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McGill News
ALUMNI QUARTERLY - winter 2008
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At the Top of Their Game - Stories of Student Success


Picture of students.Picture of students.

Three words - disciplined, passionate and competitive - best describe the students you'll meet in this story. Each has an edge that's kept them at the top of their McGill class. Each has won accolades for intellectual achievement. And each, says McGill Dean of Students Bruce Shore, possesses a common trait that fosters success: "They are self-driven individuals."
McGill is a fertile place, adds Shore, for students keen on achieving all they can. The University provides a multitude of educational and extracurricular options. And the University's home base, Montreal, is an exciting metropolis from which students can also draw many lessons.
"The range of opportunities offered at McGill is unmatched by any other university," says Shore. "It's a place where independent, motivated, curious young people can thrive, and the most successful students are doing much more than just hitting the books."

Elza Brunelle-Yeung

Elza Brunelle-Yeung, a second-year mechanical engineering student, is a determined scholar who's a proponent of downtime. "I might not have a spare minute," laughs the Quebec native, "but I still find time to snowboard. I reward myself for my hard work."

Brunelle-Yeung - a member of McGill's Golden Key Honour Society, and a recipient of both Greville-Smith and Canada Millennium scholarships - says there's more to university than studying.

"A complete experience includes extracurriculars. You have to play a sport, you have to volunteer, and get involved, otherwise you never think of anything but school."

Brunelle-Yeung helps plan charity balls for the McGill Cancer Centre, organizes youth leadership conferences and participates in Engineers Without Borders. "I love volunteering because it allows me to work with people from all backgrounds," she says.

Learning about new cultures is a strong interest. She gets a firsthand glimpse through her McGill friends who hail from China, Sri Lanka, Japan, India, Hong Kong and the U.S. "Every person has their customs," she says, "and we learn from one another."

During the summers, she works as a counselor at the Space and Science Centre in Laval, Que., which caters to kids. People often ask if she'd like to follow the lead of astronaut Julie Payette, BEng'86, DSc'03, and jet off into space. "That's not my plan," she says. "I want to work in the aerospace industry to be among those who design aircraft or the vessels that fly to outer space."

That she'll work hard to attain her goals is without question: "I always set my standards high," says the 2001 recipient of a Governor General of Canada's Academic Medal, which is awarded to the country's top high school students. "I do everything I can to surpass myself."

Patrick Cournoyer

Patrick Cournoyer is a resolute man. "I've had to blaze my own trail at McGill," admits the Enfield, Connecticut, native, who graduates with a double major in German literature and botanical sciences in May. It's an unusual academic blend that's a first at McGill: "I thought it was important to combine arts and science - I wanted to work both sides of my brain," says Cournoyer, a recipient of the prestigious Blouin-MacBain Scholarship.

Studying plants has been a lifelong dream. "I was so into plants that, for my eighth birthday, I received seeds, a spade and a shovel," he recalls. Attending a Montreal university was initially not in the cards for Cournoyer, who didn't know about McGill until he was urged to visit the University's web site by a former boss. "Within 10 minutes I knew McGill was where I'd study," he says.

Moving to Quebec was like returning home, since his family tree grew out of the province. And as a gay man from a rural community, Cournoyer welcomed Montreal's diverse and intermingled cultures. "I love the creative mix," he says of the funky Mile End neighbourhood where he lives.

Cournoyer loves that McGill, like Montreal, allows people from over 140 countries to share varied outlooks. "That fusion is really stimulating," says Cournoyer, who volunteered as Macdonald Campus liaison for Queer McGill. "I was surprised at the difference between Canada and America. The U.S. is much more polarized."

Cournoyer is set to uproot himself again to pursue doctoral studies in Germany or the U.S. Until August, however, he will use his Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada grant for research at the lab of Marc Fortin, a Macdonald Campus plant science professor. "I'll examine how viruses interact with plants and proteins," says Cournoyer.

A future in public service is Cournoyer's likely direction. "There are many ethical questions surrounding scientists now," he says, with genetically modified foods at the top of the list. "Most scientists aren't trained to deal with these issues appropriately. I want to work developing public policy in this field."

Robert LeBlanc

Whatever sport he plays, whatever discipline he studies, Vancouver native Robert LeBlanc applies himself wholeheartedly to the challenge. "There's a bit of a competitor in me," chuckles the recipient of the Max Bell Scholarship and member of McGill's Golden Key Honour Society.

LeBlanc's competitive nature is a big part of what's kept him ahead of others - a plus given he was receiver for the McGill Redmen football team for four seasons and team captain in 2004. Being a Redmen player required concentration on and off the field. "Besides the hours of team practice, I spent a lot of time training at the gym and studying videos of our games."

His volunteer work includes launching McGill Athletics Community Reach Out, a fledgling group which holds food drives for the disadvantaged and invites city seniors and kids from the Shriners' Hospital to enjoy Redmen games. With a smile, LeBlanc reveals how he managed to be an honours student in commerce with a minor in developmental and environmental studies despite his hectic schedule.

"There was no idle time or video games," he says. "I went to bed later and got up earlier."

Attending McGill has become a LeBlanc family tradition. LeBlanc's sister, Susie, enrolled at the University last fall. Brother Valmon Joseph, who also played for the Redmen as an offensive lineman, graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of Science degree.

