Schools
Lynbrook Salutatorian Receives Grumman Scholarship
Matthew Gus selected for his skills, interest in engineering.
Lynbrook High School salutatorian Matthew Gus was one of five recipients of the Northrop Grumman 2011 NextGen Engineers Scholarship.
As a scholarship winner, he will receive $10,000 toward his college education — $2,500 per year for four years. In addition, Northrop Grumman works to place each student in internships at the local facility for three summers of the four years of undergraduate studies. Including salaries, these scholarships could be worth as much as $30,000 each.
“They looked at my grades and community service. I had to write a short essay on why I’m interested in engineering,” Gus said. “Then I had to interview with VPs from the company.”
Gus, who has had a love for building things since he was little, applied for the scholarship because he thought it would be a great opportunity for him.
“I thought the internship would be a great experience for me and help me with a career after college,” he said.
Gus, who plans on going to the University of Pennsylvania in the fall and studying engineering, has been involved in engineering throughout his high school career.
He participated in the Rube Goldberg competition where he and a team of students built a machine that was designed to do something simple in as many complicated steps as possible, he said.
He and a partner also traveled to Houston to compete in I-SWEEP, an international fair where they both received bronze medals. His research engineering project for the competition involved ultra capacitors.
“I like being able to work hands-on and being able to be creative with something I build,” he said.
In the future, the seven-year Hewlett resident hopes to go into special effects engineering or something mechanical like robotics or animatronics.
Gus is the managing editor of his school’s newspaper, Horizon, and the president of the Mathletes team.
“It’s a nice community,” he said. “The people are nice. I like being able to go around town and see a lot of people I know.”
