Five OCC STEM Honors Students Named Semifinalists for Prestigious National Scholarship

OCC Marketing & Public Relations

Mar 25, 2024

News Release

Five students from Orange Coast College have been selected as semifinalists for the prestigious Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship.

OCC students who were named as semifinalists are John "Jack" D'Aiello, a mathematics major; Jose Juan "JJ" Paez, an architecture major; Maia Pham, an engineering major; Thu Phung, a mechanical engineering major; and Yongzi See, an economics and computer science major. The OCC students are five out of 92 California nominees and 459 national students selected as semifinalists for the 2024 Jack Kent Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship. In 2023, two OCC students were chosen as semifinalists, and one OCC student won the national Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship in 2022.

"We are extremely proud of our student scholars' academic achievement, with all five semifinalists demonstrating success in our rigorous STEM programs," says OCC President Angelica Suarez. "OCC has a proven record of being a transfer leader, and we are excited to learn about their future transfer plans."

The Cooke Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship is a prestigious national award that supports high-achieving community college students as they transfer to top four-year institutions to complete their bachelor's degrees. Semifinalists are chosen from a pool of nearly 1,600 applications attending 194 community colleges in 37 states, Washington, DC, and the Northern Mariana Islands.

"All five of our student scholars selected for this honor are involved in either our OCC Honors Program or one of the 16 honor societies available here at OCC," says OCC Garrison Honors coordinator Teresa Scarbrough. "They have truly distinguished themselves for their academic aptitude."

The finalists for the Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship will be announced in May. Each selected scholar will receive financial support for up to three years, college planning services, ongoing advising, and the opportunity to connect with a community of fellow Cooke Scholars.