UTM grad committed to 'adding value' as a learner, professional and volunteer
Amit Dalaya’s education at University of Toronto Mississauga was more than what he learned in the classroom.
It was an experience that taught him personal values – such as giving back to the community and contributing to a better world – that he says will guide him for the rest of his life.
“UTM was a place where I had the opportunity to grow . . . (and) I feel like I’m able to take everything that I’ve learned and add value to society,” says Dalaya, who will be receiving his master’s degree in management and professional accounting (MMPA) during the fall 2024 convocation season.
Dalaya began his journey at UTM before he was even accepted as a bachelor’s student. A self-professed “science nerd,” he joined UTM-based Mississauga Academy of Medicine’s Adventures in Science program as a high school student, which inspired him to initially study life sciences for his undergraduate degree at the university.
But after his first year at UTM, he developed an interest in cognitive psychology and joined the Fukuda Lab led by Assistant Professor Keisuke Fakuda. There he helped research visual working memory, metacognition, and visual long-term memory. This experience, Dalaya says, taught him that there are many ways to make an impact on the world.
“It made me realize that there are different types of volunteering – there’s volunteering that will lead to personal benefit, and community benefit, but then there’s also volunteering to add value. And I think that’s what I really felt with research opportunities. The experiments (at the lab) really felt like I was adding value to society at a much bigger level,” he says.
Dalaya adds that his peers, mentors and professors at UTM were always supportive – whether it was at the Fukuda Lab, in the classroom, or those he met through volunteer work and clubs.
This encouragement was one of the main reasons he stayed at UTM for his master’s degree after earning his bachelor’s degree in psychology, with a minor in biology and environmental management.
“I always found that there was some support always there, no matter what. I had great mentors and great people around me,” he says.
When he was looking at different options for his master’s degree, he says this support system “came to his rescue” – connecting him with people within the MMPA program who encouraged him to pursue accounting.
“I always had somebody there with me to give me that guidance, and I found that to be a very common theme along my university career,” he says.
Throughout his graduate studies, Dalaya says he learned how to manage his time as a student, co-op student at Ernst & Young (EY) and volunteer for different groups and organizations across UTM – including as a U of T Graduate Students’ Union rep, EY Ambassador and MMPA Student Council member. He also collaborated to spearhead the Institute of Management and Innovation Review by Students (IMIRS) Volume 4 as the managerial lead, which was an initiative for a revamped publication post-COVID and represented the cross-disciplinary success of IMIRS. Additionally, he organized a mentorship program for first-year MMPA students and led workshops to help new graduate students transition to UTM.
Dalaya was also involved in fundraising initiatives for mental well-being, and actively participated in EY’s Ripples Campaign to raise funds to support small businesses in Canada.
In early 2024, he was recognized for his volunteer work when he received the U of T Student Leadership Award.
This month, he picked up a second leadership award, administered by EY and awarded annually to an MMPA student who has demonstrated outstanding leadership, skill and competencies.
After he graduates, Dalaya plans to become a chartered professional accountant (CPA) and continue his employment at Ernst & Young.
He is still actively involved in volunteering, and hopes to continue giving back to U of T.
“I’m looking forward to developing myself into a CPA professional and bringing value to our community by engaging with the University of Toronto and Ernst & Young, with the aspiration to build a better working and harmonious world together,” Dalaya says.
