The student: Catherine Waft, Dubai College alumnus
Off to: MIT to study planetary sciences
A Level subjects: Physics, maths, further maths and classical civilisation
Only 6.7 per cent of women graduate with science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) degrees, according to the US department of Commerce.
Catherine (known as Cate) Waft will be one of those select women graduating Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) class of 2021 with a degree in planetary sciences.
‘In a dream world, I’d say I’d be an astronaut but I’d be equally happy working for a company like SpaceEx or Nasa or doing research in cosmology or astrophysics’, laughs the aspiring astrophysicist who wanted to be a dentist at five and an inventor aged 10.
Cate’s meteoric academic record is proof that it’s her modesty brushing off the very strong probability of her jetting off into space as a pipe dream. The former head girl of Dubai College has already been to a space camp in Turkey and attended pre-college astrophysics courses at Brown University. She also started an astrophysics club at her school and entered teams into UAE Genes in Space competition.
She has completed the gold level of the Duke of Edinburgh (DofE) Awards program, an international youth achievement award, as part of which she travelled to India to work with a girls’ orphanage and raise money for them. She was also part of her school’s senior orchestra, and played basketball, netball and badminton during her time as house captain in year 11.
Now, she’s off to the university that Buzz Aldrin – one of the first humans to the land on the moon – went to.
While Cate has always reached for the stars, she never left success to the mercy of the planets, instead working hard and smart by strategically transforming the activities she loved, ‘like my violin lessons, which I’ve been learning for fourteen years, volunteering and my karate which I had picked up to release pent-up aggression and stress,’ as skills for the DofE.
While physics and maths are this genius kid’s true passions, Cate talks more than science and balances out her penchant for fact with fiction – a paradoxical multitalent that her inspiration, Canadian astronaut and author Chris Hadfield, proved was possible when she attended his session at the Emirates Literature Festival.
‘I didn’t want to give up on my ability to write, also keeping university essays and applications in mind, so I chose classical civilisation as one of my A level subjects – I love Greek and Roman history and their literature is amazing,’ says the budding writer who scribbles fiction in her free time to ‘express myself and destress and relax’.
She loves reading fantasy fiction like Harry Potter and the Percy Jackson and Throne of Glass series and read them even during her exams using those imaginary worlds to escape her ‘constant state of stress’.
‘Exams determine your grades in the British system and my subjects had no coursework. Plus, British schools don’t teach the SAT curriculum [necessary for US universities], so I bought a lot of books online [for independent study] and spoke to some outside teachers who would help me with topics.’
Her imagination is also the key that unlocked the portal to MIT. It has been her dream school since she first heard of it as a 12-year-old. ‘But that’s what [MIT] was to me at the time: A dream. I knew I was going to apply because if you don’t apply there’s no way of getting in. But I also knew the odds of being accepted were very extremely low.
I started crying when the word congratulations popped up on my screen the day I was accepted. It’s a numbers game to some extent but I gave it my best shot – I feel my essays managed to capture my passion in an imaginative manner.’
Space has held an infinite allure for Cate since her family took her into the desert surrounding Dubai on camping trips and she looked up at the stars as a little girl. ‘It really makes you feel small and like you’re part of something bigger, something fantastic and intricate and beautiful. Cheesy, but true.’
But the moment she was harnessed onto a machine that simulated the effect of floating in zero gravity at space camp was when Cate realised outer space is ‘where her place as a woman is’.
‘I would say that anything that is said about girls not being good enough is complete rubbish and should be ignored. When it comes to STEM and engineering you’re not judged by your gender but by the quality of what you can give to the subject.’
This comes from the student who gave an 11,000-word-essay that probed the possibility of extra-terrestrial life by surveying top space scientists and professors across the US for her extended project qualification, an optional dissertation in the British system.
‘I’m counting down the days until I get to officially arrive on MIT campus and call it home.’
Read more: UAE’s smart set and their bright futures
