When Kenneth Eversole (CS, ’19) came to WSU, he decided to try everything.
Student government? Sure.
IT help desk? Sure.
Satellites? Sure.
“I approached WSU with the mindset that I would say yes to everything that I found remotely interesting,” he said. “‘What is the risk,’ I thought. ‘I’m here. I can always quit. I might as well take it all in.’”
Eversole’s time at WSU changed his life, and now he’s giving back by establishing a computer science scholarship. He is one of many donors who are stepping up to build new scholarship funds. With growing enrollment and increasing industry demand for trained computer scientists, scholarships in computer science are needed more than ever, said Sandi Billings, director of development at the Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture.
“Alumni and other donors create nearly all scholarships, and computing as a course of study only began 50 years ago—at most,” she said.
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Director Partha Pande is addressing the shortfall by allocating more general scholarship dollars to more computing majors. This year, the school was able to award more than 100 scholarships to computer science, computer engineering, and cybersecurity students.
Eversole is one of those who wanted to give back some of what he received. He was the first in his family to attend college.
“I received many scholarships at WSU,” he said. “Being a first-generation kid from a hard-working mom who cleaned houses and worked as a CNA on midnights to ensure I had a normal life — If I can give back and have the position to do it, it’s my responsibility.”
Originally from a small community along the Mississippi River in the Midwest, Eversole always had an interest in technology and decided to study computer science by the time he was in middle school.
“Growing up with a single mom, we were not able to just replace something when it broke, so I had to learn to fix it,” he said. “As I grew older, I started various jobs fixing people’s computers or building a Minecraft server business. It eventually became part of my lifestyle, and I’ve been doing it my whole life. Looking back, it was my version of the lawn mowing business or the paper route.”
Eversole wanted to leave his small town and come to Washington, a hub for computing. He found a place that felt like home on the Palouse.
“The Midwest is known for cornfields, soybeans, and being a flyover area, and Pullman is similar to that,” he said. “Many people in the world may not know about it because it is just a place between them and their destination, but it’s beautiful when you get down to it. It’s the same as where I grew up. The reality is it’s full of some pretty wonderful people.”
Once he got to WSU, he jumped into numerous activities from student government to clubs. He also joined the Harold Frank Engineering Entrepreneurship Institute. In his sophomore year, he helped found Cougs in Space, eventually becoming president of the club.
The club was aiming to send a satellite to space and to help become a pillar of innovation within Voiland College. Driven by an idea and surrounded by extremely talented like-minded students, he walked into a room in the Spark to be greeted by 100 people who had gathered for the club’s first meeting.
“That one moment changed my life,” he said. “We were building a club, and we were building a satellite, and we had never done this before as a university. This is the exact moment I began to flesh out my ability to be a leader.”
After graduation, Eversole went to work for Boeing in St. Louis, returning to his Midwestern roots, and is now a systems reliability engineer for Cloudflare. He also is a member of Arch Grants, which provides small business grants and assistance to people in the St. Louis area.
Many alumni have undergone similar transformations during their time at WSU, and Eversole looks forward to continuing the tradition of supporting the next generation of students into the future.
“WSU gives regular folks a chance,” he said. “The school has an incredible ability to craft young people to help them shine. The beauty of that is that you can change generations of people.”
Learn more about supporting computer science scholarships.