We may not know what our futures hold for us, but deciding where to start can be a great beginning.
When Lisa Lundy found her way to the Barrie campus of Georgian College in 1980, the young Barrie resident, originally from Fort Frances in northwestern Ontario, wasn’t exactly sure what career she would settle on.
But she knew Georgian was where she wanted to be and still is to this day, watching the campus, and the students it serves, transform for almost four decades.
“I am 58 years young,” she says from her office in the Founders Building at the Barrie campus. “I guess working at Georgian College for 38 years with students keeps my frame of mind young.”
Working in the co-op education and career success department of the college sees her helping students, many of them not necessarily originally from Canada, reach their potential.
Inspired to find their futures, they look to Georgian College.
So many years ago, she was also inspired to attend the college, with a nudge from her mom.
“I really didn't know what courses I wanted to take or what I wanted to do with my life,” Lundy says. “Georgian was a short walk from the house I grew up in and my mother suggested the secretarial program, so that's what I took.”
That program eventually led her to a Georgian career, although the community college — created in 1967 with a host of other Ontario colleges during Canada’s centennial — would seem unrecognizable to current students.
Back in the early '80s, it was a different place with a small-town feel, she says.
“To be honest, Georgian didn't seem like a college to me; it felt like a glorified high school,” Lundy says with a laugh. “There were four buildings on campus and none of them connected to each other, (unlike today) when most of my classes were in the ‘B’ Building,” now the Founders Building and where, as fate would have it, she works her 9-to-5 job.
It turns out taking that secretarial program spring-boarded her into a lifelong career.
“My mother likes to remind me it was her idea for me to take that program,” Lundy says with a smile.
In February 1982, she interviewed for a four-month contract position with the college as a clerk typist for the Ontario Career Action Program, a government program hosted by Georgian for unemployed youth aged 16 to 24 years old.
It helped youth and young adults “navigate the world of work and, in some cases, further education to reach their goals,” she says.
That contract turned into permanent employment.
From clerk typist, to placement consultant and then employment consultant — she is now a certified career development practitioner — Lundy has worked directly with students and graduates since the late-1990s.
“I had found my niche and I have never looked back. I still love my job,” Lundy says proudly. “I took advantage of many professional development opportunities over the years and decades, including a post-graduate certificate in career coaching.”
Over the years, Georgian College has been ranked among the top 100 employers in Canada and Lundy couldn’t imagine working anywhere else, adding that the number of 300 or so international students on campus about a decade ago has risen to 3,600, representing about 85 countries.
“I have so much admiration for these students (especially from other countries) who leave their home, family and friends to study in a different culture,” she says. “It really creates a mutual learning environment for all students, staff and faculty.”
Lundy says she discovered years ago that her core motivation was to help people reach their potential.
“Working for Georgian College is the perfect place to do that,” she says.
“The privilege of guiding my clients to learn more about themselves, research potential careers and map out their path through education is what brings me the greatest satisfaction.
“The diverse group of students I have worked with and the goals they have achieved, inspires me to do more.”
