MANITOWANING—Manitoulin Secondary School student Dylan Kuntsi could not hold back his enthusiasm when talking about participating in the prestigious SHAD program this summer.
“It was amazing—probably the best experience of my life,” stated Mr. Kuntsi, after taking part in the month-long SHAD program. Mr. Kuntsi was one of only two students selected for a scholarship through the Canada-wide SHAD program earlier this year. He was one of 131 students who took part in the program. The SHAD enrichment program is named after Shad Creek in southern Ontario, which is close to the school where the program originated in 1981. SHAD offices are based in Waterloo, Ontario.
“I had the opportunity to meet so many creative, smart, cool people through this program,” said Mr. Kuntsi. He applied for the SHAD program earlier this year and was notified in January that he was one of only two students Canada-wide to win a $7,200 scholarship.
Dylan, who will be entering Grade 11 at MSS this fall, explained previously, “to apply you have to answer a whole bunch of questions that they send you (including a couple of essays) and tell (SHAD) about yourself, your experiences and extra-curricular activities you take part in.” He had two MSS teachers provide references and had to provide information as to what his grade point average is in school (it’s an impressive 93 percent).
SHAD Canada is an annual Canadian summer enrichment program for high achieving Grade 10-11 high school students, held in July. The program is open to both Canadian and international students, and the program is offered at about 19 participating universities across Canada.
Students participate in university level STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics). There is also entrepreneur content and participants have access to mentors. Students get to attend one university for 27 days, attend lectures, do labs, work with professors, and participate in group projects.
“I went to the University of Western Ontario,” Mr. Kuntsi told The Expositor. He stayed in a two-room suite on campus (with a roommate) and noted a typical day would be waking up at 6:30 am, going for a run and having breakfast. “Normally roll call would take place, and then we would go into lectures or activities until lunch. After lunch we would again attend lectures from professors, then later in the day the students would take in some type of sports activity. Dinner would normally take place in the cafeteria and after that 6:30 pm fun, team building activities would take place in groups.
After the announcements would take place at 9 pm, students had free time until curfew at 11 pm.
“There were 131 students in total taking part this year, the biggest group SHAD has ever had before,” said Mr. Kuntsi.
On the first day of the SHAD program the students were presented with a lecture, Black Hole-being alone in the universe. The students took place in about nine projects, being asked to come up with solutions for issues and concerns relating to topics like transportation. “A lot of what we worked at was involving business entrepreneurship, marketing a business and what we felt could be done to make a business prosper.”
“We equip youth to take on social and economic challenges with a STEAM lens. Each campus tackles the same real world problems and designated design teams with assigned mentors develop STEAM-based solutions, pitches and presentations to panels. This is an entrepreneurial experience with a social impact and one of the most loved aspects of our program,” the SHAD website states.
Mr. Kuntsi said one of the highlights of the program for him was, “I was allowed to touch an actual human heart, which was really cool.”
While he is entering Grade 11 at MSS this fall and will be starting a summer course to get ahead on credits this month, after the SHAD program, “I know I want to do something in science with all the awesome things that you can do in this (career).”
As for which university he would like to pursue his post-secondary school studies, “the University of Western Ontario is definitely up there. The campus is cool and I know where everything is now,” said Mr. Kuntsi.
Dylan said any student that has the opportunity to take part in the SHAD program should do so. “Yes, 100 percent. It is such a great experience. There were 130 other kids on hand, and everyone makes great connections with their fellow students.”
Dylan’s sister, Jocelyn (also a former MSS student) received the same SHAD scholarship when she took part in SHAD three years ago.
