Alex’s Scholarship Story

Opportunities Without Limits

Alex Hollier wrapped up high school weighing offers from several universities, and choosing LSU felt like the natural next step. He shared, “LSU has always been a big part of my life. Being from Louisiana, you kind of see it everywhere. It's hard to go without seeing it. But especially whenever I was kind of looking into colleges and kind of seeing what's best, LSU was always seeming like the next step. It was always just the big jump.” 

Alex moved from Lafayette to Baton Rouge to pursue a degree in computer science within the College of Engineering and was selected to receive the Beau & Natalie Fournet Honors Opportunity Scholarship within the Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College and the Best in Class Scholarship for his outstanding academic record. He remembered, “When I received my scholarship, I was super excited. It was really good to see all my hard work paying off and being able to know that I was supported through college.” 

His experiences since can be characterized by one word: opportunity. Alex said, “I think LSU has been very awesome at opening me up to all of these different opportunities, kind of showing me all these different pathways — not just putting me on one and expecting me to go through all the way, but just really making it a good way to learn about everything. And I think that that has been more impactful on my education than anything else, the ability to explore different opportunities.”

“It is really a weight off my shoulders. It is something that I don't have to think about anymore as far as how I can even just get through the next year. It has allowed me to look much further along than I would have without it.”

Those opportunities have included study abroad, research, and innovative coursework. Alex said of his computer science curriculum, which attracted him to LSU, “I think a lot of these new programs that we're doing, a lot of these new courses, have really exceeded my expectations for what I was looking forward to.” 

A hallmark experience was an artificial intelligence course that partnered students with local businesses as clients. Alex’s team was partnered with Entergy. He said, “That was just an awesome experience. Being able to see my solutions actually used in the real world for a real problem was just incredible,” adding, “Getting to work with an actual company and getting a direct problem that they had and seeing what we could do to kind of take AI and use it on that project to figure out how to make their lives a little bit easier … That really showed me kind of what computer science looks like in a real business, what it looks like to be outside of the class and working on real problems.” 

Research opportunities have also made the classroom-to-life link tangible for Alex. He explained, “The research that I'm doing is based on robotics research. We're doing a lot of things on how to kind of get people more prepared for robotics and how to expose it to people that are maybe not as experienced, maybe come from a different background, just making it more accessible for them. … I didn't know necessarily that robotics was an option when I came in here.” 

This immersive approach to education, made possible through scholarship support, has been transformative for Alex. He said, “My experience at LSU has been amazing. It's been super enriching being able to do all of these different opportunities, not just within computer science, but studying abroad and doing research, doing all these different organizations.” 

He described the life-changing impact of his scholarship, saying, “It is really a weight off my shoulders. It is something that I don't have to think about anymore as far as how I can even just get through the next year. It has allowed me to look much further along than I would have without it.”