Having grown up in rural, northern British Columbia, closer to Alaska than to Vancouver, my role modelling for higher education was limited. As a child I wanted to be either a hair dresser or a nurse, because those were the only careers I saw women in. There were no colleges or universities in my community, the closest was two hours away. Post-secondary simply did not cross my mind.
That was until I watched my mother finish her high school diploma, and work her way through a college diploma while raising two small children with my shift-working father. She was the first in her large family to attend post-secondary. The amount of dedication, and juggling she had to do to complete her diploma was admirable, to say the least. She even wrote her exams with her non-dominant hand after a major car accident broke her collar bone just before finals.
In hindsight, it must have been then that I considered post-secondary.
After graduating from high school I worked for several years in various jobs: banking, office management, hospitality, retail, and more. When I decided it was time to go to college, I created a list of the things I enjoyed most about my jobs. When reviewing programs, I realized I had written a list of the facets of Human Resources.
As a student, Sheridan is where my passion for Human Resources (and teaching), began. After graduation from the 3 Year HR Diploma I began curating work experiences so that I would have enough stories to share, good lived experience, and a broad enough background to be a well rounded professor. I pursued a Bachelor of Commerce, and subsequent Masters degree part-time, all so that I could teach HR.
Now that I am a professor at Sheridan, it's as though my career has truly come full circle, and I am looking forward to helping facilitate the same experiences that inspired me to come to where I am today.
