Warwick student awarded undergraduate of the year

A student from the University of Warwick has won a prestigious award as part of a scheme by telecommunications giants BT to find Britain’s most promising IT students.

Engineering student Torgyn Shaikhina, 21, was given the IT and Computer Science Undergraduate of the Year award, and will complete a summer placement at BT Innovate and Design as a result.

Candidates had to go through a number of different stages to be considered for the award, including a series of online tests, written forms, interviews, assessment exercises and a presentations.

Miss Shaikhina won a place at Warwick through the Bolashak Education Scholarship in her home country, Kazakhstan, and is the first student from a post-Soviet country to win the award.

“I am thrilled to win this award,” she said. “With so many brilliant candidates, being named the winner is a great honour for me. In the world of complex technologies, there are no easy tasks.

“I am looking forward to my placement with BT and am really hopeful that my future career will benefit from it.”

She also reserved praise for her education in Kazakhstan, and specifically the scholarship that enabled her to study in England.

“I have never felt that the education that I received in a province at the outskirts of Kazakhstan was in any way inferior to those offered by the best schools in the world,” she said.

“For me Bolashak holds a special place because it is foresighted and well-considered.”

Dr. David Dyer, who teaches in the School of Engineering at Warwick, hailed Miss Shaikhina as an “exceptional student” and stated that students holding the Bolashak scholarship are “extremely motivated” and “constantly progressing.”