First Steps...

... for me into a new career.  

Shortly after getting back home from the LAN, I received mail from a few different places.  One fromEI (social assistance for people recently laid off; for you non-Canadians, it's basically a refund on a 'tax' we pay off of each pay check similarly to pension payments) saying they'd finally sorted all the paperwork out and another from a new program in Ontario called 'Second Career'.  Basically, it allows "under" educated people such as myself to go back to school while on EI and receive assistance.  It does require a contribution from myself, of course, which I think is a good thing for such a program.

I'd never be able to go back to school on my own without some form of assistance, and having already paid off a student loan once I'm glad I don't have to do it again. 

Anyway, today was a 'mandatory' pre-start, 'quasi'-frosh day that at least 50% of the people registered in the course didn't attend.  I wouldn't of showed up, but I figured that'd be a crappy way to start off.  I'm very excited to be going back to school, especially for something that I was exposed to in my previous job (consulting/technical writing for companies that wanted to submit a report for research tax credits).  There was a lot of financial information from clients' that I'd have to handle, but helping them stratigize such expenditures was beyond my (and my employer's) realm of knowledge.

Hence, I'm now in an accounting course.  The program I'm taking is appearantly a fantastic program that'll qualify me for transfer credits for the programs from all three professional accounting associations in Canada.  All I need to finish after this course is, depending on which university I attend, either 1 or 2 years to get a degree and the rest of the courses required by the various accounting associations.

So, in 4-5 years, I'll have a degree, a diploma and a professional designation that's recognized across the counrty and in demand, all of which will compliment my work experience.

So far, with only a high school diploma (I started a landscaping technician program out of high school, but couldn't afford to continue living out of town.  A $5,000 loan for nothing.) I've been a quality assurance co-ordinator (I have my ISO9001:2000 Internal Auditor accredition that's RAB certified), I've been a production controller for the same company, and most recently I did consulting for a research tax credit program.  I didn't do any of the tax work, just the technical report submittion and helping clients to identify qualified expenditures and in a few cases help them to plan out future research or improve research tracking documentation.

That my all sound very boring, but I loved the strategizing.  As my former employer started to require stricter technical content, I started to lag behind and I was finding my job very stressful.  We'd discussed my going back to school, but with their client load and such they couldn't justify the loss in revenue and keeping someone just to do the financial information.  I don't think I've ever been relieved to be laid off, but I was then.

And now I'm about to start school for a program/course that I'm excited to be taking.  Woohoo!  Yay me!  I can't wait to be pulling in a 4.0 average and rocking numbers and ledgers.