What were you doing before coming to Sprott Shaw College?
I had a career with Ticketmaster, I worked for them for over 16 years in an IT capacity and eventually lead their event programming center in Western Canada, where we did programming for all across Canada for all the events that go on sale through Ticketmaster. When that came to an end as a career I gave that up and did the movie thing and gave that up and moved to a bike courier career. So I was a bike courier for a while in Vancouver just to kinda get away from doing all the normal stuff and when that company got sold, I got put on E.I and went to Nanaimo and from there I went to Sprott Shaw.
What program did you choose and why?
I picked a lot of career opportunities because of being on E.I. I kinda had the pick of what I wanted to do but the problem was funding was only available through certain channels for certain lengths of time and things of that nature so when one idea after another didn’t really seem to come together I came to Sprott Shaw and spoke to the Admissions Advisor here and they actually recommended that I give a shot in Nursing and I did and my career took off from there.
Why did you choose Sprott Shaw College?
Well, Sprott Shaw, I have always known from the commercials and the advertisements, I mean I have heard about it all along and knowing just people in the industry here through friends and family that had come through Sprott Shaw as well also they already had kind of a good name when I was already looking and as it turns out it really came together with my timing and my funding and everything came together all at once so Sprott Shaw was the obvious choice.
What was the environment like during your time at Sprott Shaw College?
Well, I found the environment was really good the way the structure was set up was great and made it really easy to understand and come into a whole career choice and coming back to school as a mature learner the organization was great and it was well planned out working with industry professionals. Every step of the way I had all the help and assistance and all the proper guidance to be where I need to be.
Where do you work? And can you explain your duties?
I currently work at Harmony House in Nanaimo it’s a licensed facility for residential care of patients with brain injuries and spinal cord injuries and I currently manage that facility. Aside from the normal nursing assessments and those type of things I work with a relatively stable client base so I do facilitate doctors’ appointments, dentist appointments all of those medical needs that come as well as the medication distribution and the handling all the changes that come with that but being in a position where I actually get to work with residents that are relatively stable a lot of the acute medical needs aren’t really there so I fulfill all of my duties as a manager, managing staffing from care aids to nurses to physical therapists to all the multi-disciplinary team I just manage to put all that together and make those things happen for my residence.
If you could give advice to someone coming to Sprott Shaw what would you say?
Coming back as a mature learner and coming into a whole new field really the only advice I can give is that if you have an idea and you have passion to see that come through there will always be someone out the who can help you achieve that goal and if you just find those right people to put all the right pieces together you can really change your life.
