A group of new students at Waterloo Engineering are starting their undergraduate degrees with $100,000 in backing from the prestigious Schulich Leader Scholarships program.
Tyler West and Dhruv Upadhyay will study mechatronics engineering, Peter Zhu and Yashvardhan Mulki are incoming software engineering students, and Christina Hanna is starting the nanotechnology engineering program.
They are among almost 100 Schulich scholarship winners who will attend 20 partner universities across the country for studies in science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs.
Selected from a pool of more than 300,000 graduating high school students in Canada, the winners were chosen based on grades, community leadership and participation in entrepreneurial ventures.
Tyler West
West, of Cannington, Ontario, has long had his sights set on Waterloo after hearing stories about it from his alumnus father. A trip to campus last fall sealed the deal.
“The University of Waterloo is a hub for innovation, entrepreneurship and action-oriented thinking that pushes the world forward,” he said. “All this combined with the amazing co-op program at the University really made me feel like this is a place that I wanted to be a part of and use as a springboard for my life and career.”
West hopes to become a successful entrepreneur and, in addition to involvement in a long list of sports, clubs and student government, already has experience after starting a 3D printing business in grade 10.
Peter Zhu
Zhu, of Moncton, also has aspirations as an entrepreneur and has been coding since the start of high school.
“I think it was appealing to me not only because it allowed me to explore the art of engineering, but also because it let me realize my ideas through apps and scripts,” he said. “Programming isn’t merely about creating software — it’s about creating ideas.”
Zhu is proud of his numerous awards from science fairs, including some at the international level, and was an active participant in a variety of extra-curriculars.
Dhruv Upadhyay
Upadhyay, of Whitby, was drawn to Waterloo by its reputation for innovation, research and a thriving startup ecosystem.
He has long been fascinated by robots, earned a glider pilot licence, has a second-degree black belt in Taekwondo and co-founded a social enterprise to address the issue of plastic waste in southeast Asia.
“I’m a firm believer in the potential of technology to be leveraged to solve some of our biggest problems and aim to develop a startup that does just that,” Upadhyay said.
Yashvardhan Mulki
Mulki, of Oakville, was drawn to Waterloo by its co-op program after distinguishing himself in a global Apple program for top student developers.
His interests include the use of artificial intelligence to enhance human abilities, quantum computing and quantitative finance, as well as playing the guitar, and reading books on history, politics and economics.
“With distance learning, it’s often harder to stay focused on work and ensure you’re keeping up with lectures, assignments and tests, so I think finding an organizational system that helps you stay on top of things is key,” Mulki said. “I’ve set up a workflow within my calendar and to-do list to keep track of everything, as well as a digital note-taking system to help me succeed academically.”
Christina Hanna
Hanna, of Oakville, was a peer coach and chair of a music council in high school, along with volunteering at a retirement home and taking numerous mission trips to places such as the Dominican Republic.
She is enthusiastic about co-op and the opportunity to work with multi-disciplinary student design teams at Waterloo, and was a competitive swimmer as well as a swimming coach with her own business.
One of her proudest achievements involved field research on water purification and treatment in Kenya.
“I hope that as an engineer, I will be able to help solve world issues from a variety of fields innovatively and create opportunities for future nanotechnology ambassadors as well,” Hanna said.
Click here for the full story on campus-wide Schulich scholarship winners at the University of Waterloo.