White Rock student receives $44,000 bursary to study medicine at UBC
Jason Makoshi Bagudu, 17, earned the Bright Beginnings Foundation award for talented Surrey students facing financial barriers. He plans to start at UBC in September.
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A White Rock teenager will head to UBC this fall free from tuition burden, thanks to a $44,000 bursary from the Bright Beginnings Foundation.
Jason Makoshi Bagudu, 17, signed the contract on June 24. An Earl Marriott Secondary graduate who immigrated to the Semiahmoo Peninsula from Nigeria around three years ago with his mother and two younger brothers, Bagudu described the award as "definitely a huge blessing and a huge help."
"It would definitely be hard to sustain my schooling without this type of support," he said on Friday, July 3. "I'm just really grateful for what has been given to me."
Bagudu discovered the bursary opportunity through the school's Teams app and plans to study sciences starting in September, eyeing a career in medicine. He's considering family medicine, anesthesiology, and dermatology. "In my last year of high school, I was really thinking about what I wanted to do and I just saw myself liking the medical field more," he said. "I think there needs to be more doctors in the world, and more medicine professionals."
Bagudu said he was "dumbfounded" to learn he'd been chosen, suspecting he faced stiff competition from many other applicants. The Bright Beginnings Foundation, founded in March 2015 as an all-volunteer organization, dedicates 99% of donations to bursaries for talented Surrey students with financial challenges who demonstrate good work ethic and academic potential.
