Chalmers Mathew received the 2022-23 Undergraduate Scholar Award from the City College of New York. He wrote this letter as a thank you to The Presser Foundation last spring.
Thank you for generously choosing me for the Presser Undergraduate Scholar Award. It is a great honor to receive this award and I am forever grateful for your support. Prior to receiving this award, there has been a year of difficulties in my life on a financial and emotional scale. With your aid, I am able to overcome the barriers presented to me in order to advance my studies and my impact on others.
I am currently a junior-year student, balancing a six-course workload in Popular Music Studies at City College along with a part-time job educating high schoolers in STEM subjects within the CUNY Tutor Corps program. I am also pursuing a Legal Studies minor, which I hope to use with my major in becoming a lawyer in intellectual property, copyright, and contract law.
I am also involved with the club community in the Macaulay Honors College, where I am the President of the Dungeons and Dragons Guild and a member of the Macaulay Musician’s Collective. With the latter, I have been able to explore recreational musical performance and have been previously able to perform for a Spring Formal. In the past year, my attendance has been limited by my workload and a difficult commute from the isolated Staten Island area to the center of Manhattan. In receiving this aid, I will be able to fully partake in regular performances, properly record original compositions, and engage in the musical community of CUNY.
Again, I am truly humbled and incredibly thankful for having been considered and selected by the Presser Foundation for this prestigious award.
