Ridgefield High School junior Matthew Parrish earned a $10,000 scholarship after he submitted a two-minute video talking about his passions and what he wanted to study in college.
Parrish, a part-time worker at Ridgefield’s Taco Bell, earned the scholarship from the Pacific Bells LLC, a franchisee of the Taco Bell Corporation.
Parrish plans on obtaining a transfer degree at Clark College and then a master’s degree at Western Washington University studying math and education. He hopes to become a math teacher after college.
“I like math a lot, and it clicks easy for me, and I figured if I was to study something in college that interests me, it would be math,” he said. “In my video I had mentioned, I had a teacher, she was my math and science teacher in fifth and sixth grade … One of the lectures we were having, she started explaining how she enjoys being a teacher because when it finally clicks in a student’s mind, you can sort of see it in their face that they finally understand what’s being taught. She called them ‘light bulb moments.’ ”
For Parrish’s senior year at Ridgefield High School, he plans on exploring further scholarship opportunities. He has already obtained the majority of core credits and will be enjoying multiple art classes next school year, he said.
