A Sweet $2,000 Scholarship for Gamers
College students that are scholars by day, but gamers by night should check out this scholarship opportunity. It’s a combination of the best of both worlds which definitely qualifies this as "need-to-know" information.
Interested in playing games between classes? Well, there’s a scholarship from Microsoft and Zinch open that mixes both pleasure and work all in one neat little package. Those enrolled in college are eligible as well as high school seniors that have been accepted. It’s called the All You Really Need for College scholarship and it’s worth $2,000 in technology that should satisfy even the most extreme technophile out there. Not sure if this program will be around next year so it’ll be a good idea to jot this on your “to-do” list. The prizes include a Dell XPS 13 with Microsoft Office software, an Xbox 360 with Kinect and five games along with other Microsoft gear. The hard part will be trying not to let the laptop gather dust while you spend your semesters playing MW3 or the lastest Gears of War game. Seriously, this may be one of the most counter-productive scholarships out there, but who are we complain? All that’s required to enter is a short essay (500 characters) that answers the question “If your computer were a person, who would it be and why?” I know, pretty heavy. Just come up with your best, originally crafted, anthropomorphic response and you could win some nice stuff that should help distract you from all that dull coursework you’re forced to do on a daily basis (that is their purpose, right?). The deadline for this scholarship is June 30, 2012 with winners being announced on July 31.
Simple scholarships like this one don’t come around very often so it’s a good idea to pounce while the offer’s available. Yet, this isn’t the only piece of news Microsoft is touting. They’ve recently launched a new version of the Kinect SDK that was introduced back in Feb of 2011. The Kinect for Windows 1.5 (released on May 21, 2012) includes improvements on face and skeletal tracking and the ability to debug, playback and record user interaction with apps. It had been distributed to a whole new list of countries that include Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Other countries will be added to the mix in June. What does this have to do with games? Well, sadly nothing. Why did I bring this up? I guess as a way to prevent any high expectations from dedicated PC gamers. Marketing senior director Jose Pinero revealed that Kinect for PC is set aside for “non-entertainment and non-gaming applications” so PC gamers shouldn’t line up to grab this piece of hardware. This will mainly be used for training purposes and education. If interested, you can find more updates on that by visiting their blog.
The All You Really Need for College program is a unique technology scholarship from Zinch that’s a step above earlier programs of the same type. Earlier in the year they offered the Pick your HP PC Tech Scholarship which awarded an HP laptop to a student who wrote the best essay. No game system involved and the scholarship was worth the equivalent of $1,400 dollars. It was, however, one of their many easy scholarships that you could apply for since all that was required was your registration for Zinch, the HP Academy and a simple 500 word essay answering the question: how would winning an HP laptop help you on your college journey? I could literally come up with a million responses to that question (it’s a free laptop!). Not sure if this scholarship will be available next year after HP announcing to lay off 27,000 employees to find $3.5 billion in savings, but they encourage you to “Like” the page anyway to receive future updates. Scholarships that award technological prizes are rare but can come in handy to those who need the equipment. Keeping sites like Zinch on your radar will allow you to be in-the-know so that you won’t miss out on these limited opportunities.
