Two Grade 12 students from Ecole St. Mary High School, Jadon Sosnowski and Danika Linfitt are receiving the prestigious Chancellor’s Scholarship at the University of Saskatchewan.
“We’re both at the U of S and there’s a lot of people who go there,” Sosnowski said. “It’s a very competitive school, so when two people from St. Mary in PA, a smaller city, (win) it’s really special.”
The Scholarship is part of the Best and Brightest program and each scholarship is valued at $30,000 to $75,000 over four years. It is awarded annually to students who demonstrate outstanding academic achievement, leadership and community involvement.
Linfitt said that the application process was simple.
“The biggest issue was figuring out what I wanted to do, because it offered quite a bit,” Linfitt said. “I guess I mostly struggled with that, but otherwise it was just a matter of getting transcripts and everything.”
Sosnowski agreed that the application process was simple.
“I didn’t really find it too hard. I have two older brothers that both went to the university, so my mom was well versed in knowing what to do, when to do it. So yeah, it was a very easy process for us.”
Sosnowski is planning on entering the college of education beginning this summer with hopes of staying connected to Ecole St. Mary,
“I’m hoping to potentially come back here to St. Mary’s and teach other math or science and something like that,” he said.
Linfitt is planning on studying environmental biology.
“I’ll be doing my first year here and then from there I’ll be seeing where it takes me, but I’d like to generally stay close to Prince Albert,” Linfitt said.
“It (Environmental Biology) could be a lot of things, like a study of the ecosystem,” she added. “It could be things like looking out in the water. It could be a combination of also seeing how cities interact with the nature around them.”
Sosnowski said that he chose education as a major because he enjoys helping people learn.
“My whole life I’ve been one of the smarter kids at school and I really enjoy helping other students, especially some of my friends,” he said. “They’ve always asked me for help and I really enjoy working out problems with them and then allowing them to succeed.
“I realized that if I become a teacher, I’ll be able to like inspire so many other kids to do things in their life.
They both said the university was looking for someone with high academic standing who also is a well-rounded student who shows leadership.
“I think there were a few questions about extracurricular, but I think it was mainly based on average,” Linfitt said.
Both said that for other students to achieve it is important to keep trying.
“Just do the best you can, and then if you get certain scholarships, you do, and if you don’t, that’s perfectly okay. You can still succeed without having high marks,” Sosnowski said.
“It’s about the effort that you put in,” Linfitt added.
Linfitt said that both her and Sosnowski want to use their education to make a better world.
“We respectively are improving society either through education by teaching the kids and with the environment, keeping it a good place for all of us to live in and grow healthfully,” she said.
