Convocation: Ryan Tonkin

After leaving home at the age of 14 and high school after Grade 10, Ryan Tonkin worked a series of odd jobs around Victoria before starting to put his goals into action in his early twenties.

Tonkin returned to school in 2007 to find his way to law school and—judging by his future plans that include both an MA and a Harvard law degree—he found his footing somewhere between Aristotle and Descartes.

“I found I had a personal interest in how to go about looking at the world in a really methodical way,” explains Tonkin of his choice to tackle an honours degree in philosophy in preparation for law school.

“Law is really just rigorous logical argumentation, so there’s a central overlapping core that you can find in both law and philosophy.”

This curiosity has paid off for Tonkin, who will be celebrating his first-ever graduation day this month.

“I came back to school because I didn’t really have another option,” explains Tonkin. “I saw a lot of things in the world I wanted to do, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get there without challenging some of my personal expectations and creating a new opportunity.”

Tonkin made his way to UVic after a year of hard work at Camosun during which his outlook and high GPA caught the attention of UVic philosophy professor Carrie Klatt, who instructed Tonkin for two summer courses in 2008. Klatt helped Tonkin attain a full scholarship for the remainder of his studies at UVic and has hired him as both a teaching assistant and an LSAT tutorial instructor at different times during his undergraduate career.

In 2009 Tonkin was awarded a UVic Undergraduate Research Scholarship through the Learning and Teaching Centre that saw him linking philosophers of language and aestheticians in a study to investigate aesthetic judgement.

He was also the chair of the Philosophy Students Association, worked as a volunteer librarian for his department and was a regular volunteer at Sanctuary Youth Centre downtown.

“You really can’t underestimate the value of hard work,” says Tonkin. “Once I realized how to be strategic in my planning, I found I was able to succeed in a way I never thought was possible.”

And he’s got a lot of hard work ahead of him before heading south of the border to pursue his interests in international and social justice next year.

Tonkin is squeezing a master’s degree in philosophy into just 16 months before he heads to Harvard in September 2011 to begin his law degree.

“If you’d asked me about all of this three years ago I would have laughed at you, really,” chuckles Tonkin. “Saying this experience has been awesome is a huge understatement.”