Studious in a classroom setting, senior Jonathan Ma was recently awarded the Microsoft Office Specialist Master award, a distinction that Ma adds to his many academic accomplishments.

“I’m surprised that I’m the only student in the state to achieve this,” Ma said. “And I hope it will help me in the future, like if I’m stuck in some office job in a cubicle.”

Studying Word, Word Expert, Power Point, Excel, Access and Excel Expert Ma ended with a grand total of six certification tests under his belt. Ma scored well above passing a 950 on his Excel Expert certification test. He is the only student in the state to be given this award for the 2013-2014 school year.

“It took a bit to learn all of the skills, especially for Access and for most of the tests the qualifying score was 700.” Ma said.

Ma began this course for this certification in his CBA (Computer Business Application) class at the start of the semester and finished the final one (Excel Expert) in April.

“It was a semi-side project that Mrs. Westbrook assigned but didn’t enforce that much.” Ma said. “I just spent any free time I had on it when ever I was in the class.”

With all of these skills Ma said he hopes he can use them to become a graphic designer, animator, or film editor. Ma will be attending University of Arkansas in the fall and has received the Chancellor’s scholarship along with the Mu Alpha Theta scholarship.

“I’m going to be an honor grad. I got the red cord for being a completer in Digital Communications and the blue and gold cord for Mu Alpha Theta. Now I have this [the Microsoft Office Specialist Master award] added. It’s an awesome honor to have.” Ma said.