Today I spoke to Preston High School’s grade 10 and 11 students. I was invited to talk about my career, taking a unique path, and the changing world of work. I graduated from PHS in the year 2000 and most of the kids in the group were born 2000-2002. Crazy! Where did the time go?!
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Back in 2000, wifi was getting popular, I’m pretty sure I had a Nokia phone, and a job at Blackberry seemed like a great career move. The world has changed so much since then and speaking at PHS today made me really proud to be part of the growing social media world.
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Going Back in Time
I first learned about marketing at PHS and it lead me to a three-year Business Marketing diploma program at Conestoga before heading to Australia for university.
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I always a passion for marketing and entrepreneurship, I loved marketing because it allowed me to be creative in business. While at uni, I started an online diary to keep my friends & family informed of what I was up to using MSN Spaces. This was even before I discovered MySpace. I was my first step into having my own place on the internet.
When I came back from school, I wanted to work in fashion. I met someone on my flight from LA to Toronto who connected me with one of his clients. I was home from school for two weeks before moving to Toronto to sublet a room in a house with 5 students. I took over the room from someone I met at school in Australia.
The skills in learned in marketing have carried me through my career and helped me to be a leader in a new industry as it developed. Creativity in business has helped me navigate situations where I didn’t really know exactly what I was doing. I’d never been a Community Manager or worked at a TV station before I started working at MuchMusic and had never worked at an agency before taking a role as a Social Media Director at Community.
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The school hasn’t changed much and it was nice to share my thoughts with the students. I did a walk around before school started to peek into old classrooms and see the lockers. Such a flashback to see the stage where I spent so many hours rehearsing and performing.
My photo is still up in the PHS Hall of Fame and I’m grateful for their support!
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