The design and engineering company Stantec celebrated its 65th year anniversary back in 2019. They built their success as a company with the support of their clients, staff, colleagues and community. Starting out as a one-person firm up to today, with over 22,000 employees working in over 400 locations across continents
Stantec takes pride on the impact they have made in the communities they serve. To demonstrate their commitment to supporting the community, Stantec recently partnered with ERIEC to present a deserving Career Mentorship mentee with the opportunity to receive support that would help them to attain their professional educational goals, and succeed to their fullest ability in the STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) field.
Out of several STEM mentee applicants who applied for the bursary, Abdullahi Mohammed was selected by the ERIEC selection committee to receive this award. Abdullahi has a bachelor’s in Civil Engineering with over 10 years of experience. Choosing a successful mentee applicant from our program is no easy task, but his detailed explanation of attaining his future goals and desire to undertake STEM courses he was planning to undertake, gave him the edge over the other applicants.
Abdullahi shared some thoughts from his career journey prior to his involvement with ERIEC and receiving the Stantec bursary award.
“Leaving my home country was a hard decision because it involved a tedious and expensive process.
Our arrival at Edmonton International Airport was a big dream come true for me and my family. My high spirits and excitement quickly was confronted by the realities of settling down. I had made numerous unsuccessful job applications, despite having a Bachelors’ Degree in Civil Engineering with over 10 years of overseas experience. I accepted a position in a furniture store - coming from a tropical country, adapting to this new job was not easy for me because it involved unloading of 90kgs packages of furniture from trucks in the peak of an Edmonton winter. I would later quit this job to begin re-strategizing my job search. I eventually crossed paths with the ERIEC organization and enrolled in their mentorship program.
After completing the mentorship program, I was confident and felt more job-ready. It was no coincidence that I received job offers following this experience.. Interestingly, one of the offers required a PEng designation, but the employer was willing to give me a few months for me to apply for it. It was about this same time was that I decided to apply for the STANTEC STEM bursary award since I needed financial support to pursue my PEng designation and some important related course work.
Today, I am indeed overwhelmed by a deep sense of gratitude to both ERIEC and to STANTEC for this bursary opportunity. Thank you for investing in my education and for my future.”