2020 Annual Scholarship Essay Contest - "What does fiscal responsibility mean to me?"
2020 Annual Scholarship Essay Contest:
"What does fiscal responsibility mean to me?"
This year's 2020 Annual Scholarship Essay Contest Winners are...
This year we are proud to announce the two winners of the 2000 Annual Mercer Partners Scholarship Essay Contest for high school seniors. They were asked to answer the question, "What does fiscal responsibility mean to me?" This year's impressive winners were Emma Casey and James Shiffer. Normally, we have an official awards presentation in person, but this year we awarded our winners each $1,000 scholarships via a Zoom meeting.

Emma just graduated from Las Lomas High School and will attend Stanford University. She plans on majoring in economics and management science with the hopes of pursuing a career in finance. In college, Emma is excited to get involved in student government, the business club, research, and recreational soccer. To limit the spread of COVID-19, Stanford plans on rotating the students on campus by class year and pursuing hybrid in-person/online academic instruction.

James Shiffer will attend UCLA in the fall as a computer science major. Due to the covid-19 pandemic, 80% of fall classes will be conducted virtually. As a Regents scholar, James was fortunate enough to be offered limited on-campus housing. He plans on taking computer engineering as well as management and entrepreneurship courses. James hopes to work in the artificial intelligence and robotics fields and eventually plans to found his own startup to build empathetic robots. He believes that every engineering design must first and foremost account for the human user. His goal is to create technology that augments, not replaces, the human experience.