Southern Okanagan Secondary School principal Marcus Toneatto presents Olivia Ruddiman with the Governor General’s Academic Medal.
Ask Olivia Ruddiman why she’s so smart and you’ll probably get a shy laugh and a polite smile. Then she’ll tell you she’s more hardworking than smart.
That was the answer she gave September 3, after receiving the Governor General’s Academic Medal for having the best grades of this year’s Southern Okanagan Secondary School graduating class.
“I just consider myself hardworking I think, and ambitious. I don’t know, when I set my mind to something I go for it 100 per cent,” she said.
Ruddiman’s final average was 95.2 per cent, and she said she achieved it by putting in “a lot of time.”
Her final exams were an example. Ruddiman said she started studying a month before she took them. She learns by repetition, so she re-copied notes, read them back to herself, made flash cards and committed everything to memory.
“I probably over-study, but I think it’s better to do that rather than going into the exam and realizing, oh I don’t know this,” she said.
If not for that process, Ruddiman said she probably wouldn’t do nearly as well. But her not doing well seems pretty unlikely.
On September 3 principal Marcus Toneatto presented Ruddiman the award. He told her that her winning was “a no brainer.”
Vice-principal Tracy Harrington told her that she was “going to be a rock star.”
Ruddiman was neatly dressed in a blue dress with her hair pulled tightly into a bun. She smiled graciously and marvelled at how heavy the Governor General’s medal was.
Later, sitting on a bench outside the school, Ruddiman seemed almost embarrassed as she admitted that it felt really good to win.
“It’s kind of like—going through high school you work hard and you get a good mark on a test or something, and that’s kind of the highest thing you do. But once you get an award like this, it’s kind of like ‘yeah, that hard work paid off.’”
Not only did her grades lead to one of the highest academic honours a high school student can win, they also made her a shoo-in at the University of British Columbia, where she has now already began her academic year.
Ruddiman admitted that she is “so ready” to start. Ever since she was confronted with a vision of university life while visiting her sister two years ago she hasn’t been able to get it out of her head.
“I don’t know, just all the people there—it seems like to be among 8000 young people all at the same stage of life, all learning new things, going on to what they really want to do, it was just so inspiring.
“For two years I’ve just had that goal in mind, wanting to get there.”
For now she is studying sciences, focusing on biology, with the intent to try medical school. It’s not a plan she has set in stone, and she admitted she has half an eye on an architecture degree.
Looking up at the newly built high school she remarked on how beautiful it was, and how lucky she was to have grown up in Oliver and gone to that school.
And while she said Oliver will always be close to her heart, it’s time for her to move on and experience the world. And that is exactly what she’s doing.
By Trevor Nichols
