KITCHENER -- A student at Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute got the surprise of a lifetime on Tuesday.

Alejandro Mansilla was followed around by a camera crew, under the impression that he was helping the crew pre-plan a shoot to present a fellow student with a $35,000 cheque to help pay for post-secondary school.

But that story had a plot twist: the name on the cheque was Mansilla's.

Video shows the teen opening the cheque in a practice run, but when he turns it around to look at it, he sees his name printed on the front.

The money is from the Student Life Network (SLN) and CIBC: Mansilla had opened a bank account with CIBC over the summer, automatically entering him into a full-ride scholarship contest.

"Do you remember opening a CIBC bank account?" someone off screen asks him in the video. He answers yes.

"That automatically entered you into our Full-Ride contest, and a few weeks ago when we drew our winner, your name was randomly selected out of all the SLNers who opened an account last year."

The teen is an aspiring screenwriter and plans to go to Wilfrid Laurier University in the fall for English and film studies.

He says he had been doing extra shifts as a lifeguard at the YMCA to help pay for his schooling. Now, he may not have to do as many.