But for one Malaysian, he chose to use his time to chase his dreams.

Beat more than three million entries

Muhammad Azhar Ali was recently awarded a prestigious NASA scholarship after taking part in the Artemis Challenge organised by the space agency.

The competition’s task is to design a spacesuit interface that would adjust to the Artemis 2024 mission to Mars.

NASA IS GIVING ME A SCHOLARSHIP !? Ya Allah, I NEVER thought of of this when I joined the Artemis Challenge. Alhamdulillah. The challenge was to design a spacesuit that would adjust to the Artemis 2024 mission to Mars, and thanks to @rafiqhilmi_ ‘s question, I made it. Syukur pic.twitter.com/w6aCahmZdN

— Saturn ? (@theotherazharal) April 30, 2020

Azhar came up on top and received a super distinction score of 96.77 per cent, making him the top one per cent of all participants.

A total of 3,623,982 participants competed in the challenge and only 1.52 per cent of those participants who scored between 90 to 100 marks were awarded the scholarship.

He is now officially NASA’s Citizen Scientist and will continue his studies at the National University of Singapore, which he will be fully funded by the NASA Degree Scholarship.

Azhar’s achievement even caught the attention of the Minister of Science, Technolgy & Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin, who invited him to the ministry and the Malaysian Space agency to discuss how they can encourage the next generation of young scientists.

Congratulations! Happy to welcome you to @officialmosti & the Malaysian Space Agency soon to see how we can encourage more of our young scientists to win prestigious scholarships.

— Khairy Jamaluddin (@Khairykj) April 30, 2020

Hundreds of Malaysians joined the Rembau MP in congratulating Malaysia’s next scientist.

Who knows, one day Azhar will be the next Malaysian to bring home the Nobel Prize.

All the best Azhar, looking forward to see your work in the future!