Why I knew UWaterloo and SAF was the right fit for me

Friday, January 14, 2022
by Alex K., AFM student

How a rainy day changed my life

Hi, I’m Alex, and I am a student in the Accounting and Financial Management (AFM) program at the University of Waterloo. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, working on financial models, and walking my 10-year-old Bichon-Shih Tzu Ozzy (who can be seen in the photo below, proudly sporting his Waterloo bandana).

alex with his dog
When I was in high school, I was very unsure about where to apply, touring many different universities in both Canada and the United States, but none of them gave me the feeling of “this is the school for me”. However, the last tour I was set to go on was at the University of Waterloo. When my family and I got onto campus, we were drenched by rainfall so we ran into the first building we could which just so happened to be the SAF building (Hagey Hall of the Humanities). When we got into the building, we were just in time for an information session on the AFM program. That single event changed my life because out of all the schools and programs I visited, I had never heard students speak so highly of not only their own accomplishments but also of the School. They talked about how the curriculum is constantly updated to reflect what employers in the accounting and finance fields most value in their new hires, which was surprisingly hard to find at other schools.

The AFM students also talked about all their co-op experiences, and I was hooked. After the presentation, I can remember discussing with some of the students about the co-op process thinking “okay, there’s no way everyone gets to have these experiences, it must only be for a few students”, but they happily corrected my initial assumptions describing how exciting and rewarding the co-op process is. At that exact moment, I knew that this was the school and program for me.