After two months at McGill University in Canada, Liu Weiyi, a freshman there, found himself adapting well to his pharmacology major.

The 19-year-old student's passion for pharmacology, which originated from an earlier fear of falling ill or dying, grew stronger as he studied in Upper Canada College based in Toronto, a private boy's school where counselors help students select courses they like for higher studies, as well as later careers.

"During my time (at UCC) in the past three years, I was asked to choose a subject, design a complicated experiment and then write a report or essay to analyze it," Liu says. "That's quite similar to what I am doing here in the university for my assignments."

He had studied chemistry and mathematics in UCC, which is why he could get into an "ideal university", Liu says, adding that he was earlier in a junior high school in China's Hebei province.

After leaving the Chinese school that offered exam-oriented education and highlighted the role of practice, he says he started to learn how to think ahead and equip himself with a more rounded development at UCC. Founded in 1829, UCC enrolls more than 1,000 students from kindergarten to grade 12 and has over 10,000 alumni in more than 75 countries.

Students like Liu, who come from a different cultural background, are key to the school's population diversity, according to Sam McKinney, UCC principal who recently held a reunion in Beijing for the school's former Chinese students.

Throughout its nearly 200-year history, UCC has fostered premiers, chief justices, Olympic medalists and star performers in many other fields. Many often reunite at branch events or return to UCC to deliver speeches for the students on campus and share useful experiences with the next generation.

McKinney says apart from the students in classrooms, the faculty and support staff, the UCC community involves a network of all alumni and their families who live in different countries.

"When our boys meet one another, whether they graduated last year or 60 years ago, they have something in common, and it creates a wonderful point of connection and bond between them," he says.

"We value well-being and the combination of physical, social, emotional and cognitive subjects that are unique to us all," says McKinney, adding that UCC's education occurs not only in the classroom but also on the playing field, the stage and in all areas of the school so that a well0rounded student can be nurtured.

The school emphasizes holistic education, boasting quality learning, creative thinking, and a huge sports complex, among other facilities. Spread over 430 acres of land, to the northwest of Toronto, is its outdoor education center, where students can enhance their awareness of nature and learn about their responsibility to protect it.

Sun Ying, the mother of a student at UCC who lives in the city, says the school's appeal to the family mainly lies in its inclusive community and extracurricular activities, including ice hockey.

"As a sports enthusiast who didn't care much about liberal arts, my son started to develop his interest in that field at UCC and talks about English literature with me after school," she says.

Comparing single-gender and co-educational environments, McKinney says that boys develop in ways that are different from girls and the school provides programs that engage boys well.

As the father of three sons who also study at UCC, he says the boys won't lack social opportunities to communicate with girls from other schools in that area.

[email protected]