WATCH: Baldwin receives Selig scholarship

Miriam Baldwin, a National Park College student, recently received the John and Helen Selig scholarship. - Photo by John Anderson of The Sentinel-Record
Miriam Baldwin, a National Park College student, recently received the John and Helen Selig scholarship. - Photo by John Anderson of The Sentinel-Record

Miriam Baldwin, a National Park College student, recently received the John and Helen Selig scholarship to pursue her associate degree in Biology.

According to NPC's website, the scholarship is awarded to a student with a 3.5 GPA who has completed 12 credit hours and has one year left to complete the coursework.

The student also has to write a one-page essay on how their education will impact them and those around them, the website said.

"It feels really good. ... It was a relief, money-wise, because I was kind of in a rough spot. So, having the scholarship provided me with a good opportunity to continue going to class and continuing my education," Baldwin said.

Baldwin first came to NPC in 2018-2019 after she took a year off from school. She said she has a passion for history and biology and wants to focus on more of the biology side of her degree while going for a historical science approach, noting she is considering paleobiology.

"I have been talking with some professors and have been wanting to see what I could do to connect biology and history together," she said.

She decided to go into biology because it was something she had not considered, she said. She was working toward a history major, but started reading about biology and took a couple of classes.

"It was really interesting, and concepts that I hadn't normally thought of, or considered to be topics of discussions or topics of career choices. It was something I want to try (that's) new and something challenging for myself. ... ," Baldwin said.

She said she chose to return to NPC because she was not sure where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do.

"I had seen on NPC's homepage about their biology degree and their setup with Southern Arkansas University and (how) I could continue at National Park College," Baldwin said.

"It was very convenient for me, and it was something that I had thought about doing. ... It was something that was very familiar and I like to stay in that kind of area," she said.

Education is important to her because it's good to educate yourself, she said, noting, "No matter what topic whatever you're doing, it's always good to have that knowledge beforehand.

"It's something as a woman, and a minority having that education, that's really something that maybe before I wouldn't have had the possibility to even have," Baldwin said.

"Education, in general, is something that everyone needs to have. That opportunity to be educated and have the knowledge that other people were afforded to have already," she said.

"While most students excel in only one or two areas, Baldwin is a very well-rounded scholar who has earned excellent grades in diverse courses including the honors seminar in Makerspace technology, literature, history and chemistry. Baldwin is a quick learner with tremendous potential and an impressive grade-point average," Christopher Thrasher, history faculty at NPC, said in a news release.

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