In the span of just 5 years, Oregon Institute of Tech senior Aaron Hill has gone from a pro gamer to a programmer, with more than $40,000 in scholarship money
to propel him along the way. Now preparing to graduate with his bachelor’s degree in software engineering, Hill posits that aside from being persistent, all
students need to do to succeed is to take advantage of the opportunities and resources available to them— including Scholarships.com.
All his life, Hill has loved video games. His early childhood in Hawaii was spent playing with his 2 older siblings; when his parents decided to move the
family to Oregon to pursue better job and educational opportunities for their children, Hill’s passion traveled along with them. Throughout his schooling,
he played sports and did well in his STEM classes, but none of it compared to the inspiration he found in video games.
“Whenever I was pursuing any of my creative passions, art and animation and 3D modeling and stuff like that,” said Hill, “it was all for the end goal of:
one day, I want to be a video game developer.”
“But video game development is an unconventional career path,” he went on. After his high school graduation in 2020, he enrolled in community college as
a business major, knowing obtaining a degree was important but unsure of how to go forward in the field he loved. In his mind, attaining his associate’s
degree was “a way to stay in school and pass the time.”
Then, in 2021, a new entry in Nickelodeon’s series of fighting games was released. Hill jumped right in with the game, quickly advancing his skills and posting
content about it online.
“I had made a couple of YouTube videos that caught the attention of the publishing company, because I was already a top player in the game,” Hill said. That
attention multiplied. And kept multiplying. Hill was officially a pro gamer.
For about a year, he continued along the path of professional gaming. He took a break from his community college to focus on his playing and made a decent
living along the way; he battled in competitions and even connected with the marketing and publishing teams that led the game’s production. “I played a video
game for money,” said Hill. It was fantastic.
“Unfortunately, the way that the FAFSA works, they look at income from the year before. My mom was still working then and my dad was actually doing
pretty well,” he explained. “So, I didn’t qualify for any grants my freshman year.”
Without the cushion of financial aid he’d expected, Hill was sure he would need to work, blast through his savings, and take out student loans to
complete his degree. But then his sister mentioned that he could apply for scholarships, too.
“Why not?” he recalled thinking. “I was working an on-campus job and in between my classes, I tended to have a lot of free time just sitting
at the desk… I just started looking online.”
That was how Hill discovered Scholarships.com. He was surprised to find thousands of scholarships listed that he had never even heard of, all with up-to-date
information. “After [you’ve exhausted institutional options], scholarships almost seem mythical to most students,” he said— and Scholarships.com proved that
judgment wrong.
Using Scholarships.com’s robust database, Hill was able to match with scholarship opportunities he could really apply for, rather than the closed or
poorly-fitting awards he found in his general Internet searches. He found not only competitive national-level scholarships with huge award amounts, but also
local, targeted scholarships open to students within his demographic range.
“I don’t know how else I would find a lot of these, because a lot of them are buried on random websites,” said Hill. “I think there’s way more
opportunity out there for students than they realize.”
So, with Scholarships.com’s help, Hill passed the time at his desk job applying for scholarships. Over the course of his freshman year at OIT, he perfected his
technique, emphasizing how important it was not to get too attached to any particular application.
“What happens very commonly is that the first few scholarships that you apply for are the biggest deal, because you’ve never done anything like this. You’re
going to pour your heart into this scholarship essay,” he said. “What you need to realize is that everybody else applying to that scholarship is doing that as well…
Turn off your emotions as far as the rejection and acceptance process goes. Just keep applying.”
He approached his application for the Atsuhiko Tateuchi Memorial Scholarship with that same persistent mindset. Specifically designed for students of Asian
descent living in the Pacific Northwest, the award was a perfect match for Hill’s circumstances. Still, he applied without clinging to the hope that he would win.
When the scholarship recipient was announced, Hill was sitting at the very same work desk where he’d applied months earlier. By then, he was used to
receiving emails from scholarship providers— but he was shocked to find that this one had “Congratulations” in the subject line.
“I texted my sister, and then I got on the phone with my mom and she started crying,” Hill recalled. Not only had he won the scholarship, he’d won
it with the opportunity to renew it for the remainder of his college career; further, the amount he’d earned, $10,000 per year, was much higher than he’d expected.
“I have no idea what the rest of my workday looked like after that, because it didn’t matter,” he said. “All of a sudden, I went from not being able to
afford college for sure, to being able to afford college for certain. That was $10,000 for the next year. Boom.”
And he didn’t stop applying for scholarships after his first win. Now a senior, Hill estimates that over the course of his undergraduate career, he applied to
more than 200 scholarships. He covered his entire college tuition by his sophomore year; then, through the Taco Bell Live Más Scholarship, he earned even
more on top of that.
“It turned into this super fun thing,” he said of his experience as a Live Más scholar. As a part of the scholarship program, he said, “I went to San Diego, got
to meet a bunch of people who are super passionate about the things that they’re doing with really interesting backgrounds and projects that they’re working on,
and it was free!”
As he prepares to graduate from OIT, Hill is already well on his way to becoming a full-fledged game developer. Thanks to his scholarship wins, he hasn’t needed
to work an intensive job while in school; the freedom has allowed him the time to maintain his 4.0 GPA, balance internships and student advocacy work, and get
a head start on creating his own video game. He’s even documenting the whole development process on YouTube as he goes.
“This [game] started off as my senior project, but it’s turning into what my life is going to be like for the next 2 years,” Hill said. “This is going to
be the project that I go to conventions for, like PAX West, and show it off to over 100,000 people. That’s a plan that’s in motion right now: getting my booth.”
At the end of the day, Hill says the resources offered to him by the Atsuhiko Tateuchi Memorial Scholarship, the Taco Bell Foundation, and Scholarships.com
have been absolutely invaluable to his college experience: “I’m in college still because I won the scholarships, straight up.”
Hill’s advice to other students is, just as he’s learned through the whole ordeal, to be patient, persistent, and practical.
“Don’t get discouraged,” he concluded. “It’s a process.”
Keep up with Aaron’s game development adventures on his YouTube channel; sign up for a free account on Scholarships.com to receive your own scholarship matches today.
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