Agneya Tharun, Cybersecurity Officer and Scholarship Winner

Survival Mode

When his middle school cut its only computer science club just a week into his first year there, young Agneya Tharun was disappointed, but not discouraged. Now, Tharun is a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University studying cybersecurity with more than $60,000 worth of scholarships to his name. How did he do it? With Scholarships.com.

Tharun got his start in STEM as an elementary schooler; “My parents gave me a pretty good guiding arm,” he said, noting the wide variety of clubs and extracurricular activities in which his parents enrolled him. Of all the programs they found for him, Tharun gravitated most towards math and science groups, which his parents encouraged him to continue to explore as he entered middle school.

“The only problem with that was that the middle school I went to didn’t have many technology programs,” said Tharun. “The only technology club that was there was called Makerspace. I remember loving that club so much— and then after a week, [the school] took it away because not enough students went to it. It was sad.”

"[Scholarships.com's emails] would catch scholarships that I had no clue existed, so that was very helpful,” Tharun said.

Even though his middle school would not receive funding for tech programs until long after his graduation, Tharun didn’t let a lack of opportunities drive him away from his passion. He continued to research computer science, learning about cybersecurity and risk management on his own time and finding a particular point of interest in hacking.

“How are these guys able to create malware? How are they doing this? How do we defend computers?” he recalled thinking. “Everything’s branched off from just that small interest in cybersecurity.”

As his middle school career approached its end, Tharun applied to all the magnet high schools in his area, hoping to land a spot at a school with a robust tech department. He was rejected from all 7 of the lottery-based magnet programs to which he applied, which left just a single magnet school open to him: Poolesville High School, whose enrollment was selection-based. To Tharun’s great relief, he was accepted.

“I would definitely not be where I am right now if it wasn’t for all the resources and programs at Poolesville High School,” he said. With a top-tier robotics program and courses covering everything from cable networking to the construction of devices like automated rovers and blimps, PHS was a wonderland for Tharun. His experience there solidified his interest in cybersecurity; he knew it was what he wanted to do.

Though Tharun’s parents encouraged him to start looking for scholarships as early as his sophomore year of high school, it wasn’t his priority. He was so busy balancing his academics, club leadership, and peer teaching that it was difficult to devote time to anything else, even financial aid concerns— after all, college was a long way off, or so he thought. It wasn’t until the summer after his junior year that Tharun realized the urgency of his situation.

“My mom asked me, ‘What’s your dream school?’” he recounted. His answers were standard fare for bright-eyed engineering students: Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, MIT. “[My mom] said, ‘Okay, look up the tuition.’”

“I looked at it and my jaw dropped. It’s a down payment on a house! I can’t pay that!” Tharun continued. “So that’s when survival mode kicked in.”

Through the rest of the summer and into senior year, Tharun poured all his effort into optimizing his scholarship search as much as possible. He networked for advice and resources from friends, mentors, and teachers, which led him to his scholarship application home base: Scholarships.com.

"“[Different scholarship providers] get extremely specific about these things, so it was really helpful to have these filters," said Tharun of Scholarships.com.

With his free Scholarships.com account, Tharun was able to find scholarships based on his personal demographics. Out of countless scholarship awards, he was instantly matched with the ones for which he was eligible; Scholarships.com filtered all the inapplicable awards out of his way, narrowing his search for precision and accuracy.

“I’m an Indian computer science student; what are some really specific scholarships for me?” Tharun remembered thinking when he began his scholarship search. “[Different scholarship providers] get extremely specific about these things, so it was really helpful to have these filters.”

Scholarships.com offered much more than a simple dashboard to Tharun, though. He also received deadline updates and application information directly to his email inbox every week.

“I didn’t spend that much time on the actual website looking for scholarships. I did, however, look at all those emails I was getting,” he said. “‘This scholarship’s due in two weeks, I’ve never heard of it, and it looks awesome; let me apply to it now.’ Those were, in particular, very useful.”

“Sometimes [the emails] would catch scholarships that I had no clue existed, so that was very helpful,” he went on. For instance, through his Scholarships.com emails, he discovered the DCU For Kids Memorial Scholarship just in time to apply.

“It was due in 3 days,” said Tharun. “I finished the application in one day, got my teachers to finish up their recommendation letters on the second, and then I miraculously won it.”

"It wasn’t just the 40k, it’s that I have a safety net," Tharun said.

The DCU scholarship wasn’t his only win, though. In the fall of his senior year, Tharun used Scholarships.com to apply to the prestigious Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship, which includes a $40,000 award and a guaranteed paid internship for its recipients. He still remembers the precise moment he found out he’d been accepted into the program.

“They sent an email saying I had a new form to fill out,” he recounted. But when he opened the document, he found the link to a video congratulating him on his acceptance.

“It wasn’t just the 40k, it’s that I have a safety net,” Tharun said. Not only could he finish out his senior year of high school without worrying about how he would pay for college, he also had access to a network of other scholars and mentors across the country. “We’re always talking in the group chat,” he added.

Now in his freshman year at Carnegie Mellon University, Tharun is following his cybersecurity dreams with several scholarships to his name: the DCU For Kids and Amazon Future Engineer Scholarships, for one, but also the Coca-Cola Scholarship and even a regional award from Dunkin’ Donuts. With Scholarships.com’s help, he’s earned enough money to excel without the fear of overwhelming student debt.

“Go for it,” Tharun advised other students aiming to follow his example. “If you follow your passions, everything else will follow.”