"We were the only brothers ever to be First-team Conference all-stars and Academic All-Canadians in the same year," LeBlanc proudly recalls. (Translation? They both maintained a grade point average above 3.5 while playing for the same team).

Because football dominated LeBlanc's free time, when he lived in Molson Hall residence and later in the McGill Ghetto, he picked two roommates who weren't fellow players. "It was nice leaving the locker room and team politics behind each night."

LeBlanc says one of his best experiences at McGill was being a course lecturer at the Faculty of Management. He was selected from among 100 candidates to give the course, Introduction to Organizational Behavior, over one term.

"It was an excellent lesson in earning respect," he says of teaching peers, and correcting and grading their work.

LeBlanc is looking forward to graduating in May and has been hired as a consultant for the Toronto branch of Mercer Management Consulting. But before heading to the corporate world, he's giving professional sports a shot by trying out for the Canadian Football League this spring. He currently spends three hours per day training. "I have to be in the best shape of my life," he says.

If drafted, his new employer has agreed to delay his commencement and LeBlanc is grateful for the chance at another kind of learning opportunity. "Part of the CFL dream for me is to sample a slice of Canadiana," he says. "I would love the experience of visiting different parts of the country and seeing how each city supports its team."

Laurence Bich-Carrièr

Discipline is what's kept first-year law student Laurence Bich-Carrière at the top throughout her studies.

"I am, above anything else, very organized," says the young Quebecer and winner of a Millennium Scholarship. She admits to maximizing every minute of the day. "I never watch TV, nor do I twiddle my thumbs," she says, with a comical raise of her eyebrow.

Yet Bich-Carrière maintains a modest stance about her scholastic success. A case in point came when she was awarded a prestigious Greville-Smith Scholarship. "I wondered if I truly deserved it," she recalls. "I was deeply honoured, but I never expected it."

A different surprise came from the high volume of French she hears on McGill's campus. "While McGill is supposed to have only about 25% francophones, I think the number is higher. I'm amazed to hear French spoken everywhere."

Her own academic transition from French to English wasn't too difficult, but written work proved to be an initial challenge. "Speaking in English is completely different from writing in English," she says. "But I assimilate information fast," she says.

Bich-Carrière maintains a good balance between school and life, a key to her success. "School is what you make it," she explains. "You must make time for extracurricular activities: having a coffee with friends, reading a good book or volunteering." Sports are the only activity she neglects: "Weightlifting, for me, consists of carrying my heavy laptop bag."

As for volunteering, Bich-Carrière's efforts have centered on tutoring and writing. She's been distinguished for the latter through a 2004 intercollegiate journalism grand prize given by the French Montreal daily, La Presse, and writes McGill's French student paper, Le Délit Français. Every issue, she muses comically about subjects like streakers at sporting events or the foibles of politicians. "Whatever news story I put together is usually humorous. A student newspaper should never be too serious."

Journalism may very well be Bich-Carrière's future vocation. "Many reporters started off in law school," she says. "And I've always loved writing."

Erin Freeland Ballantyne

While Yellowknife native Erin Freeland Ballantyne may have been an honours student in International Development Studies until last December, she applied herself with equal passion to making documentary films, advocating for human rights and cross-country skiing.

Indeed, those broad interests are what enabled her to be named McGill's 125th Rhodes Scholar. This fall, she'll be entering the University of Oxford for a master's of philosophy with a focus on development studies. The scholar - who received the McConnell Award and Marion McCall Daly Award for outstanding scholarly achievement, as well as a Yellowknife Elks Scholarship for academics, community involvement and athletics - also has an eye on public service.

"If people work hard to change things, I definitely believe the world will improve within our lifetime," she says enthusiastically. She's eager to put her interdisciplinary studies into practice, since her academic and volunteer work has focused on human rights, peace building and alternative theories of development. She remains involved with the Arctic Indigenous Youth Alliance (AIYA), which advocates for the rights of indigenous people in Canada's Northwest Territories. AIYA is currently raising awareness in the North about the proposed Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, a mega-project on which Freeland Ballantyne completed a critical documentary. Her film is set to unreel in northern schools.

"This environmental issue will greatly affect indigenous people," she stresses. "As Canadians, we can do things so much better to ensure that we foster sustainable development."

Freeland Ballantyne, a non-native who speaks the native language of Dogrib, admits to having been homesick while in Montreal. "I love Yellowknife," she says. "It's a cosmopolitan city in the middle of nowhere."

In Montreal, she continued the culinary traditions of her homeland, while abstaining from factory meats, even if her native foods are hard to find. "My dad would fly over salted fish and frozen caribou," she explains, noting that she and her three roommates followed a 99% organic diet.

Because of her concern over waste and the abuse of foreign workers, she buys fair trade produce and plans to one day promote sustainable agricultural practices in South America. "Food will be the root of the next revolution," she says.

Freeland Ballantyne admits that combining sport, volunteer work, film and some fun was challenging. "But I developed a tremendous work ethic at McGill," she says. "My professors really cared and helped cultivate my interests." At McGill she found like-minded people who want to change the world. "I am not alone," she stresses. "And my family has helped me believe that you can do anything you want to do."

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