Andrew Wilson – Former KC Headboy-- Shines at Howard University
By Dr. Cedric Lazarus
Andrew Wilson
At KC Andrew Wilson was no ordinary student. He is no ordinary student at Howard University either. In 2002, he was elected Headboy at KC and in sixth form he was a member of the Schools’ Challenge Team and president of the Science Club.
The records will also show that he was at the top or near the top of his class every year. (I recall that his father Philip ‘Flip’ Wilson who came to KC in lower sixth from XLCR in the‘70s was also a brilliant student.)
After KC, Andrew was accepted at Howard University to study chemical engineering. As a freshman at Howard he became one of only three chemical engineering students to achieve a 4.0 GPA . Indeed, in his first six semesters at Howard he achieved a 4.0 GPA becoming only the second student to do so in three years.
But Andrew is no bookworm. In fact, he is one of the most active students on campus and is involved in numerous extra-curricular activities. He is in Circle K International, the Peer Mentoring Programme, the Campus Fellowship Group, and on the Howard Engineer Magazine committee.
In his sophomore year he became an International Pal helping freshmen international students to get acclimatized to living and studying in the USA. In Circle K, he was elected treasurer and was the first male student on the Board since 2000. Against all odds he ran for the presidency of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and won - as a junior. As treasurer he managed to increase the membership of the organization and spearheaded a fundraising drive that netted over $3000 for the Institute. His starting balance was just $215.
In the summer of 2005, Andrew did research for Dr Kimberley Jones in a project for the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission and in 2006 he was an intern with Bayer Material Science in Baytown, Texas. This summer he will be an intern with Bristol-Myers Squibb in New Jersey and will return to Howard in the fall to complete his final undergrad year.
Among his choices for graduate school are Caltech, MIT, Georgia Tech and Stanford.
Interestingly he also finds time to play and is a member of the University’s tennis team, playing Division 1 tennis in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.
At Howard, Andrew has won the Trustee Scholarship, the Robert H. Dickey Scholarship, the Jamaican Association of Northern Californians Scholarship, the NSBE Praxair Scholarship and a departmental award as one of the top juniors in chemical engineering. This year he was named a Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities and will appear in the Howard University Yearbook as an awardee.
His most prestigious awards have been the American Institute of Chemical Engineers National Capital Section Exxon Mobil Award, which was usually given to a senior but was awarded to him as a junior due to his outstanding work in the department together with his high GPA and the Tau Beta Pi Dobson Scholarship. He became the first student to win the Dobson Scholarship in the history of Tau Beta Pi at Howard University.
Andrew attributes his success to God and is extremely grateful for the help of his family, friends, professors and mentors who are constantly encouraging him and are constantly expectant of great success. We no doubt will be hearing more about this brilliant Fortis in the near future.
