If not for the Waldman Scholarship, Charles Ludwig would have had to spend this school year working instead of beginning his studies at the University of Toronto.
Charles Ludwig with his grandfather, Dr. Bernard Ludwig, who he credits with inspiring his dream of becoming a doctor.
But luckily for him, a trip to the guidance counsellor’s office at his high school led to the suggestion he look into the $4,000 award, bestowed annually on behalf of the Dennis Waldman Foundation for Jewish Education.
The foundation was established in 1989 in honour of the late Dennis Waldman, a teacher in the Toronto Jewish community. The scholarship, first awarded in 1990, goes to a university-bound, graduating high school student who is actively involved in the Jewish community.
Ludwig, an 18-year-old graduate of Forest Hill Collegiate Institute in Toronto, was chosen out of nearly 30 applicants in the spring of 2010.
“It was amazing,” says Ludwig. “It was the first time I’d won an honour besides the dean’s list. After that I won the Mike Colle [Outstanding Volunteer] Award, the Lieutenant Governor’s [Community Volunteer] Award, and the honour to speak at the 3M National Teaching Fellowship. The Waldman award started everything for me.”
Ludwig had already completed his required number of community-service hours before even starting high school, but that didn’t stop him seeking out new opportunities.
Besides helping out at Holy Blossom Temple’s Hebrew school – the same school he attended as a child – he volunteered at Baycrest in the art studio, libraries and behavioural neurology department. He also spent time at Mount Sinai Hospital in the MRI office and rapid response lab.
By the time he graduated high school last summer, he had 807 accredited community service hours under his belt.
Why was it so important for him to get involved with these ventures?
“The Jewish community was very welcoming,” he says simply. “By the fact that being Jewish is very important to me, I really wanted to give back.”
Ludwig’s interest in the Jewish community continued inside the walls of Forest Hill Collegiate, where he participated in the Jewish Culture Club – just one of the more than half dozen other clubs and committees he was a member of.
Ludwig adds he has no idea how he balanced so many extracurricular activities with a course load that included four extra credits.
“I’m not really sure how, but once you start doing it and get into the right mindset, it becomes easier and easier. When I have work to do, I get it done.”
Now in his first year at U of T, Ludwig plans to complete a specialist in psychology.
Although the recommended course load at U of T is five classes per semester, Ludwig is registered in seven. He says that once he completed his degree, he’d like to pursue medical school.
He’s known he wanted to be a doctor since high school, and credits his grandfather, Dr. Bernard Ludwig – who he says holds a record for delivering the most babies in all of Canada – as inspiring this decision.
“And it’s always been an interesting job,” he says. “As long as I can remember, I always enjoyed going to the hospital. It was always a nice place to be, the way people respect each other.”
He’s not even fazed by the warnings of several Mount Sinai doctors that “the burnout rate is eight years. But I’m up for it.”
