Oakland Student Wins $40K Scholarship, Paid Amazon Internship

OAKLAND, CA — An Oakland high school student has been awarded a $40,000 scholarship to study computer science at a university of her choosing, and a paid internship at Amazon after her freshman year of college.

Selma Apara, a student at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakland, was awarded an Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship, Amazon announced last week. Apara was one of 250 students in underserved communities across the country awarded the generous scholarship. She wants to study computer science, and find new ways to use computer science to enhance movies, shows, and live theater, according to a company news release.

Apara was chosen from among thousands of applicants across the country on the basis of her academic achievement, leadership, participation in school, work experience, future goals, and financial need, Amazon said. Winners include 11 students from the San Francisco-Oakland area, and 46 students from California. More than 70% of scholarship recipients identify as Black, Latinx, and/or Native American, and 50% identify as women.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts that job opportunities for computer science workers will grow 13% between 2020 and 2030, yet only 8% of STEM graduates earn a computer science degree, and only a small percentage of those come from underserved and historically underrepresented communities.

In 2022, Amazon awarded a total of $10 million to 250 students who plan to study computer science, and has awarded a total of $22 million since 2019, the company said in a blog post.