Wesley, an incoming SFU first-year discusses his scholarship wins, struggles, and what he plans to study at SFU in Fall 2022!

How many scholarships have you won?

I applied to around 17 scholarships. Out of those, I was able to win 3 scholarships, and the total came to about $28,000. The main one that I won that took up a bulk of the amount was the SFU Undergraduate Scholarship with distinction, and that’s a scholarship that covers my tuition for one degree so it was estimated to be around $27,000. 

Let’s talk a little about your scholarship journey. The main thing that you’re doing is writing. How was that writing experience for you?

It’s definitely really hard to start. Especially when you’re jumping into something like this which you’ve never had experience with. There’s some workshops where you can work on worksheets and get the base of your application started. My first application I ever wrote was my UBC personal profile which is really difficult for me. I spent two months on that; constantly making edits and getting them back by the GrantMe Essay Editing team. But it definitely starts getting easier after that as the questions are super similar. You can start copying and pasting while making some minor adjustments. It’s something that’s difficult to start with, but once you get 3 to 4 applications down, you get the hang of it! 

What was your biggest challenge?

I have always been a lot better at talking about my experiences as opposed to putting them down on paper. I’ve never been a really strong writer. So, I would say answering the question or finding a way to word my experiences in a way that’ll appeal to scholarship committees.

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