San Diego Chapter Scholarships
Getting Involved in Scholarships
The scholarships are funded through such events as the Founder's Day raffle and the Crew Classic, as well as by individual donations throughout the year. The Club would like to offer a special thank you to all who have donated.
If you are interested in applying for a scholarship, or have a child who might be attending UW who might benefit from one of our Club's scholarships, please email or call Club Member and Scholarship Chair Ted Martens at twmartens@cox.net or 619-222-0465. Please contact Ted, as well, if you are interested in making a tax-deductible donation to the Club's Scholarship Fund.
Support local students!
Give to the UW Alumni Club of San Diego Scholarship Fund. All funds collected, up to $8,000, will be matched by the UW Foundation. All proceeds will go to deserving local students attending UW-Madison.
Donate online.
Donate online.
An update from former scholarship recipient- Sagan Friant
Here is an update from Sagan Friant, a former recipient of a scholarship from the San Diego Alumni Club- nice work Sagan! Any other former scholarship recipients out there, please contact us, we would love to hear about your Madison experience!
"As a high school senior born in Hawaii and raised in San Diego, California I could hardly imagine that I would be spending the next four years of my life in Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin was one of` the many schools I applied to. Though it was a good school for what I wanted to, I honestly did not plan on actually coming. I flew out to visit the school in April where I met humidity, hail, a beautiful city, and incredibly nice people. I arrived back to San Diego after the weekend and broke the news to family and friends- I was moving to Wisconsin! Those who knew Madison told me that I was going to love it. Those who did not thought I was crazy! I spent the whole first week on the phone to my parents, I thought I was crazy for moving somewhere so far way. However, those people who new Madison were right- eventually I loved it!
My first two years at UW were partially supported by a scholarship from the UW alumni of San Diego. I wrote an essay explaining to them that after working at the San Diego Zoo, I wanted to study primate behavior, and that University of Wisconsin was a good place to do just that. Somehow I managed to convince them that I was a worthy investment and I was on my way. I was thrown into a sea of red, where football was a religion, and the winters brutal- I loved it! As an undergraduate I studied anthropology and conservation biology. I worked with captive monkeys in Wisconsin and studied tropical biology for a semester abroad in Costa Rica. I couldn’t have asked for a better background and preparatory work than I found through UW.
After graduation I spent the summer as an intern at the San Diego Zoos Center for Research of Endangered Species working on a project studying the behavior of primates and cheetahs. After a summer back in San Diego I was off again, this time to do a masters in primate conservation in Oxford, England. I spent the year studying and traveling. I did my research studying primates in Nigeria and when I finished my masters I returned to Nigeria to volunteer with the same monkeys. I spent my days with monkeys and my evenings with other volunteers in camp, or hanging out in the local village. I enjoyed Nigeria immensely and wanted to return as a researcher with a comprehensive well planned project. To do this I contacted an old professor that had been a source of inspiration to me in my final years as an undergraduate. While in Nigeria I found out that once again I had been accepted to the University of Wisconsin, but this time as a PhD student! So, after traveling the world, here I am back in Madison.
I am now taking classes, teaching classes, and writing proposals to agencies that that might fund my research in Africa. The workload is heavy, but I am doing exactly what I had set out to do 6 years ago when I wrote a statement to the UW alumni. I feel very lucky and I am having a lot of fun teaching the very classes that I took as a wide-eyed freshman not so long ago. Though it is in a whole new role, it is nice to me back in Madison visiting my favorite coffee shops on State Street and working in library with a beautiful view of Lake Mendota. And of course, it is always nice taking a month of in the middle of winter to visit my family back in San Diego."
"As a high school senior born in Hawaii and raised in San Diego, California I could hardly imagine that I would be spending the next four years of my life in Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin was one of` the many schools I applied to. Though it was a good school for what I wanted to, I honestly did not plan on actually coming. I flew out to visit the school in April where I met humidity, hail, a beautiful city, and incredibly nice people. I arrived back to San Diego after the weekend and broke the news to family and friends- I was moving to Wisconsin! Those who knew Madison told me that I was going to love it. Those who did not thought I was crazy! I spent the whole first week on the phone to my parents, I thought I was crazy for moving somewhere so far way. However, those people who new Madison were right- eventually I loved it!
My first two years at UW were partially supported by a scholarship from the UW alumni of San Diego. I wrote an essay explaining to them that after working at the San Diego Zoo, I wanted to study primate behavior, and that University of Wisconsin was a good place to do just that. Somehow I managed to convince them that I was a worthy investment and I was on my way. I was thrown into a sea of red, where football was a religion, and the winters brutal- I loved it! As an undergraduate I studied anthropology and conservation biology. I worked with captive monkeys in Wisconsin and studied tropical biology for a semester abroad in Costa Rica. I couldn’t have asked for a better background and preparatory work than I found through UW.
After graduation I spent the summer as an intern at the San Diego Zoos Center for Research of Endangered Species working on a project studying the behavior of primates and cheetahs. After a summer back in San Diego I was off again, this time to do a masters in primate conservation in Oxford, England. I spent the year studying and traveling. I did my research studying primates in Nigeria and when I finished my masters I returned to Nigeria to volunteer with the same monkeys. I spent my days with monkeys and my evenings with other volunteers in camp, or hanging out in the local village. I enjoyed Nigeria immensely and wanted to return as a researcher with a comprehensive well planned project. To do this I contacted an old professor that had been a source of inspiration to me in my final years as an undergraduate. While in Nigeria I found out that once again I had been accepted to the University of Wisconsin, but this time as a PhD student! So, after traveling the world, here I am back in Madison.
I am now taking classes, teaching classes, and writing proposals to agencies that that might fund my research in Africa. The workload is heavy, but I am doing exactly what I had set out to do 6 years ago when I wrote a statement to the UW alumni. I feel very lucky and I am having a lot of fun teaching the very classes that I took as a wide-eyed freshman not so long ago. Though it is in a whole new role, it is nice to me back in Madison visiting my favorite coffee shops on State Street and working in library with a beautiful view of Lake Mendota. And of course, it is always nice taking a month of in the middle of winter to visit my family back in San Diego."
