criteria.

Effort - Student has clearly put effort into their essay
Plan - Clearly Communicated: Essay explains the mechanism by which the plan provides a solution to the problem statement
Plan - Demonstrates Thoughtful Understanding: Essay demonstrates empathetic thinking and thoughtful understanding of the problem statement, problem statement is relevant
Plan - Achievable/Actionable: Essay demonstrates that plan is achievable and has actionable items
Plan - Scale: This plan has a significant impact as measured by population size, duration of effect, and/or magnitude of effect
Connected/tied back to FIRST Experience: Essay links to ideas and concepts from FIRST experience
Originality: Essay and plan demonstrate original thinking

For more discussion about how essays are judged please see our 2021 Chief Delphi thread.

Additional rules

Each eligible student may submit no more than one scholarship application.
All entries submitted as part of this scholarship application become the property of EWCP and will not be returned. EWCP reserves the right to print and display any submitted essay with credit to the essay author.
Decisions of the EWCP Scholarship judges are final.

Contact

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