One 6.5-kilometre walk for Concordians, one giant leap for students

“It’s touching for people to go out and sweat for me,” she says. “I work really hard for my grades and for it to be recognized feels really awesome.”

Gendron-Cloutier wants to be a psychologist. She had already paid the fees to attend another university when she received the news about her Shuffle award.

“It made me look more into what Concordia could offer, and I ended up choosing Concordia, not only because of the award, but because a lot of the other elements were actually better for what I wanted to achieve and how I wanted to have my university experience,” she says. “So it actually helped me find the right path.”

The scholarship also opened new doors for Gendron-Cloutier, including a semester abroad in the Netherlands next winter.

Zachary Laflamme, a Department of Finance student, says the Shuffle scholarship gave him more freedom to pursue his interests when he was starting at Concordia last year.

“Throughout CEGEP I had been working about 20 hours a week on top of school. I didn’t really want to do that in university because I wanted to make sure I’d be able to maintain good grades,” he says. “At Concordia, I was able to focus on my studies full-time because of the scholarship.”

Now Laflamme has time to be a part of the John Molson Competition Committee, which is appropriate because it was the case competition program that attracted him to Concordia in the first place.

He begins his own co-op internship at the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec in Montreal in the fall. He believes that job and his other placements will clarify where in the world of finance he wants to build his career.

Laflamme, like Esposito and Gendron-Cloutier, looks forward to the day when he can give back to Shuffle. “I will encourage and promote the raising of funds for students.”

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