Aaron Parkinson - Jim Seeley Memorial Scholarship Recipient 2025

“I've wanted to go to college ever since I was younger,” Aaron Parkinson says. “I've always been told I have an engineering mindset.”

Even with Aaron’s exceptional math and science skills, getting a college degree was a relatively bold dream for someone from his background. If he succeeded, he would be the first member of his family in four generations to complete college. “I've always been in a poorer household,” he explains. “And there was a portion of time where my dad was incarcerated and my mom was basically a single mother for her three kids.”

Despite these challenges, Aaron was inspired to pursue his goals by teachers and classmates in the FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) program at Brookings Harbor High School.

“I joined the robotics club because I wanted to see what it was all about,” he recalls. “I helped build the robot we used for the national robotics competition, and we actually won the Oregon regionals. Later, I was voted in as the team captain, so for pretty much the entirety of high school, I was part of the robotics team. That's when I gained my love for engineering.”

With help from the Jim Seeley award, Aaron is now pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in aerospace. “I was originally planning to attend OIT and take out student loans,” Aaron says. “But because I got this full scholarship, I ended up accepting an offer from Oregon State, which is where I am now.” 

Through OSU’s MECOP Program, Aaron was selected to receive a prestigious six-month internship at Boeing’s massive facility in Everett, Washington: “It was fascinating to see the internal structure of Boeing planes and the inner workings of that manufacturing environment. I just kind of knew that's what I wanted to do.”

Boeing’s final appraisal concluded that Aaron’s internship had exceeded the company’s expectations. “That’s the highest rating you can get,” Aaron notes. “It worked out really well, so now I'm going back for a second internship.”

As excited as Aaron is to work with Boeing, he’s also eager to help gifted but isolated rural students whose prospects are jeopardized by generational poverty and low expectations. “It's so important for youth in these communities to have aspirations and to know what they want to do with their lives,” he emphasizes. “One of the bigger things I want to accomplish personally is to strengthen the connection between Boeing and FRC. The key to getting great engineers is to reach people while they’re still figuring out what they want to do—especially in high school.”

“If hadn’t gotten the Seeley scholarship, I would’ve had to work all throughout college,” Aaron concludes. “I wouldn't have had time to do an internship. But now, I’ll have a year of engineering experience plus all the connections I was able to make. That’s so much more important than a piece of paper that just says, ‘I went to college.’