My wife Becky and I were recipients of Foundation scholarships as part of the first class of University Scholars, and we can both say without question that the awards didn’t just impact our lives, but were responsible for the direction they took from age 18 in 1993 to today.
Our scholarships were the primary reason that we both attended YSU. I grew up in Akron and she grew up around Pittsburgh, and neither of us really had the financial means to attend school away from home, at least without taking on substantial debt, until YSU came along with the first Leslie Cochran University Scholars scholarship. YSU was the perfect opportunity for both of us to pursue our desired educational paths in engineering at a school that was well known to have a good program…and without the stress of taking out multiple student loans.
We met and began dating during our first quarter at YSU and would eventually come to have perfectly aligned schedules, as we both majored in Chemical Engineering. We made great friendships during our time at YSU in addition to finding each other, and many of these YSU friends and fellow scholarship recipients would be in our wedding…which was on the Saturday of our senior year finals week.
In the time since, we have both had successful careers, though I strayed from engineering and landed in IT for the past 20+ years. We were able to start our life together without the burden of student loans thanks entirely to the generosity of the YSU Foundation. We have never forgotten what YSU and the Foundation did for us, and so we have committed to giving back for many years, first with donations during the annual campaign and in more recent years through our own Foundation scholarship for STEM students, the William and Rebecca Dando Scholarship. Though it’s currently small compared to the awards we received, we intend to keep growing it throughout our lifetimes and maybe one day provide the kind of opportunity we were blessed with.
Our story has now continued on through the next generation. Our daughter began pursuing a degree in Chemical Engineering in the fall of 2021, living in Cafaro just as her parents did, and pursuing her dreams with the assistance of a Foundation scholarship. She’s been making the most of her opportunity, not just by doing well in classes but by dancing with the hip-hop team at basketball games, volunteering to coach kids at the new tennis facility, doing research as part of the Choose Ohio First STEM program, and working for the Honors College. We also have a son, but he is in his freshman year of high school and not yet thinking about where he wants to attend college…so we’ve got some time to turn him into a Penguin 🙂