Roughly 800 students celebrated the last few years by throwing their caps in the air at Friday's convocation ceremony held by Saskatchewan Polytechnic in Moose Jaw. 

The ceremony held over 1,000 people at the Hildebrand Chapel in the community of Caronport to honour the graduates of post-secondary education, but there was another student who received a special distinction. 

Yash Karan Bagga was nominated and presented with the Outstanding Citizenship Award Friday afternoon in front of his peers. The award is given to one student from all campuses across the province each year and they are presented with it at the yearly convocation ceremony.

"Someone who helps everyone else in the classroom, participates in extracurricular activities, presents a special project or does something special then they get this type of award. Every year a person from every campus is selected and from the Moose Jaw campus I have been selected," explained Karam Bagga. 

He only got the official word a few weeks ago by an email stating that he was the chosen recipient, most of which was thanks to his instructors who put his name in the running. 

"I didn't know that my instructors nominated me because they didn't tell me anything beforehand. It was a total shock for me I said 'this is really great', I couldn't control my feelings I was telling everyone that I got this award. I told my parents right away and they were pretty happy as well," said Karan Bagga. 

A little while ago his instructors asked the class if they could nominate someone amongst themselves who is the most kind, helpful and willing to support their classmate, Karan Bagga was overjoyed to hear that he was unanimously chosen. Little did he know that the information his instructors collected that day would lead to receiving an award a short time later. 

"I always help everyone else and then on that day I came to know everybody was happy I'm in their class. Their reaction was amazing, I was totally shocked. This is truly amazing that I have these types of classmates, I have really good friends at this school."

Karan Bagga is an exchange student from Indian who is currently in the geomatics and surveying course at the Moose Jaw campus. He said he was honoured during Friday's ceremony and can't wait for his own convocation next year.