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Trustees Award Scholarships To Foothill, De Anza Students

Trustees Award Scholarships to Foothill, De Anza Students

Foothill-De Anza Community College District's Board of Trustees has awarded ,500 scholarships to two continuing students who have demonstrated strong academic performance and are returning to Foothill College or De Anza College next year.

In awarding the scholarships, trustees also presented Foothill student Heidy Boch of Mountain View and De Anza student Khalid Rasti of Fremont with certificates recognizing their accomplishments.

Current and former elected trustees fund the Trustees Scholarship, which the board established in 2003. The awards are given annually to continuing students based on academic performance. Trustees Joan Barram and Bruce Swenson served on the committee to select this year's winners.

Ms. Boch is a 2010 graduate of Los Altos High school and lives in Mountain View with her parents, Jose and Maria Boch. She studied written and film communication at the Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District's Freestyle Academy of Communication Arts and Technology. At a recent board meeting, she described struggling with the sudden death of her older brother in 2009, and her subsequent decision to enroll in the Honors Program at Foothill College.

"I always saw Foothill as a place to learn, but I never thought it would also be a place of personal growth," she told trustees. "I am really happy here at Foothill."

Ms. Boch's academic goal is to transfer to a four-year university to study filmmaking. She hopes to have a career as a screenwriter or director and is majoring in video arts production at Foothill. She will study film production next fall at De Anza College.

Mr. Rasti was among the top 10 students in his class when he graduated from Washington High School in Fremont in 2004. He was accepted at several colleges, but put those plans on hold because he needed to work full-time. He entered De Anza in fall 2010 after working for six years as a real estate agent, and now works part-time for an attorney while attending De Anza.

Mr. Rasti plans to transfer to a four-year university to earn an accounting degree and eventually pursue a graduate degree in business, with a goal of one day becoming the chief financial officer of a major company or starting his own company.

Speaking to trustees, he cited the inspiration to return to school provided by his father, who served as an ambassador to India when the family lived in Afghanistan. When his father came to the United States, Mr. Rasti said, he had to let go of his past. He went back to school at age 45 while raising three children.

"When I saw how determined he was to finish school - not once, but twice - it gave me the same motivation," Khalid said. I am so honored to have a father like that."

He currently lives in Fremont with his parents, Ghulam and Mary Rasti.

"Heidy and Khalid are outstanding students with great futures ahead of them,'' said Board of Trustees President Pearl Cheng. "Like so many of our students, they have had to overcome obstacles to reach their educational goals and have worked hard to distinguish themselves. We are proud to have them attend our colleges."

The Trustees Scholarship is one of dozens of scholarship funds administered by the Foothill-De Anza Foundation. Learn more about how to help students who need scholarships at http://foundation.fhda.edu/scholarships .

--Posted June 28, 2011