Finding Your Path: Careers Morning 2017

On Tuesday, February 7, we welcomed 32 professionals to the school to speak with students about their chosen fields. The presenters, most of whom are Greenwood alumni and parents, came from fields as wide-ranging as software engineering, fashion design, teaching, banking, animation and medicine.

We were thrilled to welcome 18 alumni - a Greenwood record - as speakers this year. These Greenwood grads vividly remembers being in our students’ shoes, and they were excited to share their experiences and advice with students interested in pursuing their field. Many alumni emphasized that the road to their current vocation was not a straight line - and that’s okay.

Emma Hambly (‘10), currently a publishing assistant with Joe Books (an independent publisher of books, graphic novels and comic books), advised students to follow their passion, even if they weren’t sure how it would translate into a career. “I wrote my master’s thesis on comic books, because that’s what interested me,” Emma says. “That thesis led to the position I have today.”

Andrew Chalmers (‘10) described finding his passion when he entered university. In his first year at Western University for Engineering/IVEY AEO, he had one mandatory software engineering class - and he was hooked. Using his software engineering skills and business degree, he landed a number of internships before securing a position at Amazon, where he builds machine learning models.

Many speakers also stressed the importance of volunteering and interning based on your interests; these experiences can not only help you to determine whether you’re interested in the field, but perhaps lead to paying positions down the line. Emily Wright (‘09) has always had a passion for sport; “I played on a team every term at Greenwood,” she told students. She also volunteered with Special Olympics Canada, and interned with them throughout her time at university. Today, Emily is a marketing partnerships coordinator with the Canadian Olympic Committee - a position for which her volunteering and internship background prepared her perfectly.

Overall, the morning was both inspiring and reassuring for students, and hopefully opened up new paths and careers possibilities for many.

We’d like to thank all of our guest speakers for sharing their stories!

See the full list of presenters here. 

Check out our Careers Day photo album (in the sidebar above).