Waterloo Engineering alumni Philip Toy and Robert Van den Berg launched the Class of 1985 Mechanical Engineering Bursary in 2016 to help first-year students kick off their studies with less financial stress.
Thanks to them and their classmates' commitment and generosity, Toy and Van den Berg created an endowed bursary that is managed by the University and supports more students each year with a higher award value.
Recent Waterloo Engineering alum Rehnuma Tasneem (BASc ’24, mechanical and mechatronics engineering) moved to Canada with her parents when she was in high school. What concerned her most about starting university was managing the cost of her first year with as little financial stress as possible.
“My parents were also studying to gain the qualifications they needed to advance their own careers in Canada,” said Tasneem. “They weren’t earning full-time salaries then and I didn’t want to add to their money worries. When my letter of acceptance arrived from the University of Waterloo, I was thrilled to learn that I’d received the Class of 1985 Mechanical Engineering Entrance Bursary.”
The mechanical engineering class of 1985 created the bursary out of an awareness that the cost of a degree had risen significantly since their student days as had the overall cost of living.
“Many of our classmates have had great careers, either as entrepreneurs or as executives at companies like Kraft, IBM and Blackberry. The more we talked about how fortunate we’ve been, the more it became clear that our class could help future engineers achieve their ambitions by lessening their financial strain in first year,” said Toy.
Tasneem is one of eight recipients who has benefited from the Class of 1985 Mechanical Engineering Entrance Bursary. As a very recent alum with the memory of her studies still fresh, she said the bursary helped get her academic journey off to a solid start.
“It really reduced the stress of my first year. Everything was so new, which was exciting but busy and overwhelming too. My headspace filled up very quickly and honestly, if I’d been worrying about money on top of everything else, I could easily have fallen behind in my studies. Instead, I could focus on what I needed to and build momentum for the rest of my degree.”
Go to Giving back to lighten students’ financial burden for the full story.