Junior Jacob Rasch won a $20,000 scholarship from the 2010 Junior Achievement Essay Competition for his essay, “All I Really Need to Know about Business, I Learned in High School.” 

 At the awards ceremony Nov. 30, the organization gave $10,000 each to three students from D.C., Maryland and Virginia. Rasch came in first place for both Maryland and the overall competition. 

This year’s question asked students to answer, “What can the Greater Washington business community learn from today’s high school students?” Roughly 1,600 students from the D.C. metropolitan area submitted essays.

Rasch said the inspiration for his essay came from his 2010 spring break exchange program to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia, where he used the social media website Web 2.0 to connect American teens with other adolescents around the world.

“It makes a point about how teenagers are ahead of the curve as far as technology is concerned,” Rasch said. “We can think outside of the box because we don’t know what the box is.”

Even though he spent hours working on his essay, Rasch said he was surprised to win the grand prize.

“I was extremely excited that I won,” he said. “Not only will this help me get into college, but it will help me pay for it too.”

Previously, the contest chose ten winners overall and one grand prize winner. Last year, four Whitman students received the $10,000 runner-up scholarships.

Jacob Rasch is a news writer for the Black & White.