For Tia Lewis, who graduates this October with a Bachelor of Mathematics in Actuarial Science and Statistics (Finance specialization), her career is the result of years of hard work, mentorship and real-life experience.
As a child growing up in Barbados, Lewis helped take care of her father during an illness, and decided she wanted to be a doctor. “Unfortunately, I realized soon that I didn’t like blood, so I had to find a new career where I could help people,” she says. “I did well in my accounting classes in high school, so I thought I might become an accountant, but then my teacher, Maldon Goodridge, suggested that actuarial science would be a better challenge for me.”
It was also Goodridge who told her that the University of Waterloo had one of the best actuarial science programs in the world and encouraged her to apply. “We had a group of four friends who all said we would go to Canada to study together,” Lewis says. “In the end, I’m the only one who actually made it.”
Read the full story from Waterloo News to learn more.