How Being Uncomfortable Helped This Western University Student Get Into Harvard
For years, Maximillian Soltysiak has been putting himself in uncomfortable situations to endure the growing pains of learning.
By: Fiona Lam
When the COVID-19 lockdown arrived in Canada, Maximillian Soltysiak had to wrestle with the uncertainties of everything from homework to graduation, not unlike many other students across Canada. On March 11th, the 4th-year Western University student saw a tweet that impelled him to help his local community. Even though he was still reeling from the abrupt disruption to his schooling, he mobilized students and community members in a matter of hours to launch the London Volunteer Task Force, a no-contact delivery service for at-risk individuals in London, Ontario. Maximillian said.
What started as a local community group has since expanded to 140 volunteers servicing Kitchener, St. Thomas, and Waterloo, with plans to reach Windsor and Ottawa. “It was an eye-opening experience to see how many people were willing to help even when the easiest thing for them to do is duck and hide,” commented Maximillian.
“It was an eye-opening experience to see how many people were willing to help even when the easiest thing for them to do is duck and hide”
For him, stepping up to volunteer was an easy decision “simply because they are human and need help,” Maximillian said. He handled the situation with a dash of optimism—“people have got way worse situations than I, so I just try to look on the bright side”—and a personal credo—“it has to get done, so it will get done”. As stressful as these circumstances may seem, Maximilian was no stranger to taking on a challenge.
The Genetics and Biochemistry student balanced full-time undergraduate studies, full-time research, and a backpack full of extracurriculars all through his past four years. “It would have been easier not to do a lot of those things but it’s what I wanted to do,” he acknowledged, “If you don’t put yourself out there, you won’t really get to experience different things and get exposure if you are always making sure you are comfortable.”
“If you don’t put yourself out there, you won’t really get to experience different things and get exposure if you are always making sure you are comfortable.”
Even before he started university, Maximillian—who had no radio hosting experience—set his eyes on having his own show on Western’s radio station. Radio Western trained him throughout the summer and into September. By October, he launched “The Kitchen Sink”, a show where he shared a mix of under-the-radar alternative, indie, and rock songs to the London community. It was not easy juggling this show with school. “I might have been cursing it at certain periods of time,” he chuckled before adding, “but the radio station was a huge therapeutic outlet for me. For those two hours, I could just put a stop to everything and listen to music.”
From left to right: Maximillian Soltysiak, Andrey Petropavloski, Mike Ge. Recording an episode for ‘The Sound of Science’, a radio show dedicated to sharing the science research happening at Western
His parents—both professional musicians at one point—nurtured this love for music. “They put an emphasis on what music can do for your mind and learning,” reminisced Maxmillian. He went on to receive the Royal Conservatory of Music’s highest standing, the Associate Diploma (ARCT) right before his post-secondary years. It was this music training that instilled a philosophy of discipline and learning that would help him succeed in his rigorous university years.
Maximillian was one of the few selected to be part of Western’s Scholar’s Electives program, a research and interdisciplinary educational experience for high-achieving students. As part of this program, Maximillian conducted research on synthetic biology and produced a number of scientific publications at the Karas Lab under the supervision of Dr. Bogumil Karas.
Not long after he started there, Maximillian received the NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Award. With this summer research grant, he began his work on bioinformatics in another lab under the guidance of Dr. Kathleen Hill. “[My supervisors] had huge influences on how I turned out to be as a student and researcher,” Maximillian said.
“[My research supervisors] had huge influences on how I turned out to be as a student and researcher.”
While his studies laid the groundwork, a lot of Maximillian’s learning took place in the laboratories where he spent countless hours testing the unknown and searching for answers. It gave him an opportunity to see how abstract concepts translate into reality. In the classroom, science is picture-perfect and clean. In the lab, it is complicated and messy. “How things play out in the real world is very, very different,” Maximillian said.
Maximillian Soltysiak presenting his research at the Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society 50th Annual Meeting in 2019
In his final year of university, Maximillian once again witnessed the complex realities of real life through a community-engaged learning course. He was assigned to a group that worked with a local organization on providing community housing for low-income families. Together, they created a business plan to form a community land trust that helps keep housing prices low. This experience opened his eyes to the major poverty and housing crisis in London, a reality he would have never encountered had he not stepped out of his comfortable university bubble. The discomfort that comes with the unfamiliar is why many resist trying anything new. But for Maximillian, traversing into the discomforting worlds, seeing the real world’s messiness, is the only way to encounter and endure the growing pains necessary to learning.
Maximillian’s willingness to step out of his comfort zone rewarded him with rich learning and research experiences that ultimately earned him his golden ticket of admission to Harvard University. There, Maximillian will be starting his direct-entry PhD program in Biological and Biomedical Sciences this fall. “A lot of those experiences I had are going to translate extremely well in my next stage in my PhD,” Maximillian remarked gratefully.
Maximillian’s willingness to step out of his comfort zone earned him his golden ticket of admission to Harvard University.
One of Maximillian’s latest projects is SciFeye, an attempt to combat sensational news reporting on science. The media often sacrifices knowledge for attention with clickbait headlines. When the news reports these misleading or spurious scientific claims, the public forms faulty beliefs and negative opinions. In an effort to help people critically assess what they read in the media, Maximillian started SciFeye.
Unlike the London Volunteer Task Force, SciFeye took him months to launch. Maximillian gathered science students from different schools and countries to form a reviewing team that fact-checks and evaluates the accuracy of news stories on scientific progress and publications. “We’re reviewing how well these news outlets are reporting on the science itself,” he summarized. The reviewing team of 50 follows a rubric called the SciFeye Index to guide their assessments. This index is made publicly available for people to use.
“The whole point of SciFeye is to encourage people to be active readers and not just take the headlines at face value. If you’re a more active reader, there is less chance for misinformation and more chance you are able to see through the fake news,” Maximillian said.
Behind this mission lies a deeper calling for readers to rise up to the challenge of protecting the state of our public knowledge. It asks people to get uncomfortable in order to see more, a vocation Maximillian has undertaken himself. At the end of our chat, Maximillan reflected on how his experiences have gifted him a fair share of uncomfortable situations. But he enjoys the rare learning experience that emerges from these productive struggles. “You have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Maximillian concluded, “that’s how you learn.”
To learn more about Maximillian and his projects, visit https://www.maximillian.ca/.