Blog

Tasbiha Ansari describes her journey as a 2023 Fusion Conference competition delegate

The key to the successful SCBUS mentorship platform at the University of Waterloo was a strategic partnership with Ten Thousand Coffees (10KC), a user-friendly platform with AI capabilities, resulting in over 600 students and alumni connected for mentorship and networking opportunities, with a 96% satisfaction rate and continuous improvement based on feedback.

One of the many beauties of the Science and Business program are the success stories that are created as a result of leveraging the resources, applying course content, and following the guidance of mentorship that the program has to offer. To introduce the launch of the Science and Business program’s newest collaboration, we’re excited to spotlight Kaurtino; an environmentally conscious e-commerce company that manufactures and sells luxurious handmade scrunchies made from high quality and repurposed fabrics.

Esha Awan (she/her), shares her co-op experience as a fourth-year Science student, working in a variety of industries — from pharmaceuticals to robotics— in addition to her passion for veterinary sciences.

The 2021 Building Better Financial Futures Challenge was first introduced to the students of Professor Igboeli’s Management of Business Organizations course (SCBUS 122) as an opportunity to earn bonus points towards their overall course mark. One year later, four Science and Business students reflect on their successful challenge submissions, the experience, and the rewarding feeling that comes with representing our program on a federal scale.

As a first-year student, I viewed Science and Business (SCBUS) workshops as nothing more than a series of program-specific courses that I had to take every year. Why not? Accounting and Financial Management (AFM) students take AFM courses, Applied Mathematics (AMATH) students experience AMATH courses, biology students spend 3-6 hour in labs every week, and SCBUS students get their SCBUS workshops.
 
About three quarters of the way into my final workshop of the program, I realized the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 

Introduction

For the past four years, I've been a student at the University of Waterloo studying in the Science and Business co-op program, specializing in Biochemistry. Being from B.C., one of the reasons why I chose to fly across the country to attend Waterloo was because of the co-op program.

On November 13, Abigail Leu, Jake Goodman, Jared Richstone, and Shaylon Godse placed first overall at the 17th annual Fusion Conference, hosted by University of Waterloo. The Fusion Conference, operating since 2004, merges knowledge from science, business, and technology fields through a unique theme each year. Graduate and undergraduate students from around the world were encouraged to compete for a prize pool of $6,000.  

Every student goes to university with a purpose. To me, university means forming connections and developing skills that help me make a positive impact on the world. I'm always looking for opportunities that help me achieve this goal through my passion for science, business, and technology, so joining the Fusion team in 2020 was a dream come true.