International student calls out ‘unfair’ university awards

At the start of his petroleum engineering degree at Canada’s University of Alberta, Tomiwa Brown’s goal was to graduate as valedictorian, just like he did in high school. After realising the university did not have valedictorians, Brown decided to work hard regardless to achieve the highest academic recognition he could, achieving a 4.0 GPA in the last two years of his degree, writes Ose Irete for CBC News.

Then Brown learned about another award – the APEGA Past Presidents’ Medal – through watching a video of a past convocation ceremony. At first, he thought that this could be the prize he had been working towards. But after digging deeper he discovered there was no way he could win it, because as an international student he wasn’t even eligible.

About 20% of engineering students at the University of Alberta are international students, said a spokesperson for the university. Brown said it’s unfair for an award recognising academic achievement to cut out so many, especially if it means the medal is awarded to a student with a lower GPA than international students.
Full report on the CBC News site