Tessa Geurts

What Education have you taken?

I graduated from Lindsay Thurber High School in Red Deer, Alberta in 2008 and attended Mount Royal College in 2008/09. I then transferred to Brandon University in 2009/10. I also did one year at the University of New Brunswick in 2012/13 as a visiting student. I am currently in my fifth year of a Bachelor of Science Honours degree with a major in Mathematics and a minor in Physics here at Brandon University. I am also working towards completing my Certified Professional Accountant (CPA) prerequisite courses.

What accomplishments are you proud of?

I am proud to be a ‘retired’ university varsity athlete. I played one year on the Mount Royal Women’s Volleyball Team in 2008/09, played the 2009/10 and 2010/11 seasons with the BU Women’s Bobcat Volleyball Team and I played my last year of varsity volleyball with the women’s volleyball team at the University of New Brunswick in 2012/13. The past two years I have completely shifted all my energy and focus towards my Math degree and my future career and I am very proud of my accomplishments. I was accepted into the Bachelor of Science honours program in 2013 and got inducted into the President’s Honour Society and put on the honours list in 2013/14. I was also privileged to receive the Roland Kitchen Scholarship in Mathematics for 2014. I am proud to be involved in helping run the Math Study Hall here at the university and try to set time aside to tutor High School math students in the Brandon Area community as well. I have worked at the university as an Institutional Data Analyst since May 2014 and I have now secured a full-time position at the BDO accounting office in Brandon.

Tell me about yourself/ your background/ your history.

I was born in Oostrum, The Netherlands and my family immigrated to Canada when I was six years old. I grew up in Red Deer, Alberta and lived there until I went on to university. I grew up playing a number of sports but I was particularly big on tennis, speed skating, and volleyball. I have always loved to travel and love moving to new cities and meeting new people. In my second semester of High School I went to Holland for four months to live and play volleyball. I also took a year off from university in 2010/11 and moved to Toronto to pursue modelling. I lived in Fredericton, New Brunswick the following year, and two summers ago my boyfriend and I backpacked Europe for 7 weeks. I love the thrill of exploring new places – it keeps life interesting.

How did you become interested in your field of study?

I have always loved Math and it has been my favorite subject since I can remember. As a kid it felt like a game and I always enjoyed the challenge of solving a problem. My first year of college I didn’t know what to take so I did a year of Commerce and I quickly realized this was not the ‘type’ of Math I was looking for. The following year I switched to a Science degree with a major in Mathematics at Brandon University and have never looked back.

What is your philosophy in life?

In short, I believe hard work always pays off and you should never be afraid to fail. Although on the whole, the most important thing for me in life is family.

Where do you see yourself in the future?

I don’t really like to plan too far ahead. I am very excited to be graduating with my Science degree coming up in May and my goal for at least the next two-to-three years is to get my CPA designation and to become certified in the business analytics software I have been using for institutional analysis here at the university. I also would love to work abroad for a year!

Nominators’ comments:

Tessa Geurts is a great example of a well-rounded, exceptional female student. She was hired by Tom Brophy and Dr. Fearon to do data analysis on the BU student records system. She is an exceptionally dedicated worker, both in her courses and also as an employee. She is hard-working, smart, trustworthy, on time, pleasant, non-judgemental, and I could go on forever. Tessa was recruited from Calgary and competed on the women’s volleyball team for two years. She went to University of New Brunswick for two years and completed on the UNB women’s volleyball team. She returned to BU to finish her degree, in Mathematics. This combination of athletics and academics is unusual when math is the “academic” piece. Her grades are high.

She is a highly motivated and intelligent student with a great work ethic.  She is also a really wonderful person to interact with (friendly, outgoing, always a smile for everyone).