London awards two graduated high school students scholarship

The City of London awarded two students who finished high school with exceptional grades with a scholarship at Tuesday night's council meeting. 

Lily Spoozak and Mohamed Goha were awarded the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship, which recognizes students with the highest scholastic achievement in their graduating year.

Both students achieved an average of 99.50 per cent. 

"I worked so hard in school for four years so it was really an exciting feeling to have received this recognition," said Spoozak, one of the recipients of the $2,000 scholarship.

Spoozak graduated from Catholic Central High School and is now in her first year studying medical sciences at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

Goha, said it feels amazing to have won this scholarship — especially given the way the school year ended. 

Goha graduated from Saunders Secondary School and is now studying first year mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo. 

Goha's top marks also earned him University of Waterloo's President's Scholarship of Distinction, worth $3,500. 

"It's a combination of hard work and for a passion of the topics I like studying. If you're passionate about a topic, you're always going to put effort into it and always achieve the best you can for that topic," he said. 

Strange new beginnings

Both Goha and Spoozak say that starting university in the middle of a pandemic has been strange. 

"It's been quite the interesting experience to be honest. It's all online for the most part," said Goha. "It's a completely different experience from high school, but I'd say it's going pretty well so far."

While Goha was able to complete his courses online from London, Spoozak packed up her belongings and made her way to Halifax. 

"I was required to quarantine for two weeks, which was just another challenge," she said.

She's been living in residence for the past week but says moving to the city has been difficult with restrictions hindering her ability to meet new people. 

Both agree they find online learning has unique challenges, including a lack of collaboration. 

"It's hard when you're in a room or library by yourself, you don't have that same amount of contact and just ability to work with other people so it's definitely a bit isolating," said Spoozak. 

For Goha, he said his biggest challenge has been time management. He said building a schedule and following it each week is the most difficult part of online learning.