5K Steem is about 825 USD. I would probably cash out and buy myself something nice to celebrate my birthday. I would also use some of the money to buy books I need during the last 3 months in School, and to help me pay off a small bill or two.

So yeah, I would probably use it to help myself to graduate.

In case I wouldn't be allowed to use it in real life, I would probably power up 50-60% of it and host multiple contests, where I would try to encourage and motivate newcomers and "lesser accounts" to produce quality content. I think it's important to reward and motivate these users so they actually feel that it would be worth to power up and/or invest in Steem.