Emrah's story

As I was focusing on my studies and preparing for the university exam in 2002, my older brother started searching for a financial scholarship to support me through the university. At the time, we couldn’t even imagine such a scholarship as YEF was offering through the vision of Matt Yildizlar.

Just by luck/destiny, through my brother’s colleague, we heard about YEF and decided to try our chance. After an amazing selection process, I was selected as one of the two recipients of YEF scholarship on its very first year in 2002. I still remember the phone call by Matt like yesterday, and my life has changed forever with that one phone call. 

The process from the selection to the day I started my classes was so organized, comforting and well-thought-of that it gives me great excitement (and slight pressure 😊) to do the same for our future recipients.
I always say that YEF is not just a financial/academic scholarship. The day Emre and I were selected, we were invited to a dinner with the UB Alumni in Istanbul. It gave us great confidence to see many successful graduates of UB, and it gave us great comfort to hear their amazing memories about UB and Buffalo. 

A few weeks later, YEF invited our families to make sure they could meet Matt and other good people behind the scholarship, so that our families could experience the transparency and feel the ease-of-heart to trust YEF with their kids. Now at this age, I can imagine how nervous our families would have still felt, but, since I experienced first hand the amazing 4 years that I had, I know that it wouldn’t have been possible to put it in words. 

I believe this will be one our most important and challenging goals to make sure we can reflect the vision and the transparency of YEF on potential candidates and their families. To be honest, until I got on the plane and it took off, I still kept thinking that it was a dream, just because the opportunity ahead of me and the whole experience since that first phone call were beyond my imagination. Here I was, a 17-year-old kid from Duzce, first time ever flying and, more importantly, to study in USA on a full scholarship. As soon as I landed in Buffalo, I was greeted by a lovely family (organized by YEF) at the airport. They welcomed me in their home until the dormitories were opened, and I became close friends and even classmates with their kids.

All in all, the whole selection and onboarding process was an amazing start to an even more amazing college experience. I really want to emphasize this part of the story to do my best in giving ease and comfort to all our future candidates. With YEF, I was already feeling part of a caring, modern and open-minded family.
I was able to select any major that I wanted, and I decided to study Business Administration with double concentration in Marketing and Finance while Emre decided to go for Computer Engineering.

 
I was focusing on my classes while making sure I improve my English as fast as possible. So, I decided to work for the school cafeteria to continue practicing my English in my free time. After first semester, YEF network gave me the opportunity to get a job at the Office of International Education, giving me the great privilege of working with the amazing team of OIE (Dr. Dunnett, Joe Hindrawan,  Steven Shaw and many others). Having a part time job throughout college kept me disciplined, exposed me to business/office life and enabled me to earn extra money for more travels and experiences. YEF scholarship was already more than enough for all my expenses, but I really appreciated the benefits of my part time job.

During my 4 years at UB I have had experiences that I couldn’t even have imagined back in my small town in Turkey: an outstanding education, amazing people from all over the world, Thanksgiving in Connecticut, spring breaks all over the US, NBA games, NFL games, snowboarding, weekend trips to NYC or Toronto… 
To sum up, thanks to YEF, I didn’t just get a scholarship and get educated. I got transformed to be a strong and open-minded world citizen, who still loves his country and people. YEF allowed me to improve myself academically, personally and socially, which allowed me to have an amazing professional career.

 

That’s why I have been dreaming about the day that I get a chance to give back and I am so happy that the day has come.  Even though it is a big pressure to find the right candidate through a fair process, I can’t wait to contribute for a kid (like I was) to have the unbelievable experience that I had, transform their future and hopefully enable him/her to the same for other kids in the future.

I know it has been a long story, but it is not even the half of it. 😊 But, I will finish with one famous story about the starfish, which summarizes beautifully what YEF is trying to do and I am happy/proud to be a part of:

One day a man was walking along the beach, when he noticed a boy hurriedly picking up and gently throwing things into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “Young man, what are you doing?” The boy replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” The man laughed to himself and said, “Don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make any difference!” After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said,
“I made a difference to that one.”