Amin Zargar is one of the globe's specialists of tomorrow, sharpening his knowledge and abilities today here in the Okanagan.

The civil engineering student was selected to finish his doctoral degree at UBC Okanagan, where he is working on studies intended at forecasting future drought cycles and their affects in the Okanagan and other areas around the world.

According to Dean of graduate studies, Dr. Marvin Krank, Zargar is amongst roughly 500 graduate students struggling for masters or doctorates at UBC Okanagan, expecting to see themselves amid the heads and specialists of future.

Dr. Marvin said, "In the end, we expect our students who graduate with PhDs to be world-class experts in their field, whatever it is. If you want to be the innovative leader out there, you have to have that PhD".

Krank said that competent students paving their path through university, and those brilliant experts mounting career stepladders in today's extremely gung ho job market, are taking up that concept.

As it is, the graduate study courses have developed into the greatest rising unit within the university, he said.

He remarked that they had more than 500 applications this year. But he thinks that they will only be able to take 150 to 200 students. It's becoming that aggressive.