From finding community on campus or earning top marks in challenging courses—even to becoming a mother just days before Convocation—members of St. Michael’s Class of 2021 have had a rich and unique set of experiences.
This year’s St. Michael’s class is large by University of Toronto standards. 817 students will receive degrees during a virtual convocation ceremony at noon EDT on June 23, and at 10:30 a.m. that day, members of the class will also be presented with a variety of College awards recognizing academic achievement and community involvement.
“St. Mike’s is known as the Catholic college, and features humanities and theological studies,” graduand Ruikai Wu says. His outstanding marks earned him this year’s College Gold Medal for science, which is the degree designation of the largest share of this year’s graduating class, and he is also one of two graduands to be nominated for the U of T Governor General’s Silver Medal. Wu’s goals for his university studies were to learn science and critical thinking, and he chose St. Michael’s as his college in order to gain exposure to non-scientific fields. “To understand the science better, you need to understand how people think and behave,” he says.
While his performance in Life Science courses related to microbiology and molecular biology helped him earn his award, one of Wu’s most meaningful course experiences was English 100-Effective Writing. “No matter what you do or study, you need to write clearly, to avoid abstract words and tense confusion,” he says.
Wu found a home at St. Mike’s after meeting other entrance scholarship recipients at a lunch that also included St. Michael’s staff members. “It felt nice because U of T is such a large place, and St. Mike’s is smaller but still a big place,” he says. Meeting fellow students helped give Wu a “feeling of community and a sense that there were people to talk to.” He also credits Assistant Registrar Nawang Khangkar with helping him feel welcome and cared about at St. Mike’s. “My experience at St. Mike’s would be very different” if not for her help, he says.
Fellow Life Sciences student Omar Elbardisy came to feel at home at St. Mike’s as a commuter student after attending Orientation Week events his first year. The College Silver Medal winner is the other U of T Governor General’s Silver Medal nominee for St. Mike’s, and like Wu, carried a 4.0 CGPA through his studies.
He also found great value in taking non-science courses. “I am from an Egyptian background; I was born there and lived there for a while before immigrating,” he says. “Being at U of T in a completely foreign country and seeing courses that address my home country really impacted me.” One of the most meaningful he took was Voices from Ancient Egypt, which he found “more literature and essay based” than his other classes in a way that he found “mutually enriching.
“I had to think about the material in a different way, and I studied differently… taking an interdisciplinary course makes you go beyond the readings, do your own research, and really helped me a lot,” he says.
Foundational to Elbardisy’s success in both scientific and humanities courses was the goal of truly understanding content instead of relying on rote memorization. He also sought balance through involvement in extracurricular activities at St. Michael’s such as intramural soccer, Orientation leadership, and connections with his commuter dons, all of which helped him feel at home at the College.
Community involvement and academic achievement in Italian Studies together qualified Chiara Muia to receive an Alberto and Caroline Morgan Di Giovanni Centro Scuola Scholarship. “During Orientation Week of my first year I was overwhelmed by how welcoming everyone at St. Mike’s was,” she says. She kept in touch with her leaders all four years, and forged friendships that have lasted through her student career.
Muia also found surprising upsides to working on her classes remotely. “Though I missed being on campus, I found that being online actually allowed me to talk to my professors much more,” she says. The ease with which she could reach out for a quick video chat “allowed me to get a lot more out of my classes than I generally would have.”
Muia took one of her most meaningful classes in her last semester. JCI350: Italian Canadian Culture and Identity “allowed me to better understand the history of my family and connect with them in a way I never have before,” Muia says.
Fellow graduand Samantha Ramphal found her studies and extracurricular involvement at St. Mike’s to help integrate many parts of her life. A transformative experience in the Gilson Seminar on Faith and Ideas her first year led the Environment and Health major to pick up Christianity and Culture as a minor. She will be receiving the Mercier-Knowlton Prize for Philosophy in Christianity and Culture and the Marina Santin Award at the USMC graduation awards ceremony on Wednesday.
“I enjoyed the experience of being in such a small and intimate classroom and having the chance to deepen my faith,” Ramphal says. Her experiences in the classroom led as well to a variety of extracurricular involvement including presenting a paper at St. Michael’s student research colloquium in 2017, volunteering as a student representative on the St. Michael’s Collegium, and serving as a student leader in the Christianity and Culture club.
The awards being given recognize the achievements of these and many other talented students, but they also point to bright futures after graduation. Wu will be entering a PhD program in the University of Toronto Department of Biochemistry, while Elbardisy will be starting medical school this fall, also at U of T. Muia’s next stop is a three-year Master of Architecture program at the Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism at Carleton University.
But Ramphal has perhaps the most unique next step of all. She welcomed her son Raphael into the world on the afternoon of Sunday, June 6—only weeks before convocation. Is he a future St. Michael’s student? We can only hope.
The University of St. Michael’s College Graduation Awards Ceremony will take place at 10:30 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, June 23.