Bernice Wong, 0T7
"It's a group of people, and an environment, where you're encouraged to excel. Mediocrity is not the norm.”
SEPTEMBER 2007 - Bernice Wong, like all Commerce students, learned that sometimes you've just got to make cutbacks. She took it literally.
Wong's most rewarding involvement at U of T, she says, was through the Commerce faculty's Cuts for Cancer event, an annual student-run fundraiser for cancer research that she started in her first year. "Each year, we co-ordinated a day for students to come in and donate 10 inches of their hair to make wigs for kids who lost their hair through chemotherapy or medical treatments." Volunteers raise pledges and some shave their heads in support, with all the funds going to the Canadian Cancer Society. "It's something that's really near to my heart," says Wong, "It's been amazing. It's grown every year and it's become a really well-anticipated event within the Commerce community."
Wong graduated in June 2007 and is now working with the global consulting firm Oliver Wyman. But she intends to return for another degree or two, likely a master of business administration, or a law degree, or both.
A fixture of Trinity College committees, Wong served on the College's Corporation, Board of Stewards, Saints' Charity Ball committee, the Trinity College Dramatic Society, and put her financial training from the Commerce faculty to good use as auditor of Trinity's student clubs.
Trinity is "a group of people, and an environment, where you're encouraged to excel," she says. "Mediocrity is not the norm. Everybody has something that they're excellent at, and they're ambitious and really talented."
– Graham F. Scott
