Can Zuckerberg Hear Me?

I'm 19 years old (I'll be 20 in July). I graduated from high school in May of 2009.

Unfortunately, my family was not in a position to help me attend college and I didn't (and still don't) qualify for student loans.

So what does this have to do with you?

I believe that a fundamental part of your success has stemmed from the fact that you were able to attend college, if only for a short time.

Given that, I would ask that you invest in my college education.

Yes. Seriously.

Given a grant of $50,000, I could attend all four years of college and graduate with a Bachelors of Science in Computer Science.

I've been a web developer for eight years, and I've been using and contributing to the Drupal project for two and a half years (yes, you read that correctly: I started programming when I was eleven years old). If I had a degree, I believe that I would be able to be a better contributor to the Drupal project simply because by going to college, I would learn to process and synthesize information differently and more efficiently and perhaps bring new perspectives to the table with regard to design decisions.

I've had reasonably good luck getting a job with my current skill set, but I've run into many barriers because I don't have a degree. One company that I talked with would not even consider me as an applicant because I did not hold a degree (even though I met and exceeded every other job requirement). I don't think this is necessarily fair, but it's how things are.

Here's what I could guarantee if you were to invest in me:

• First and foremost, my undying gratitude. I literally do not have the words to express how much a college scholarship would mean to me.
• Secondly, attending college would allow me to be an active contributor to open-source projects around the internet. Inevitably, during college, I will be required to do technical assignments for various computer classes. Since I'm already familiar with many programming languages, my intent is to build or contribute to an open source project for each project that I'm assigned to do.
• Thirdly, I could re-invest some of the money. Since universities typically do not allow one to pay four years of tuition all at once, I would put the entire sum of money into a high-yield savings account and gift the yearly interest to an open-source project that needs it in a yet-to-be-determined selection method. In this way, a grant for my college education could be viewed as an investment in various open source projects, upon which Facebook (and many other companies) are built.

I don't have any idea what I can do to repay you for such a scholarship, but I would love the opportunity to at least talk with you about it. If it turns out that you're not interested, I understand. It's a significant sum of money, and I'm a complete stranger at this point.

If, by some miracle, you are interested, feel free to contact me via the Contact page on this site or send me an email at me@cweagans.net.

I hope to hear from you soon.

Credits:

• Dustin Hoffman (Design Assistance)
• Photo Credit