SHAD provides life-changing experience
Two Cathedral students had the opportunity to participate in the SHAD program last July. SHAD is a registered Canadian charity that empowers exceptional high school students – at a pivotal point in their education – to recognize their own capabilities and envision their extraordinary potential as tomorrow’s leaders and change makers.
Here, Andrew Daly shares insights into his transformational SHAD experience and how it has shaped his future career choice.
ANDREW DALY, GRADE 12
I would recommend SHAD to anybody simply because it was the greatest month of my life.
When I was accepted into SHAD at the University of Saskatchewan, I was expecting a fun, academic experience.
From the people I met to the amazing university lectures, the camping trips and other experiences, I can say that what SHAD gave to me was much more than what I had expected.
SHAD allowed me to live the whole month of July in a university environment, where we stayed in campus dorms and went to three lectures a day. The lecture topics were extremely diverse, ranging from very concrete topics such as bio-engineering to very philosophical topics, like human intelligence and nature.
Every day we had three lectures, but the activities in between lectures were different depending on the day. For example, some days we would spend time building tents out of wood and garbage bags to sleep in during the night, and other days we would visit and use Canada’s light source synchrotron and learn about particle acceleration.
Some days we would do less academic activities, such as play basketball in the university gym or go camping. The diversity of the activities, lectures and tours allows for the exploration of scientific and other academic fields that one may find interesting for their future careers. In my case, the astronomy activities we did only further strengthened my desire to pursue a career in the astronomical field.
Perhaps the greatest gift SHAD gave to me was the connections I made during the month. When I arrived in Saskatchewan I was intimidated by the 55 other people who I did not yet know. Looking back at the whole experience I am surprised how in only one month I made such friends with those 55 strangers. They are truly some of the best friends I have ever made, and I will always stay in contact with every one of them.
The SHAD program is a life-changing experience that gave me so much more than what I had expected, and from the people that I met and made great friends with to the amazing experiences throughout the month, I can say that my month in Saskatchewan was the greatest time of my life, one which I will cherish forever.