Summer Abroad

For new U of T grad Medha Arora Wadhwa, public speaking is key to creating change

siddiq22 — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 14:29:36 +0000

For new U of T grad Medha Arora Wadhwa, public speaking is key to creating change

siddiq22 Fri, 06/23/2023 - 10:29

Cutline

Medha Arora Wadhwa developed a passion for public speaking while earning her bachelor's degree in commerce (supplied photo)

Coby Zucker

Topic

Our Community

Convocation 2023

Student Leadership Award

Graduate Stories

Faculty of Arts & Science

Rotman Commerce

Summer Abroad

Woodsworth College

For new Faculty of Arts & Science graduate Medha Arora Wadhwa, university was a time to grow and give back.

Arora Wadhwa earned her honours bachelor of commerce, specializing in management with a focus on marketing, while also completing minors in drama and economics.

After graduation, Arora Wadhwa plans to pursue her passion for art history, studying in Spain through U of T’s Summer Abroad program. When she returns, her aim is to find full-time work consulting in media and communications.

Over the past four years, Arora Wadhwa was involved with the Rotman Commerce Arts Group and Rotman Commerce Toastmasters. Most recently, she was vice-president external for the Toastmasters club, where she launched the RCT x RCPA: Roaring '20s Speakeasy, an arts incubator that created a safe space for the creative exploration of issues that are difficult to discuss or rarely spoken about.

Arora Wadhwa was also a student leader at Woodsworth College, where she was a residence advisor.

For her efforts, Arora Wadhwa earned a University of Toronto Student Leadership Award as well as the Director's Award for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion from Rotman Commerce.

She spoke with Faculty of Arts & Science writer Coby Zucker about her passion for public speaking and how it was helpful during her time at U of T.

Arora Wadhwa was vice-president external for Rotman Commerce Toastmasters (supplied image)

What did you get out of participating in Rotman Commerce Toastmasters?

First, there's the element of public speaking, which is so helpful to anyone in a professional and academic setting. I really developed my skills through the club. The other thing was being given a bit of freedom. I had a vision to create an arts incubator where people could speak about issues that are very rarely spoken about – like pride, feminism, diversity and body dysmorphia.

Through Toastmasters, you're given so much support for any idea that you have. To be able to see something like that come to life showed me that's something I want to do in the future, for a career.

You worked as a public-speaking tutor. What was that like?

I work with a lot of students who are English-language learners and to see their confidence grow, especially in a language they're not comfortable with, is just really beautiful.

What makes public speaking so important?

It's such a valuable skill to be able to communicate effectively, and to be able to get what you need to say across in a clear and effective way. And taking it a step further, being able to communicate with a big group of people in an effective way can help create a lot of social change.

It also doesn't have to be at the macro level – it's also on the micro level. It's speaking up for yourself in a meeting or communicating your ideas on a project. Those are the small wins that public speaking gets you. Having that confidence and comfort with speaking can really transform people's lives.

What is the value of public speaking for groups that are often underrepresented in public discourse?

Public speaking is especially tough for any minority. Women historically have been told not to speak up. It's a very recent societal change that we've had where we're encouraged to. For people with disabilities or any kind of minority, you're taught your entire life through society that your voice doesn't have that much significance.

So public speaking is especially important for any kind of minority to advocate for themselves. To be confident in speaking is to create change for yourself and a bigger group of people.

What advice would you have for someone who is considering studying at U of T?

Don't lose your individuality. It's really easy to see the path or the direction all your peers are taking and then feel like you're doing something wrong, or feel like you're not successful enough by those standards.

If you can leverage your own individuality – whatever it is you love or that makes you unique – whether it's dance or acting or a certain sport you play or maybe having a disability, that's who you are.

I’d say own that, because that's what makes you unique – and that's what's going to take you further.

'This is what physics is all about': U of T undergrads probe subatomic universe at CERN

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 09 Sep 2022 16:20:02 +0000

'This is what physics is all about': U of T undergrads probe subatomic universe at CERN

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 09/09/2022 - 12:20

Cutline

The Large Hadron Collider's ATLAS detector, where a team of more than 30 physicists from U of T, including students, post-doctoral researchers and faculty, have been leading members of a research collaboration (photo couresty of CERN)

Chris Sasaki

Topic

Global Lens

Faculty of Arts & Science

Undergraduate Students

Harsh Jaluka and Kelvin Leong – both undergraduate students from the University of Toronto – spent the summer living in Geneva and conducting research at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the most powerful particle accelerator ever built.

The two students were participants in the university’s Summer Abroad program, which provides students with opportunities to take courses in international locations where they gain invaluable experience.

