Newmarket student excelling as top Laurier scholar

Newmarket’s Charlotte Burdon is getting to experience university in a different way than most.

The recipient of one of Laurier University’s Scholars Awards, Burdon earned a $40,000 scholarship to cover her expenses. Studying for business administration, Burdon is wrapping up her first semester at the school, getting additional mentorship and leadership opportunity.

“It’s definitely a big honour. The whole thing has been super helpful in helping me adjust,” she said, adding that the program “is a lot more than just money to me. The recognition is very important along with the support … It’s been going really great. I really love the community here. I’ve tried my best to get as involved as I can.” 

The Newmarket High School graduate is being celebrated by the university as one of its top scholars. Burdon earned the scholarship coming in with a 90 per cent average, along with demonstrated extracurricular activities. The scholarship comes with $7,500 annually each year for four years to help cover expenses.

Burdon said she chose Laurier because she felt it really cared about its students.

“It’s also a smaller community, so you feel a lot more supported by the community,” she said, adding that she was also interested in the positive reputation of Laurier’s Lazaridis School of Business and Economics. 

Wrapping up her first semester in school, she said she wanted to get into business administration to work with others and have flexibility.

“When you’re pursuing business, there’s a lot of freedom,” she said. “It just allows you to have so much more variety when you get into the workforce and do things that you’re really passionate about.

“I also think businesses are one of the most influential parts of society. So businesses have the opportunity to make a lot of really positive change if they’re run well,” she added. “Being part of that opportunity is something that really drew me to business administration as well.”

Laurier University’s Scholars Award has each of the school’s faculties choose one incoming student to receive it. Along with the funding, it comes with each student being paired with two mentors, along with colloquiums, leadership development projects and an annual conference to share achievements.

The scholarship also sets aside $10,000 to go to an experiential learning opportunity, like a summer position or study abroad. Burdon said she is excited by the prospect of studying business elsewhere like in Paris or London in Europe.

“As a university student, even if you’re able to pay for tuition, you’re not able to get these travelling experiences,” she said. “If I were able to carry out my passion project, doing that abroad and studying abroad and learning different cultures, that’s something I’m really looking forward to.”

One day, Burdon said she hopes to be a business consultant.

“Just helping businesses navigate different situations. I’m a very strategic-minded person,” she said. “Consulting would be a really great pathway because it would allow me to use those skills to create positive change. To me, business is a lot more than numbers and making money, but really navigating challenging things and getting positives out of it.”