Wise Ways to Use SIA RISE Scholarship Dollars

Earning a $3,000 RISE Scholarship can be a game changer for anyone looking to invest in their own professional development. But no matter how worthy you might be of earning a scholarship, many would-be applicants often struggle to apply because of one major barrier: they don’t know how they would use the scholarship funds if they were fortunate enough to win. If you’re having a tough time determining how you’d want to use a RISE Scholarship if you were to win, here are a few ways you may want to consider before deciding to apply:

• Student loans – Just because you’ve graduated doesn’t mean you’re done paying for school. Those payments are directly related to professional development that inspired your career direction, so even though your loans may be for past education, you can still use the RISE scholarship to help pay off your student debt.
• Higher education – Whether you’re getting an associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate degree, continuing your professional development journey by investing in higher education is a great way to build your skills in the classroom. We know these costs can build quickly, making a RISE Scholarship especially useful for this investment.
• Other courses or educational programs – A lot of professional development courses and programs exist outside of higher education. As long as those courses are from reputable sources contributing clear educational value to your career, the RISE Scholarship is a great way fund those courses and programs.
• Certifications – There are a lot of exceptionally valuable certifications out there, like SIA’s Certified Security Project Manager (CSPM) credential and Security Industry Cybersecurity Certification (SICC) and more. These certifications normally come with a cost, making the RISE Scholarship a useful tool to set you up for success when earning a new certification.
• Industry conferences – Security conferences and professional development conferences are a great way to build your skills, but the costs of admittance, travel and more can ramp up quickly. You can use the RISE Scholarship to cover these event expenses as well!
• Creative professional development investments – If you have a unique way that you think you could use the RISE Scholarship to develop your skills, it never hurts to ask the SIA RISE team if they’d accept your creative idea!

The views and opinions expressed in guest posts and/or profiles are those of the authors or sources and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Security Industry Association.

This article originally appeared in RISE Together: A Newsletter for Emerging Security Leaders, presented by SIA’s RISE community.