For Leong, the experience brought him full circle.

“My interest in particle physics began 10 years ago when the Higgs boson was first discovered,” says the member of New College who is entering his fourth year of an astronomy and physics specialist program. “It was such big news at the time – that's what got me interested in particle physics in the first place.”

The Nobel Prize-winning discovery was made in 2012 with the ATLAS and CMS detectors on the Large Hadron Collider, which is located at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. A lynchpin in the standard model of particle physics, the theory describing all matter and forces in the universe, the discovery of the Higgs boson was a long-sought confirmation of the theory explaining why some particles have mass and others do not.

For years, a team of more than 30 physicists from U of T – including students, post-doctoral researchers and faculty – have been leading members of the groundbreaking ATLAS collaboration. The team includes Pekka Sinervo, a professor in the department of physics in the Faculty of Arts & Science.

Harsh Jaluka and Kelvin Leong enjoy some down time from their research excursion program course in Switzerland (photo courtesy of the subjects)

Physicists explore the subatomic realm by smashing particles together using the LHC. They then study what happens in those collisions using detectors like ATLAS and CMS. Typically, such experiments are used to confirm the existence of particles predicted by theory – for example, the Higgs boson. Other experiments measure the characteristics of the collisions and their fallout to see if they match theorists’ predictions.

“I was measuring the frequency of a rare event – the appearance from a collision of a massive particle called a top quark,” says Leong.

Jaluka, a member of Trinity College who is entering his third year of a math and physics specialist program, says he was looking at collisions in which a top quark and a Higgs boson are produced.

“Not only that, but we were looking for events in which the particles were ‘boosted’ – that is, when they had higher than normal energies and then decayed into other particles called hadrons,” he says.

Sinervo says the Summer Abroad program pays dividends for him as an instructor and for his students.

“It gives me an opportunity to work with outstanding students who have a strong interest in the physical sciences,” he says. “I enjoy the interaction with them and sharing my own interest and excitement in what we are doing at CERN.

“And the students see how research is done. They see there’s a lot of slogging, getting familiar with an experiment, understanding the tools we use – and then applying them to make progress on instrumentation or analysis of data. They also get a taste of what progress looks like in a fundamental research group.

“This is what physics is all about – not lectures and undergraduate labs.”

Jaluka says the summer program provided him with valuable career guidance.

“When you're studying physics, the question is always whether to go into experimental or theoretical physics,” he says. “So this experience gave me a good idea what experimental physics looks like – what you do on a day-to-day basis. It’s been very helpful in thinking about my future career.”

When the students weren’t working, they took full advantage of living in Geneva. Jaluka explored the city on bicycle and took in the local culture. Leong, who had never been to Europe before, visited Bern, Lyon and other destinations.

“It was an amazing experience,” Leong says. “Working there really made me feel like I was contributing to physics research.”

“It was an incredible opportunity,” echoes Jaluka. “You get to spend two months working on the LHC, the most complex machine ever built. You get to do research and gain invaluable experience. You get to be in Switzerland, a beautiful country. So really, there were no drawbacks to this program. It was a win-win scenario.”

7 reasons to pack your bags and study abroad: U of T student photos

ullahnor — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 18:10:54 +0000

7 reasons to pack your bags and study abroad: U of T student photos

ullahnor Wed, 02/15/2017 - 13:10

Cutline

U of T law and business student David Pardy submitted this photo to the Centre for International Experience for a previous contest. It was taken in Dubrovnik, Croatia, near the Adriatic Sea

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Global Lens

Summer Abroad

Student Exchange

Centre for International Experience

Subheadline

Deadline for annual photo contest from study abroad and student exchange trips is Feb. 19

You could be pulling yet another all-nighter in the Robarts group study room next year, or you could start planning to take your studies on the road.

The photos below should make you want to pack your bags.

They were submitted to U of T's Centre for International Experience (CIE) as part of the annual photography contest. This year, CIE's 8th annual photo contest is taking submissions until Feb. 19.

Summer Abroad

For new U of T grad Medha Arora Wadhwa, public speaking is key to creating change

'This is what physics is all about': U of T undergrads probe subatomic universe at CERN

7 reasons to pack your bags and study abroad: U of T student photos

Read more about CIE's new senior director

Ven, Sweden, by Helen Meng in mechanical engineering

Tasmania, Australia, by Laila Strazds in psychology

Paris, France, by Yeji Lee in English literature

Northern Ireland by David Pardy in law and business

Singapore by Echo Xiao in Rotman commerce

Copenhagen, Denmark, by Ekaterina Mizrokhi in urban studies