Denied admission by varsities, Pakistani student gets Int'l Young Scientist Award

ABBOTTABAD: A 21-year-old Pakistani student, Umair Masood has received ‘Young Scientist Award 2021’ at an international conference featuring students from as many as 121 countries from around the globe.

“It took me three and a half years [to get this distinction]. I failed in researches multiple times. I was facing financial issues. It was not that easy,” Umair said, recalling his journey to the global recognition during ARY News’ morning programme Bakhabar Savera.

“I also got disheartened because of repeated failures and thought of giving up but then motivation came from within that I can do this.”

“I could not pass the FSc exam with flying colours because I was not the kind of students who are good at learning by rote. I was not an avid reader nor did I like momorising things but was rather interested in posing questions and learning about new things.”

Umair said he was denied admission by several Pakistani universities due to his low grades

“I applied to almost all universities in Pakistan, including in Abottabad and Islamabad but was told that I was not eligible enough to get enrolled,” he recalled. He said he then looked for online courses but had no resources to sign up for courses being offered by universities like Stanford and Harvard.

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Umair said he enrolled on a free online course during which he came in contact with the Jackson laboratory that was working on a project aimed to detect hereditary diseases at low cost. He added he got an opportunity to work with the lab and was awarded medals on the conclusion of the project.

“Then I realised that his calling was to excel in the field of biology. Whatever research I did over next three and a half years was in biology.”