30 May 2007

GE Scholarship Winner

Mahsa Zargary, 1st year MEng Chemical Engineering with Management, is the proud recipient of a GE Foundation Scholarship.

This General Electric Scholarship is administered through the Institute of International Education (IIE). Mahsa is one of 15 UK first year students who received a scholarship, which will give her £3,000 p.a. for the next two years. She needs to, however, maintain 2:1 or higher grades! She will also carry out voluntary work of her choice in the community and can do some work shadowing in an area of interest to her. A three-day seminar will teach Mahsa more about leadership and planning.

Before joining the course here at Sheffield, Mahsa already led a very busy life. She did her GCSEs and A-levels in Iran as well as two years of studying English at university. After moving to the UK, she retook her A-levels in Doncaster. She then volunteered as an interpreter and had a job as a resource centre assistant working with asylum seekers. In addition Mahsa worked as an interpreter for the NHS.

As a chemical engineer, Mahsa sees her future working in environmental or pharmaceutical areas. She is very interested in sustainability – her first year project was on desalination of water, which can have applications in drier parts of the world. Designing and producing cheaper medication for everyone would be a challenge in the pharmaceutical industry. GE happens to be active in the bio-pharmaceutical industry carrying out research in desalination in Ghana. One day Mahsa may be able to give people clean and safe drinking water.

For now she is busy studying here in Sheffield. Her favourite modules are fluid mechanics, maths and process principles and who knows where they may lead her.