Finding a scholarship to help further your education is much like searching for a 4-H project grant, which we discussed in Part 1. There are three things you need to consider before you begin looking for that perfect scholarship.

You should first decide on your area of expertise and what your field of study will encompass. Many 4-H scholarships are based on the area of study you are electing to pursue, so obtaining an Agriculture scholarship will not be good if you are going into the field of Robotics. Know what you want to do first.

Once you have decided on your area of study, you should try to compose a list of schools which you would like to attend. Many scholarships are awarded only if you plan on enrolling in a specific school or University. If you do not want to leave your home town, then you wouldn’t want to apply for a scholarship at a school across the state or elsewhere in the country.

Finally, you need to decide how much funding you will be needing. If you absolutely cannot get by with anything less than, say $5000, then applying for a $1000 scholarship may not be a good idea because you will be unable to fund your remaining coursework. Those who award scholarships like to know that you will complete your coursework and earn your degree or certificate. There is, however, nothing saying you couldn’t obtain five $1000 scholarships.

Now you’re ready to begin your scholarship search. If your school of choice is close by, you can take a trip to their financial aid office and make an appointment with a counselor to discuss possible scholarships, grants or funding sources. Make sure to have all the information we discussed above ready for the counselor to facilitate your time together.

You can also use the Internet to find available opportunities. First, visit the website(s) of the school(s) you wish to attend. Most of them will have a page or section dedicated to financial aid, grants and scholarships. Take your time and don’t jump at the first one you see. Spend more time and look at all of your options – you may end up with a better opportunity if you do your homework!

Make sure that if you use a search engine, that you perform detailed search queries. For example, if you are looking for an agriculture scholarship at the University of Florida then don’t just search for “Florida scholarships”. This will return relevant results, but more often than not, you will be trudging through hundreds of outdated or completely irrelevant results. Instead, search for “4-H agriculture scholarship 2011 application.”

By adding more detail to your search query, you will not only save a lot of time looking through meaningless results, you will quite possibly find the best scholarship for your area of study and funding goals.

Finally, a surprising amount of people believe that in order to get a scholarship for college or for continuing education, you need to maintain a GPA north of 4.0. This is simply not true. While some scholarships do require an impeccable grade point average, many only require you to have average grades. Obviously, they don’t want to award a scholarship to someone who will not complete the coursework, but as long as you show commitment and desire in your application, grades aren’t as important with many of the scholarships out there. So don’t be afraid or embarrassed to apply for an opportunity because of less-than-stellar grades – you just might get it!

Conclusion

Don’t let a lack of money stand in the way of you completing a 4-H project or getting into college! There are thousands of grants and scholarships out there just waiting for you to take of advantage of. All you have to do is know where and how to find them. Hopefully, by using the techniques above and in Part 1 of this blog series, you are now armed with the skills necessary to get out there and track them down.

Just remember that you need to do a little preparation before you start searching. Make sure you know exactly what you want to do, where you want to do it and how much funding will be necessary to complete your goals.

Please let us know about your grant or scholarship experience. Were you able to find one easily? Was it tough? Did the funding bring your project to completion? Leave a comment in the field below and let us know all about it.

Thanks for reading and GOOD LUCK to all of you!