Recently, I was informed that I became one of the UT Dallas recipients of the 2018 Texas Business Hall of Fame (TBHF) scholarship.
Background: The TBHF Foundation was founded in 1982 to honor Texas’ foremost past and present business leaders and inspire the leaders of the future. A major part of their contributions goes to an annual scholarship fund for students at participating Texas universities. This could be used to help pay for school or anything that the students decide. In my case, I’m using this scholarship to support Immosis’ operations.
The TBHF Scholarship goes a bit back for me. The process takes several months and includes a thorough application, campus interview, and director interview, in which you need to be selected to advance to each stage. The first time that I applied was last year as I was wrapping up sophomore year.
That year, I managed to make it to the final director interview despite being new to entrepreneurship. At UT Dallas, there are 9 finalists and 3 of those ultimately become recipients.
But unfortunately, I did not become one of the 3 recipients.
However, one of the things that hustling has taught me is that persistence pays off. This year was the final year that I was eligible to apply, and I figured that if I could advance to finals the year before, I could do it again this year.
So I did just that. It was funny because all of the campus interviewers recognized me from the previous year and we had a very pleasant interview. And the final interviewers included the Executive Director of the TBHF herself.
I was actually fairly nervous, which is atypical since I’m usually calm during interviews. But to my (pleasant) surprise, I received the congratulatory email a month later.
This award means a lot to me not just because of the money, but also because of what the TBHF represents. Since I’ve received a ton of help from our gracious mentors and advisors, I’m very passionate about helping upcoming entrepreneurs. This scholarship embodies the values that I have held dearly throughout my journey and I look forward to helping the TBHF promote their values of integrity, leadership, and entrepreneurship.
UPDATE (Nov 2018): Got some pics from the TBHF Induction Dinner. Can confirm it was a blast.
