Student from deprived Newham wins place at top university MIT

A student from a deprived London area has won a place at one of the best universities in the world.

Tafsia Shikdar, who lives in Newham, has won a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Alumni include Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon.

She will swap her home in West Ham for the college, which has been ranked by Times Higher Education as among the top 10 in the world for the past seven years, to take a degree in engineering.

She said: “I guess you could say I am over the moon. Knowing that I am going to the same place as the second man on the moon is really amazing.

“I really admire the people who went there. They are responsible for the biggest technology advances we have seen in recent years. It will be a privilege to be among them.”

She currently studies at the Newham Collegiate Sixth Form Centre, which arranged her interview and application preparations with a Harvard graduate.

After her application, she was interviewed by an MIT admissions scout at a coffee shop in central London. She said: “They want the brightest people there so it doesn’t matter what background you come from. I don’t want people to think they can’t apply for places like MIT because their families aren’t rich. It is mental barriers that stop people having dreams.”

Tafsia left secondary school with 11 A* GCSEs and at A-level is predicted A* grades in maths, further maths, physics, biology and chemistry.

She lives with her father, an IT support worker, and mother, a school lunchtime supervisor, and three brothers at their three-bedroom house in West Ham.

The family moved to the capital from Bangladesh in the early Nineties. Because the household earns less than £30,000 a year, she is entitled to financial aid of up to £200,000 to pay for tuition, accommodation and books.

She said: “People around here don’t think they can achieve these amazing things. I’m here to tell people, ‘Yes you can’. Why shouldn’t someone from the East End of London go to MIT, why shouldn’t we dream big?”

Nine pupils at her sixth form have been offered places at Oxbridge next year. Head Mouhssin Ismail said: “If people around here see Tafsia has got into a place like MIT and nine of our pupils going to Oxbridge, then suddenly they believe it is possible for them and their children.”