The BP Achievement Awards were opened to Business School students for the first time this year. The awards have been open to Engineering students for several years and this year eight awards were available across nine university departments. Four of these - worth £2,500 each - have now been awarded to four third year Business School students. Departments nominated students based on academic achievement and contributions outside of their studies, and students had to submit a report to take part.
Florian Preis is an award winner from the Economics department. Having received the Department of Economics Prize for Best Overall Performance last year, Florian was selected as one of the department's nominees for the BP Achievement Award.
He said, "I was required to write a short motivational statement that provided some background such as academic achievements, extra-curricular engagement and career aspirations. BP then identified the award recipients based on these statements in conjunction with academic transcripts, and I was lucky enough to be one of them.
"I will use some of the money to fund language school this summer as I want to improve my French skills. It's rewarding to experience this kind of appreciation and support from the Economics Department, Strathclyde Business School and BP as the sponsor, and it motivates me to stay committed in future. I highly appreciate the flexibility and opportunities I received in the form of this award."
Economics professor Julia Darby said, "Florian certainly met the academic excellence criteria for this award. He is our top performing student at this stage in his third year. Staff throughout the department describe him as 'a pleasure to teach' and we're delighted he has won this award."
Melissa Burke, a third year accountancy and finance student, is another award winner. She said, " As part of my statement, I detailed my non-academic contributions to university through being a student representative for my accounting classes. I currently work part-time so this award will help me to reduce the hours I need to work and allow me to focus on my studies. I am interested in using my accountancy and finance degree to pursue a career in finance in the future."
The other award-winning students were Syeda Gilani who is studying Business Administration and Lauren Fisher who is studying Marketing and Management.