Meet Nick Buzinsky, winner of this year's CD Howe Memorial Fellowship (awarded to the undergraduate student who attains the highest overall standing throughout their degree program at the University of Alberta), the Governor General's Silver Medal (the U of A's most prestigious undergraduate academic award) and the Lieutenant-Governor's Gold Medal (awarded to the graduating Faculty of Science student in an honours program who has shown the highest distinction in scholarship).
Before he heads off to pursue graduate studies at MIT, we asked Nick to reflect on some of the highlights from his time at the U of A.
I was trying to think up a response to this by writing down a list of all the really great memories, and I think the key thing that stands out for me is the community here.
The professor who really impressed me the most was Wojciech Rozmus, who studies plasma physics, even though I was more interested in particle physics classes. I loved the energy, the enthusiasm, and the sense of humour that he seemed to bring to all of his lectures: we all remember the time he started dancing along to a YouTube video about the double slit experiment or how his face lit up during a demonstration of Faraday's law. It can be easy to forget that these very talented people have some humanity to them.
"I'd hate to give the impression that I was in this for anything bigger than my own enjoyment." -Nick Buzinsky
The things on my list were mainly dumb jokes, pranks, reckless bets, etc., but the common theme throughout was the community of people, the professors and the other students, that I got to know. For example, in 3rd year, the day before Halloween I got the bright idea of dressing up as one of my buddies-he's about 10 inches taller than me, but I was able to hobble together a white t-shirt, striped track pants, and a blonde viking wig/ beard combo which were his trademarks. Even though we were supposed to get our midterms right after, there were a brief couple of minutes, with me sitting in my friend's "spot", and the entire class in on the joke with their eyes glued to the door, shushing each other from laughing, waiting for him to show up. He was a good sport about it and everyone got a laugh, but those couple of minutes were probably the closest I've been to a community of people, and something I won't forget anytime soon.
I know for these articles they usually talk about all the impressive awards the person won and how happy physics made them and how they grew as a human being. Obviously this is all a very big honour and I'm very humbled, but I'd hate to give the impression that I was in this for anything bigger than my own enjoyment. I grew to really appreciate these talented classmates and professors personally (I just found out that Lindsay LeBlanc was both a former winner of these awards and the GG medal at the same high school as me) and it was a great pleasure to know these people and to get to see them every day.
Two out of three ain't bad
Buzinsky isn't the only Faculty of Science student taking the University of Alberta's top honours. Colleen Kaufman is also receiving a Governor General's Silver Medal. Kaufman started out in Science 100, the former interdisciplinary first-year course and is graduating with both a BSc and a BEd from the Faculty of Education. She is the first student ever to receive a medal for a combined degree. Congratulations Colleen!