Looking back on her time as an undergraduate student in McGill’s Earth System Science program, Morgan Sadler, BSc’18, is especially grateful for what she learned beyond the classroom.
“A definite highlight of studying at McGill was getting to do research. It made me feel more connected to the courses I was taking and showed me the real-world relevance of what I was studying,” she says.
Attracted to McGill by its excellent reputation in the sciences, Sadler was also eager to experience Montreal’s multicultural charms: “I had studied French and the chance to live in a French-speaking city really appealed to me.”
A Best in the West scholarship in Earth and Planetary Sciences made these enriching experiences possible. “Thanks to the support I received I didn’t have to worry about working to support myself and was able to take advantage of the exciting learning opportunities available to me,” she says.
One such opportunity – a field trip to Peru in 2016 – sparked Sadler’s interest in what later became her honours thesis: water resources in the Peruvian Andes.
Thanks to the support she received from her scholarship, Sadler was able to get involved in extracurricular activities. She volunteered as a Sustainability Projects Fund Ambassador in McGill’s Office for Sustainability and joined a group promoting community gardens across campus. “There were so many opportunities to get involved in and I really benefitted from the activities I participated in,” she says.
After completing her undergraduate degree in 2018, Sadler returned to Vancouver. There she joined an environmental consulting firm, where she has spent the past three years working as a field technician doing contaminated site remediation in Vancouver and across the province of British Columbia.
“The research experience I gained at McGill gave me the confidence to ask questions and the motivation to participate in some of the interesting projects my firm was working on,” she says.
Sadler recently embarked on the next step of her academic journey. In the fall of 2021 she started a master’s degree program in Geological Engineering at the University of British Columbia.
She has ambitious goals for this new step in her academic journey. “I want this degree to open up opportunities in the fields of hydrology and hydrogeology. I am interested in investigating the impact that human and industrial activities have on water availability and quality. I would also like to work on projects related to water resource sustainability, especially as the impact of climate change on this resource becomes more pronounced.”
Since its inception in 2008, the Best in the West awards program has given more than 330 students like Morgan Sadler from Canada’s four western provinces an opportunity to study at McGill. You can lend your support to this important initiative today through your next gift to McGill, using the giving link below.