Dear Donor to the Faculty of Science Scholarship Fund,
I am honoured and humbled to have received one of the Faculty of Science Scholarships. My name is Benjamin Rudski. I am a student in my second year of the joint Computer Science and Biology program at Â鶹ԼÅÄ. This program enables me to pursue and explore two passions of mine: life and the computer. With the rise of technology and the omnipresence of computers in society, this fusion is becoming increasingly relevant. I am very grateful for the opportunity that Â鶹ԼÅÄ has given me to study jointly in these fields. Whenever people ask me about my program, I respond that it is intense, but that I am loving it. Over the course of my first year, I came to understand that hard work comes in many different and often unexpected forms.
A year ago, I was introduced to university life. As a first-year student from Montreal, the adjustment was not easy. I felt like I was entering a big world, full of students who already knew each other from their freshman year together. I felt out of place and alone. Then, I discovered my academic passions. During my first two semesters, I took ten courses. Three of them were math, three were computer science, three were mandatory biology and one was an elective. My first computer science course, the first ever Computer Programming for Life Sciences, confirmed that I had chosen correctly when it came to the Computer Science side of life. On the mathematical side of life, I fell in love with Calculus 3, a course that I thought I would never take. Then, the biology hit. For the first time, I took an ecology and evolution course. Almost immediately, I became very interested in the topic. It was biology on a level that I had never experienced before. I changed my one elective for the year to an extra biology course, the prerequisite for the upper level Evolution course. My excitement for the material was only enhanced by Professor Ehab Abouheif’s passion about the material he was presenting. I sat in the front row, paying close attention to every lecture.
Near the end of the semester, I reached out to Professor Abouheif about volunteering in his ant evolution lab. He was very pleased and referred me to one of his graduate students. I met with the graduate student, and I was slightly disappointed. The volunteering was simply feeding the ants. I accepted the position, feeling slightly defeated. I was worried that I would be wasting my time. The next semester, I began the work. Twice a week, between my classes, I went to the lab to feed the ants. The experience was not at all what I thought it would be. Feeding the ants became one of my favourite activities. It enabled me to form important connections. I became very close with some of my feeding peers. I also forged relationships with the graduate students in the lab. I slowly began building up a reputation as somebody dependable and always concerned for the ants’ well-being. I also began taking on more of a leadership role. I began coordinating with the graduate students. I also started paying close attention to the ants. I told my friends stories about them and successfully recruited two friends to the lab. As the year drew to a close, I offered to continue feeding throughout the summer. I also reached out to Professor Abouheif again about research. Since I had gotten my foot in the door by feeding his ants, he accepted. We began discussing project ideas.
One of these ideas started out small. He wanted me to comb through ant enthusiast groups online and find information about ant nuptial flights. Ant nuptial flights occur when colonies are ready to reproduce. The colony produces winged male and female ants who fly away to mate and start new colonies. After starting to do some searching, I suggested to Professor Abouheif that we take a slightly different direction. The project evolved from scraping through the web to actually developing an app. My summer completely changed course. For three days a week over the summer, I went to campus early, arriving by about 8:30. I programmed for much of the morning, taking breaks for feeding myself and the ants. This biology project directly employed skills from many of my computer science courses. On the ant feeding front, I also took on a much more important role. With the regular feeders from the semester gone for the summer, I became one of the students with the most experience. I began training new ant feeders and was given extra responsibilities. I was even invited on an ant-collecting expedition to Â鶹ԼÅÄ’s Gault Nature Reserve on Mont Saint-Hillaire. My hard work and dedication brought me from being a simple ant-feeder to a valued member of the team.
I am extremely grateful to you for your contributions to the Faculty of Science Scholarship Fund. Your donations reward students who work hard and do well. You enable us to continue to gain educational opportunities. Furthermore, you give us a sense of pride by recognising our efforts and our work. Most importantly, you show us that at the end of the day, there are people who appreciate the work that we put into our education. The hours that we spend reading, writing, typing, programming, doing math homework, studying for exams, embarking on extra projects and feeding ants are appreciated.
Thank you again for your donation. The Faculty of Science Scholarship means a great deal to me.
Benjamin Rudski
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