Impact

The Shu Kin Chiu Memorial Scholarship is given to a Mt. SAC student who has a passion to become a teacher in a STEM (Science, Technology, Education, and Math) field. This scholarship honors the legacy of a much loved math teacher, Shu Kin Chiu, who had a tremendous impact not only in the lives of her children and family, but also on hundreds of students. Shu Kin was born in 1938 in Yangon, Myanmar (formerly Rangoon, Burma), a country in Southeast Asia. Having been impressed by her grandfather of the importance of education, she fought prevailing customs and pressure to marry at the young age of seventeen, and became the first in her family to attend college. She excelled in school, particularly in mathematics, and was awarded a medal for academic excellence when she entered the university. After completing her degree, she taught math at the elementary school level before getting married to an electrical engineer. She was a loving mom who devoted herself to her five children while pursuing her passion for teaching, going above and beyond the classroom as she strove to improve the lives of her students, many of whom lived in poverty. She instilled in her children and students the values of compassion, honesty, independence, and a love for learning. She left the teaching profession when she immigrated to this country in 1979, but continued using her math skills as a clerk in an insurance company. After battling cancer for two years, she finally passed away in 2005. She is dearly missed by all who knew her, and it is the family’s hope that her legacy of academic excellence and teaching will continue through the awarding of this scholarship to a deserving student.