In this episode of TUN TV, Dr. Crystal Rose interviews Christen Arafeh, founder of Hive College Buzz, about her experience winning $900,000 in scholarship money.

Dr. Rose: Welcome to The University Network TV. I’m your host Dr. Crystal Rose and on today’s show, we’re featuring our series “How We Show Up” These are human bios, the true stories behind the official bios. These are not always easy, not always straightforward, but they’re stories from which we may take inspiration, learn from and grow.

And today, you’ll get to meet Christen Arafeh who is the founder of the global college admissions program, Hive College Buzz. You may have seen her on Fox 28 or Digital Journal News, NBC, Daily Herald, and today you’ll get to hear her and see her on The University Network TV.

Welcome, Christen.

Arafeh:  Thank you so much for having me today. Yes, my name’s Christen. I grew up just south of New Orleans, born and raised. I realized as a high school freshman, I had always been academically inclined. I knew that college was in my future, but I wasn’t sure how to get there.

I was a freshman in high school when I realized that I was the first in my family to ever want to pursue a college education. So, I was alone trying to navigate that process. 

As a freshman, I started applying for scholarships. I knew that to go to college, I would have to be able to pay for college. We wouldn’t be able to do that. I couldn’t do that alone. 

So, I started with the scholarships, and I really lost track of how many I was applying for. I could tell you I didn’t win my first scholarship until a few years later when I was in 11th grade. Winning that first one kind of lit a fire inside of me. And I realized, well if I can win one, certainly I have what it takes to win more than one. So, I became much more diligent in all of my applications. 

When I graduated high school, I had amassed over $900,000 in scholarships. What that looked like was a few full rides, and a few partial tuition scholarships from universities. I won some big-name scholarships, as well as some local smaller dollar scholarships and then some really random internet scholarships in between.

So, each semester – I attended a school that I had tuition fully paid for – all the additional scholarships that I won, they would send them to the school each semester because some of those were recurring as well. At the end of each semester, whatever money was left in my bursar’s account, they would cut me a check to essentially pay me to go to college. 

So, I was sort of amazed at the end. When I graduated, I looked back and I had friends of mine talking about “Well now that I’m nine months after graduation,” they have to start considering paying back their student loans, and they haven’t even found a job.

And I realized just how grateful I was for the opportunity that I was given. I guess, when I say “opportunity that I was given,” I busted my butt for that opportunity. I mean there were hundreds of scholarship applications, and I lost track of how many hours, but it was so worth it in the end. It took less time and energy to submit those scholarship applications in high school than it would be to be working full-time at a job just to put a dent in the student loan interest rate.

Now, I like to share my story with students to motivate them to find and apply for scholarships for themselves. So, my key takeaway here, is I like to start scholarships backward. So, the hardest part of winning scholarships is finding relevant ones. 

So, I like to start out with a resume and the resume makes applying for scholarships easier because it’s nothing more than copying and pasting all of the most pertinent information directly from my resume into the applications. 

It’s important to find the scholarships that are specific to you, and so I found scholarships that were for students in Louisiana, that was for women in STEM, that I had a biology degree, that fit exactly the mold for the student I was and the career student that I wanted to be.

So, my goal for this is to really, I hope that I can inspire you to find scholarships. Apply for scholarships. Find schools that you are a great match for, and wonderful scholarship opportunities because being able to graduate debt-free really opens up a world of possibilities. And if I can do it, so can you.

Dr. Rose: I want to thank our audience for joining me today on The University Network TV. I’m your host, Dr. Crystal Rose. Until next time.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

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