Materials Engineering student Megan Foster is making the most of her McMaster experience.
In only three years, she’s conducted research in the Dean’s ophthalmology lab, competed on the varsity fencing team, served as an Assistant Vice President of Organization on the McMaster Materials Society, completed an exchange at Université Grenoble Alpes, and most recently, lived in Halifax during a co-op as a systems engineering intern at a global aerospace and marine engineering company.
It’s this multitude of experiences that have proved tremendously beneficial, not only for Foster’s personal fulfillment, but to open new doors and opportunities.
When I interviewed for co-ops, no one asked about my grades. They asked about experiences that brought me outside of my comfort zone and how I overcame difficulties.
Foster has undertaken her share of such experiences. Having received an Engineering Research Experience Award – a paid research opportunity in the summer after first year – Foster secured a spot in then interim Dean Heather Sheardown’s ophthalmic drug delivery lab.
“I gained experience I wouldn’t have in any of my classes,” Foster says. “Making hydrogels with guidance from master’s, PhD students and Dean Sheardown was an amazing introduction to research.”
Having enjoyed her research experience so much, she returned to the Sheardown lab in the summer after second year, this time entrusted with her own project to lead. She even got to attend a conference in Toronto to participate in a presentation on the lab’s research.
During her exchange in Grenoble, studying on a campus situated in the mountains far away from home, she found herself immersed in a new culture and way of learning. Her classes were taught primarily by researchers who worked in industry. Lab requirements were more involved than at McMaster and included a four-hour weekly lab where she worked with unfamiliar machinery. All students were also required to take a sport class. Foster chose fencing, which allowed her to continue training in her sport while abroad.
Now on a co-op in Halifax, Foster is contributing to large-scale technical projects. “It’s a learning curve,” she says. “A lot of the information I’m encountering is field-specific, so I wouldn’t have come across it in the classroom or during other experiences, but I am applying my data analytics, problem solving and general engineering skills to make a contribution.”
Amongst her identities as world-traveller, undergraduate researcher, student leader, athlete and systems engineering intern, Foster is also a proud Mac Eng Ambassador, who shares her multi-faceted experience with high school students.
On multiple occasions, the same prospects Foster spoke to at recruitment events would approach her in the halls, now as her peers, sharing that she helped influence their decision to come to McMaster. “Being an ambassador is a role that has really impacted me,” she says. “I can help bring new students to the school that I love so much.”
