Seven of the eleven University of the West Indies scholarship winners sponsored by CIBC Caribbean recently got the opportunity of a lifetime when they got to meet, chat and get valuable career advice from the Chief Executive Officer of the bank.

At the recent Student Awards of Excellence Reception at the UWI Cave Hill Campus, under a new format, the students were given the opportunity to freely mix and mingle with their sponsors.  This gave them a chance to really chat with the executives who attended, and the seven students sponsored by CIBC Caribbean who were there got the chance to ‘press the flesh’ with CEO Mark St. Hill who chatted and joked with them as they told him stories of their dreams and aims and shared what they wanted to do after leaving the campus on the hill.

The lone male in the group (the other male – Matthew Giscombe from Jamaica was not present) shared his dream of becoming a pediatrician. Bahamian Nelson Smith, who is in his second year of studying medicine, explained that his mother will be ‘over the moon’ with him winning this scholarship as he confessed, smiling, that it still felt like a dream.

Another student to credit her parents, Chestann Octave, a St. Lucian studying Human Resource Management, said that she now fully appreciated the phrase ‘hard work pays off’ because her father always told her to work hard and put her best foot forward and she couldn’t wait for him to see her name in print with the scholarship information. She stated that the scholarship funds will certainly help to ease the burden in this her final year of study.

The CIBC scholarship winners were chosen from a variety of disciplines and various countries where the bank operates. Second year students Precious Doyle, Rayha Proverbs, Chelsea Laing and Nia Haynes are studying French with Management, Medicine, Law and Early Childhood Education respectively and are from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Bahamas and Jamaica.

Nia explained that she has two siblings at University in Jamaica and so her scholarship will certainly help her entire family as it is ‘expensive to come to Barbados’ and her mother had to sacrifice for that to happen, but she knew of her passion for education which runs in the family.  Nia’s grandmother and two aunts have served as educators in Jamaica, Bahamas and Cayman Islands. 

Rayha spoke about going into clinicals next semester and the long list of items that she now had to source, from her stethoscope and hammers to scrubs, books and comfortable shoes. She confirmed that she was grateful that she now had the scholarship funds to cover these additional expenses. 

The sole Chemistry and Mathematics student – Kiara Hunte, a Barbadian Queens College alumnus, is doing this double major with a view to going to China afterwards to study for her Masters in order to fulfil her ambition of becoming a Mechanical Engineer. To achieve this, she has already applied for one of the Chinese Scholarships and to three universities in China. She is waiting and hoping for a positive reply from at least one of them.

As the CIBC Caribbean CEO chatted with the students, he offered them some advice “Be open to learning all that you can inside and outside of the classroom. You can get a lot from outside the classroom simply by being open to the cultures around you and the many people, like other students, that you will meet during your time away from home. Be open and absorb as much as you can while away. You always know where your anchor or grounding is…at home… but learn as much as you can while away.”

Mr. Lyndon Gardiner, Chairperson at interCaribbean Airways was the featured speaker at the reception and also gave the students some valuable advice, citing his own experience as an example and sharing what he went through as a young man in order to reach the position he now held.

“Never lose faith in your visions, your ambitions and your ability; Our toughest challenges shape our greatest strengths; In times of difficulty surround yourself with mentors and community; Uplift others as you climb, share knowledge and pull each other up; Trust that through your trials, you are being molded into who you were meant to become and Pursue excellence with unwavering determination,”  were among the many words of advice he shared with the students.