‘I Owe This to My Mom’: U of G Student Awarded Rhodes Scholarship

It was a gruelling interview during midterms. Jayden Parker was sleep-deprived after his exams and a long flight home to Bermuda, where a panel was grilling him on his strengths and weaknesses. Mostly his weaknesses.

“I walked out of there and thought, ‘I didn’t get it’,” says Parker, a fourth-year biomedical science student at the University of Guelph. “I was convinced it didn’t go well.”

Three hours later, during dinner with his grandparents, he received the call. By the time he hung up, one of the most prestigious scholarships in the world, the Rhodes Scholarship, was officially his.
“I was just blown away,” he says. “I called my mom, who was 12 hours away. I woke her up at 6 a.m. We were all crying. Because this is her achievement as much as it’s mine. And it represents a lot of family history and struggle, and my mom’s willingness to push me at a young age.”

He emphasizes that much of his success is owed to his mother.

“My mom raised me and my little sister by herself in Bermuda,” says Parker. “I was not going to any of the prestigious schools without a scholarship. My mom worked so hard to take care of us – pushing me to volunteer at the aquarium, pushing me to apply to these scholarships. I owe this to her.”

At age 13, Parker was dropped off out of the blue at the local aquarium in Flatt’s Village, Bermuda. Without telling him, his mother enrolled him in a summer volunteer program, hoping to get her son out of the house.

Little did anyone know it would all start there – Parker’s love for animal rehabilitation and environmental conservation, his desire to go to U of G and his journey to become Bermuda’s 2025 Rhodes Scholar.

“I realized then this is what I was made for,” he says. “But when you grow up on a tiny subtropical island with colourful fish, beautiful birds, pink sand against the ocean, watching turtles poke their heads out of the water, it’s hard to leave without a love for the environment, a love for animals.”

Read the full article on the University of Guelph News site.