Coming from a family of business owners, he was already familiar with the day-to-day realities of running a company. University, for him, was a way to deepen his understanding of finance and better prepare for what might come next.
That mindset naturally led him to the finance stream at the Telfer School of Management.
"I've always been very number-oriented," he says. "To me, numbers don't lie. Finance teaches you how to analyze data and forecast business projections, which are skills I know will be useful in the future."
But Max's university experience didn't unfold the way he initially expected.
Finding his place
During his first two years at university, Max kept a relatively low profile on campus. Like many students adjusting to university life, he focused mostly on classes and studying.
Looking back, he realized that something was missing. "I wasn't very involved in clubs for activities during my first two years," he explains. "And honestly, my grades suffered because of it."
That began to change once he started connecting more intentionally with classmates in his programs. Study sessions turned into conversations, and conversations turned into friendships that helped reshape his university experience.
"Once I started meeting people in my classes and studying with them, my grades went from C's to A's almost overnight," he says.
That turning point helped him realize that university was about much more than lectures and assignments. It was also about community.
Creating opportunities through involvement
As he became more engaged on campus, Max began exploring different clubs and organizations. But none of them felt quite right.
Instead of settling for something that didn't match his interests, he decided to create something new.
The idea for an upcycling and sustainability club first emerged from a Community Service Learning (CSL) course focused on sustainability. What started as a class project quickly evolved into something much larger.
The Upcycling Club aims to promote, educate, and engage the University of Ottawa community on the many ways sustainability can be practiced through upcycling. Through hands-on workshops, members learn practical techniques they can use to adopt more sustainable habits in their daily lives.
“At first, the goal was just to start the club and complete the project for the course. But once we began running workshops, I realized how much potential there was to build a community and teach practical skills at the same time.”
Maximilian Benda - Founder & Co-President of the Upcycling Club
During hands-on workshops, students learned practical skills such as repairing clothing, parching denim, or repurposing materials that would otherwise be thrown away. The events were designed not only to share knowledge but also to bring students together in an informal and collaborative setting.
For Max, those moments of connection were just as important as the workshops themselves.
"You see people from completely different programs meeting each other and exchanging ideas," he says. "Those connections can turn into friendships, study groups, or even future collaborations."
That experience of building something from the ground up also pushed him to look for new ways to apply his skills beyond campus.
Learning beyond the classroom
As Max became more involved on campus through his club and coursework, he began hearing about other opportunities to apply what he was learning in new contexts. Through peers and professors, he was introduced to interdisciplinary innovation challenges.
One of these challenges, co-organized by the Telfer School of Management and the Faculty of Medicine, focused on youth homelessness.
During the weekend-long sprint, teams worked alongside experts and mentors to design practical solutions to real social challenges.
For Max and his team, that process led to an ambitious concept: a tiny-home community designed to provide stable housing and support services for homeless youth.
The experience did not end with the sprint. Motivated by the potential of their idea, Max and his team chose to further develop the project through a Self-directed course, allowing them to further refine their concept and explore its real-world feasibility, while also earning academic credits as part of their curriculum, effectively replacing a traditional course.
"Working with students from different disciplines completely changes the way you think about a problem," he says. "In our group, we had people studying computer science, nutrition, and social development. Everyone brought a different perspective."
The experience reinforced something he had begun to learn through his other activities: finding solution to (or tackling) real-world challenges require collaboration across disciplines.
Turning ideas into actions
Max also applied that same mindset to projects within his club. With the support of student initiative funding through the Youth Leadership for Change program led by the Social Planning Council of Ottawa (SPCO), his team received a micro-grant designed to help students bring community-focused ideas to life.
That support gave them the means to purchase tools and launch a large-scale project to build garden beds for a community garden near campus.
At first, the group struggled with limited equipment. “We had dozens of students ready to work, but we didn’t have enough tools,” he recalls.
Once they secured funding and expanded their toolkit, the project quickly gained momentum.
“We ended up building more than 40 garden beds for the community garden,” he says. For Max, the experience demonstrated how student-led initiatives can make a tangible difference when given the right support.
A journey shaped by connections
Now approaching graduation, Max sees his university journey as a series of unexpected connections and opportunities.
One experience led to another: meeting new people, starting a club, participating in interdisciplinary challenges, and launching community projects.
Each step helped him expand his perspective on what learning can look like.
If he could offer one piece of advice to new students, it would be simple.
“Get involved and meet people,” he says. “The network you build at university can completely change your experience.”
When Max first arrived at uOttawa, he expected university to prepare him for the family business.
What he discovered instead was a broader definition of learning, one shaped by collaboration, community, and hands-on experiences beyond the classroom.