Scholarship helps Commerce student find her calling
2012-03-08 10:42:06

In a very Canadian moment, Commerce student Hyla LaPointe was stranded by a snowstorm in a hotel room when she learned that she had been awarded the prestigious Loran Scholarship, worth $75,000 over four years. At the time, she was a high school student and just returning from Toronto after two days of interviews for the scholarship.

“I was happy, but sad that I couldn’t talk to my parents for more than a few minutes in a quick collect call. I didn’t want to charge a long distance bill to the school board that was paying my hotel bill,” says LaPointe, who is from Black Point, NB.

Now in her fourth-year at Mount Allison studying accounting and French, she is about to embark on a career in forensic accounting.

“One reason I chose to come to Mount Allison was because there were so many different events and clubs on campus, which meant I would have an easy time getting involved,” says LaPointe, who was involved in numerous activities at her high school, including being the first female president of the AV club. An important criterion for the Loran Scholarship is for students to make a significant contribution to the community.

At Mount Allison, LaPointe volunteers for the Red Cross as part of their Disaster Management Team, for the SMILE program, and is secretary/treasurer for War Child Mount Allison. She has also worked as a research assistant for Drs. Judith Holton and Gina Grandy, professors in the Ron Joyce Centre for Business Studies.

“It was sometimes a challenge to balance my schoolwork with my other activities,” LaPointe says, but she has managed it, collecting awards along the way, including two in accounting, a Dean’s List average, and Sackville’s Youth Achievement Honours Award.

A requirement of the scholarship is for students to work in a number of different areas over the summer to learn about themselves, the world, and decide where they can make a contribution. LaPointe was able to complement her studies at Mount Allison and use this experience to choose what she wanted to study and ultimately what career she wanted to pursue.

Her first summer she studied French in Bordeaux, France, which led to her decision to do a minor in French. The next year LaPointe worked for the New Brunswick government as part of the summer public policy requirement for the scholarship.

“It was an interesting summer. I did a comparative analysis of provincial educational programs, reported to world-labour organizations, and wrote an options paper on post-secondary education for the minister of education,” she says.

For the scholarship’s enterprise summer LaPointe worked for Canadian Pacific Railway in Calgary in forensic accounting. She worked on two audits and was the lead investigator for one of them. She also travelled to Chicago and New York as part of the job.

“I like the creative side to this work. You have to sift through the evidence, come up with the right questions, and figure out from the responses what is going on,” she says.

LaPointe also loved the company and was delighted when, at the end of the summer, she was offered a full-time job after she graduates.

No matter what lies ahead, LaPointe has a track record of rising to a challenge.

“Leadership is not an insurmountable achievement; it's within everyone's grasp,” she says. “You can be a leader by making a difference in many people's lives or just for one person. That was the best realization I made in university.”

PHOTO CAPTION: Hyla Lapointe accepts the KPMG accounting award from K. Brent Spencer of KPMG during the Commerce Awards Night last fall.