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It was a crisp December morning. Rekha Kulshreshtha’s winter coat was wrapped tightly around her hand-sewn dress. A pair of black high heels clip-clopped over a light skiff of snow in Main Quad, on the ºÚÁϲ»´òìÈ’s North Campus. A stream of sun warmed the smile she could no longer hide. Rekha, 24, had just been offered a dream job.

“My God,” Rekha recalls telling herself. “What I was working so hard for happened and I am free!”

That freedom brought new, pivotal choices to shape her own future. For Rekha, '87 BSc (Hons), '89 BSc EPhys, this meant pursuing a career and a life on her own terms—a path diverging from her family’s hopes of an arranged marriage. While she respected her family’s traditions, Rekha’s journey lay in building a life that felt true to her own aspirations and belonging.

This journey, marked by bold decisions and hard-won independence, is the reason she is now giving back to the U of A. Rekha is an inaugural supporter of the Student Experiential Skills Advantage (SESA) – a U of A initiative that creates equitable opportunities for Faculty of Science and Faculty of Native Studies students. 

“I want to expose them to what life can be like, regardless of where they’ve come from,” she says.

Rekha's story exemplifies the transformative power of experiential learning, a key ingredient of SESA and a cornerstone of the U of A’s Shape the Future campaign. This campaign is dedicated to student success through hands-on experiences, enhanced learning environments, and scholarships, awards, and bursaries, empowering students to become leaders and innovators.

Rekha's donation to the Faculty of Science is not just a gift, but a continuation of her own path—a way to extend her own opportunities to a new generation of students.

More than three decades after graduating, Rekha, from her Toronto consultancy firm, reflects on her lengthy career with IBM. She worked hard to build the financial freedom that today allows her to work completely on her own terms – and to give students the kinds of study and career opportunities that transformed her life. This is why she invests in SESA.

The SESA impact

The SESA program funds research and work opportunities for Science undergraduates. Students are paired with faculty mentors as they complete paid research placements, giving them hands-on experience as they earn competitive wages.

Rekha believes these experiences open doors, just as opportunities at the U of A once did for her. 

SESA will help future scientists and changemakers solve some of our fast-changing world’s biggest problems. The donor-funded initiative will create more equitable access to Faculty of Science students by:

• Giving them access to learning opportunities, regardless of resources or backgrounds. 
• Providing them with fair and competitive pay as research and project assistants. 
• Growing their valuable connections with faculty members, researchers and mentors.

SESA’s philosophy is that a student’s life experience should be an asset, not a barrier. By offering accessible training experiences, internships, and research projects that reflect the breadth of science at the U of A, SESA ensures that all students—regardless of background—can take advantage of transformative opportunities. This belief is a core component of Shape: The U of A’s 2023-2033 Strategic Plan.

Rekha Kulshreshtha and her grandfather Sanatan Swaroop Kulshreshtha, pictured in Uttarakhand, India in 1966.

Gifts a lifetime in the making

Thinking back, Rekha singles out people and experiences at the U of A that shaped her, and gave her the courage to create her own life: The former dean of science who steered her from taking too many electives during her very busy second year; the honours physics classmates who welcomed her as a peer, offsetting the sense of isolation she felt as a woman of colour in a field sorely lacking diverse perspectives.

Then came that day in Quad. It was 1988, the height of the personal computer boom and IBM was doing interviews on campus. Rekha had applied, was interviewed, and was now celebrating a job offer that was simply too good to turn down. Though it meant breaking with family traditions that were generations in the making, she would accept the job, move across the country and never look back.

That is, until now. 

Through ongoing and a transformational planned gift to SESA, Rekha is creating a personal legacy, by bringing life-changing opportunities — and hopefully the courage to live their own lives — to other science students at her beloved alma mater.

SESA is a prime example of the experiential learning opportunities that Shape the Future aims to expand. By supporting this pillar of the campaign, donors are directly investing in students' ability to gain crucial skills and real-world experience, ensuring they are prepared to tackle the challenges of our rapidly evolving world.

“University is a very special time in most people’s lives,” she says. “You don’t have the kinds of opportunities you have there ever again.”

Students have a remarkable will to change the world. They will broaden our horizons, feed the world, improve health outcomes and take on inequity. Join the Shape the Future campaign as we raise $100 million to provide the next generation of U of A change makers with the access, opportunities and spaces that will help them shape an inspiring future for all. 

• Thanks to donors like Kulshreshtha, see how U of A students will make a difference in the .
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